Would This Be Highlighted as Duplicate Meta Desc?
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Due to the nature of our business we literally have hundreds of web pages and so we recently asked our Web Developers to create the Meta Description for many of the pages that they create - unfortunately they don't seem to understand SEO but before I go back to them I wanted to run this by the MOZ Community...
Here is a snippet of the Meta Desc they have created, personally I'm not happy with it BUT I need to be certain on one thing... Will Google determine that it is (almost) duplicated Meta content?
Why not visit Cape Town on an Africa Cruise with XYZ Cruises? Book with us today for great cruise deals, special offers and exclusive club benefits.
Why not visit Casablanca on an Africa Cruise with XYZ Cruises? Book today for great cruise deals, special offers and exclusive club benefits.
Why not visit Durban on an Africa Cruise with XYZ Cruises? Book with us today for great cruise deals, special offers and exclusive club benefits.
Why not visit Port Elizabeth on an Africa Cruise with XYZ Cruises? Book today for great cruise deals, special offers and exclusive club benefits.
Why not visit Aukland on an Australasia Cruise with XYZ Cruises? Book today for great cruise deals, special offers and exclusive club benefits.
Why not visit Christchurch on an Australasia Cruise with XYZ Cruises? Book today for great cruise deals, special offers and exclusive club benefits.
Why not visit Melbourne on an Australasia Cruise with XYZ Cruises? Book today for great cruise deals, special offers and exclusive club benefits.
Why not visit Sydney on an Australasia Cruise with XYZ Cruises? Book today for great cruise deals, special offers and exclusive club benefits.
Why not visit Orlando on a Caribbean Cruise with XYZ Cruises? Book with us today for great cruise deals, special offers and exclusive club benefits.
Why not visit Central America Cruise on a Cruise Destinations with XYZ Cruises? Book today for great cruise deals, benefits and special offers.
Why not visit Acapulco on a Central America Cruise with XYZ Cruises? Book today for great cruise deals, special offers and exclusive club benefits.
Why not visit Puntarenas on a Central America Cruise with XYZ Cruises? Book today for great cruise deals, special offers and exclusive club benefits.
Why not visit Sharm El Sheik on an Egypt And Red Sea with XYZ Cruises? Book today for great cruise deals, special offers and exclusive club benefits.
Why not take a European Cruise with XYZ Cruises? Book with us today for great cruise deals, special offers and exclusive cruise club benefits.
Why not visit Bangkok on a Far East & Indian Ocean Cruise with XYZ Cruises? Book today for great cruise deals, special offers and exclusive benefits.
Why not visit Halong Bay on a Far East & Indian Ocean Cruise with XYZ Cruises? Book today for great cruise deals, offers and exclusive benefits.
Why not visit Hong Kong on a Far East & Indian Ocean Cruise with XYZ Cruises? Book today for great cruise deals, special offers and exclusive benefits.
Why not visit Kuala Lumpur on a Far East & Indian Ocean Cruise with XYZ Cruises? Book today for great cruise deals, offers and exclusive benefits.
Why not visit Okinawa on a Far East & Indian Ocean Cruise with XYZ Cruises? Book today for great cruise deals, offers and exclusive benefits.
Why not visit Phuket on a Far East & Indian Ocean Cruise with XYZ Cruises? Book today for great cruise deals, special offers and exclusive benefits.
Why not visit Shanghai on a Far East & Indian Ocean Cruise with XYZ Cruises? Book today for great cruise deals, offers and exclusive benefits.
Why not visit Singapore on a Far East & Indian Ocean Cruise with XYZ Cruises? Book today for great cruise deals, offers and exclusive benefits.
Why not visit Tokyo on a Far East & Indian Ocean Cruise with XYZ Cruises? Book today for great cruise deals, special offers and exclusive benefits.
Like I said earlier, there are hundreds of pages more!
I think that if I want total uniqueness then it's going to be a laborious task of doing them all individually but I want to make sure that it is worth it?!
Thanks
Andy
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I wouldn't bother unless it's a really well-known or well-respected brand within the cruise industry, but then I'd still expect the company name to be visible in the URL or title tag, so not too important. In these situations I try to think from the searcher's point of view - if I'm looking for a cruise - is the brand name important? As I said, not if I haven't heard of them before. George makes good suggestions - if your prices are good then that's likely to drive more click throughs than a brand name, in the limited space you have.
It's also worth bearing in mind that Google may not use your meta description at all if they don't think it matches the searchers intent or content on the resulting page.
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Also, if your brand is not a household name, include something like "over 100,000 customers" or "Since 1988"--something that reinforces trust/credibility. This will increase your ctr.
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Personally I would include the company/brand name. If it isn't a blue chip then it does no harm to re-enforce your brand on SERPs, and if it is a blue chip then you potentially stand to increase click-through because of increased trust/recognition.
George
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Thanks chaps - what is the consensus with regard to having the company name (ie XYZ Cruises) within the Meta Desc?
I have always written Meta Desc with the idea of trying to entice the visitor into clicking through to the site so rather than;
Why not visit Cape Town with XYZ Cruises Book with us today for great cruise deals, special offers and exclusive club benefits.
I would rather write something like;
Visit Cape Town on a World Cruise and see what this amazing city has to offer; from vineyards to beaches all under the backdrop of the majestic Table Mountain
As always your time to reply is very much appreciated!
Andy
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You're in luck because Matt Cutts covered at least part of this question quite recently, which you can read about/watch here: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2308339/Matt-Cutts-Create-Unique-Meta-Descriptions-for-Your-Most-Important-Pages.
In short - you should hand craft the meta descriptions for your most valuable pages (i.e. the pages you want to rank high in SERPs) but it wouldn't be expected for every meta description on your site due to the amount of work involved.
Personally I think the variance between these auto generated descriptions is still too low and would look for other words to vary them by - for example the type of cruise, the savings, or activities offered on the cruise in each region.
You'll also want to bear in mind a similar problem you're likely to experience with the page Title, Headings and content.
George
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If the rest of the content on each of those pages is unique and valuable I don't think you should have a problem. I did something similar with the meta descriptions on a website about a year ago as that was the only way at the time to programme them in the time available, and they weren't picked up as duplicates in Google Webmaster Tools (Search Improvements > HTML Improvements).
If you have the resources to make each description completely unique I'd say go ahead, but otherwise I wouldn't worry too much about it as long as the same cut-copy approach isn't taken with the rest of the content on the page.
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