Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Duplicate meta descriptions
-
Hi all,
I'm using Yoast's SEO plugin and when I run a On Page report card here on SEOMOZ it says there are 2 descriptions tags
I've been trying to fix this but can't (I'm new!)
Anyone any ideas on this?
Thanks
Elaine
-
No problem, glad I could help - and I agree the Yoast plugin is a good one but if you're a paying member of SEOmoz, follow up using it with the on-page optimiser so you have a variety of angles covered.
-
Hi Martin
That's what I am doing now, going through pages and taking out the description and using Yoast for everything else. Love his Plugin.
Thanks again for all your time and help
elaine
-
Maybe for now then, use the Description you can provide via the theme you're using and use Yoast for the other bits?
-
Hi Martin
You're very kind to help. I checked, theres only one SEC plugin and every single url on the site was showing duplicate meta descriptions according to SEOMOZ tools. This is resolved when I don't use Yoast description.
-
Hmmm. Which URLs is SEOmoz saying are containing the duplicate meta description?
And have a look in Wordpress under 'plugins' and see if there are two 'SEO' plugins, as you might be able to disable one if one has shipped with the theme you're using.
Another experiment might be to temporarily apply a different theme and re-run the SEOmoz tool and see if you still have duplicate META DESCRIPTIONs as that would help you to see if it is the theme causing the problem.
-
Hi Martin
Thanks for coming back to me so quickly! I don't think there are different pages causing the problem. I've looked at it again.
My theme has an SEO description box, as does Yoast's plugin. When I do not use Yoast, and run a page report there, it comes up with a tick on the box, saying that I do not have a 2 meta descriptions.
I am guessing the problem is with my theme (having SEO already in it). God help us all, at the moment I am in the header php having a look at that. I am not a tech person, I'm a psychologist, so that should tell me loud and clear "Get out of the PHP!
I have just emailed the theme support to see if there is a way to disable their SEO, as I want to continue with Yoast.
I should say that it is not showing up in google webmaster tools. It shows no errors or problems with the site
Thanks again for posting
-
Hi there!
What you need to do is note down which two pages are causing the duplicate META DESCRIPTION and then log into Wordpress and go and edit those posts or pages.
At the bottom of the page editor are boxes for title and meta description, so you will need to change one or both of them and then republish the page.
Let me know if you need screenshots as I have a couple of clients who we use Yoast's SEO plugin as a part of managing the on-site SEO.
Thanks,
Martin
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
titles length, URL length and meta descriptions on a subdomain effecting SEO on main domain?
Hi all, I am currently evaluating areas for optimization on my main domain. When doing this, Moz has identified multiple titles and urls that should be shortened and missing meta descriptions on my subdomain (a help center of sorts). As far as I am aware, we have not set up any "no-index" rules for this subdomain. Are these items affecting SEO on my main domain? Thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | annegretwidmer
Kasey0 -
Different title tags and meta descriptions for desktop and mobile?
Is it possible to use different title tags and meta descriptions for mobile users? For Example: In the SERP for desktop you'll see the desktop title tags and meta descriptions, but in the SERP for mobile you'll the mobile versions of the webpage.
On-Page Optimization | | alex19780 -
Duplicate Content - Blog Rewriting
I have a client who has requested a rewrite of 250 blog articles for his IT company. The blogs are dispersed on a variety of platforms: his own website's blog, a business innovation website, and an IT website. He wants to have each article optimised with keyword phrases and then posted onto his new website thrice weekly. All of this is in an effort to attract some potential customers to his new site and also to establish his company as a leader in its field. To what extent would I need to rewrite each article so as to avoid duplicating the content? Would there even be an issue if I did not rewrite the articles and merely optimised them with keywords? Would the articles need to be completely taken by all current publishers? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | StoryScout0 -
Meta separators
I've been told that pipes are the best separators for title tags. Can anyone tell me the best ones for H1 and H2 tags? Do I go with pipes, commas, hyphens, underscores...?
On-Page Optimization | | Greatmats0 -
Selling Products with a similar meta description
Wondering if anyone can help when selling similar products with very similar meta description and product descriptions in general. Have around 500 products - a lot of products have around 10-20 products which are very similar only different is sizes and a maybe a few lines of text if that. Is this a problem in search engines? How does other ecommerce stores selling similar products solve this problem...
On-Page Optimization | | royRR0 -
Do I need a Meta description for every page?
HI Guys, We have just developed a new website and I'm looking to add meta descriptions with relevant key words to the pages . As the site has over 80 pages it is quite an undertaking and i was wandering if pages, such as the shopping cart and FAQ's etc, need meta descriptions as well? Thanks in advance : ) Pete
On-Page Optimization | | dawsonski0 -
Avoiding "Duplicate Page Title" and "Duplicate Page Content" - Best Practices?
We have a website with a searchable database of recipes. You can search the database using an online form with dropdown options for: Course (starter, main, salad, etc)
On-Page Optimization | | smaavie
Cooking Method (fry, bake, boil, steam, etc)
Preparation Time (Under 30 min, 30min to 1 hour, Over 1 hour) Here are some examples of how URLs may look when searching for a recipe: find-a-recipe.php?course=starter
find-a-recipe.php?course=main&preperation-time=30min+to+1+hour
find-a-recipe.php?cooking-method=fry&preperation-time=over+1+hour There is also pagination of search results, so the URL could also have the variable "start", e.g. find-a-recipe.php?course=salad&start=30 There can be any combination of these variables, meaning there are hundreds of possible search results URL variations. This all works well on the site, however it gives multiple "Duplicate Page Title" and "Duplicate Page Content" errors when crawled by SEOmoz. I've seached online and found several possible solutions for this, such as: Setting canonical tag Adding these URL variables to Google Webmasters to tell Google to ignore them Change the Title tag in the head dynamically based on what URL variables are present However I am not sure which of these would be best. As far as I can tell the canonical tag should be used when you have the same page available at two seperate URLs, but this isn't the case here as the search results are always different. Adding these URL variables to Google webmasters won't fix the problem in other search engines, and will presumably continue to get these errors in our SEOmoz crawl reports. Changing the title tag each time can lead to very long title tags, and it doesn't address the problem of duplicate page content. I had hoped there would be a standard solution for problems like this, as I imagine others will have come across this before, but I cannot find the ideal solution. Any help would be much appreciated. Kind Regards5 -
Meta descriptions
Whats the deal with the date at the start of the meta descriptions? I have not really looked into this but I'm guessing its a blog thing? Take this search http://www.google.co.uk/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=6packproject#hl=en&xhr=t&q=interview+with+paul+knight&cp=26&pf=p&sclient=psy&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=interview+with+paul+knight&pbx=1&fp=835cd241c8d51fff The beautifully crafted meta description is now being cut short even though its within the character limit and is now only showing 36 characters! Is there a way to remove this? Thanks in advance
On-Page Optimization | | CraigAddyman0