Meta Description Being Picked up from another site!?
-
Hi, when we search for a phrase (which is the most searched for phrase for our company) the meta description which is displayed isnt the one we set, and it hasnt picked it up from any text on the page.
The description is incorrect, it says we have an office in a city that we dont, and it just isnt a very good description generally.
What has been suggested to us by our website developers is that the description is being picked up by google from a website which lists companies details.
The description which is displayed on that website, is the same as the description which is shown for our company in the search results.
But is it possible for Google to ignore the meta description which is set in our homepage and the other text on the home page, and pickup the text from another website and use it as our description?
Many Thanks
-
I have seen this happen with sites that have been redirected. For example, I redirected site A to site B once - including all of the content from site A - and site B inherited the Titles and descriptions from site A for several months. It was very irritating because I didn't use the words anywhere on the page, and I was using NOODP and NOYDIR tags. I even told Google the site had moved in GWT.
Eventually it sorted itself out, but it made me see how difficult it must be fore Google to keep everything straight on so many sites with so many different site elements, especially when redirects are involved.
Both sites had content and were in the the same niche. Site A had stronger signals, and was a year older than site B. However, I wanted to redirect to site B for branding reasons.
I suggest you do some digging around to find out if any other site has been 301 redirected to your site. If so, did that content ever appear on it?
Good luck and let us know what you find out!
-
Yeah, I'd just go easy on directory links going forward. There's no clear sign you need to start cutting. I was just observing the pattern, for the most part.
-
If you're not under a Google penalty, I wouldn't bother getting the links & listings removed. I don't think they're hurting you. I expect that once you add NOODP NOYDIR the problem will go away in a matter of days.
-
Thanks for your replies,
I did think that, because all of the directories are picking up the same thing it must be somewhere, but I cant see it anywhere. Its not on our Google+ page as we have only recently set that up.
I will try the NOODP and NOYDIR
Should I contact these directories and ask to be removed? We've not asked to be on them.
Is it worth having the links from them?
Thanks for your help
-
You're also here with that description:
- http://www.top20.md/int/info/raworthscouk
- http://uk-directory.co.uk/United_Kingdom/England/North_Yorkshire/Harrogate/Business_and_Economy/Legal_Services/index.html
- http://www.the-arena.com/matrix_smartlist.aspx?sid=1164145
- http://www.inonesearch.com/?cid=00000522741
- http://www.lawyersdirectory.co.uk/law_links/Find-a-Solicitors/North-Yorkshire-Solicitors/index.html
FYI it'll probably help a lot if you add NOODP, NOYDIR to your meta robots like Pete says
Michael
-
I'm only speculating, because directories are the only place I seem to be able to find the text Google is using. It begs the question, though - if directories are all picking up that text, is it possible they're getting it somewhere? For example, your Google+ business listing?
I've never seen a description pulled from another site outside of DMOZ/ODP. I've seen rewrites by Google, but usually using content somewhere on the page. So, this is definitely odd.
You could try the NOODP meta directive. I have heard cases where it helps prevent rewrites (even if the source isn't the ODP).
-
Thanks for taking the time to have a look, its causing us a real problem. The description appears in the number one search term we want to rank for.
We haven't intentionally asked to be setup on any directories, I've asked to be removed form the best of yorkshire website but we've had no response and nobody seems to be keeping the website upto date.
Apart from changing the meta description to one which is more natural, what else can we do? How can we remove ourselves from directories if they dont reply?
Is it possible for the meta description to be picked up from that best of yorkshire website?
Thanks very much.
-
Huh... yeah, that text doesn't seem to appear anywhere on your site, and it's not on DMOZ, that I can find. You do have some directory links to your site using that description in the profile:
http://www.bestofyorkshire.com/category/services/
...but I've never seen Google go looking that far. Your META description is honestly a bit keyword loaded (it just looks like a string of keywords with commas to me) - if you made it more targeted and included your main keywords naturally, Google would be more likely to use it as is. For some reason, they're just not wanting to pick up your main copy.
You've got a mountain of directory links that all seem to be using some mix of your home-page copy, too. It could be that these are starting to look like near-duplicates and are devaluing your home-page content somehow. I'd diversify some of that and lay off the directories a bit, personally. That's probably not the primary cause, though.
-
Thanks for your help.
The search phrase in Google is 'Solicitors Harrogate'
You will notice that the description for our site is:
'Solicitors with offices in Harrogate and Knaresborough. Site details the available services, gives contact details, and includes a company history.'
But we don't have an office in Knaresborough, and I cant see anywhere that this text is in the website!
Thanks v much
-
Hi Daniel,
It happened that Google ignored the META description on a page and the text itself and used the text from the Yahoo Directory Project and another directory. But I haven't seen that happen for a while. Can you give some more insights in what URL we're talking about and what the keyword is?
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
-
Does anyone know the linking of hashtags on Wix sites does it negatively or postively impact SEO. It is coming up as an error in site crawls 'Pages with 404 errors' Anyone got any experience please?
Does anyone know the linking of hashtags on Wix sites does it negatively or positively impact SEO. It is coming up as an error in site crawls 'Pages with 404 errors' Anyone got any experience please? For example at the bottom of this blog post https://www.poppyandperle.com/post/face-painting-a-global-language the hashtags are linked, but they don't go to a page, they go to search results of all other blogs using that hashtag. Seems a bit of a strange approach to me.
Technical SEO | | Mediaholix0 -
Does my "spam" site affect my other sites on the same IP?
I have a link directory called Liberty Resource Directory. It's the main site on my dedicated IP, all my other sites are Addon domains on top of it. While exploring the new MOZ spam ranking I saw that LRD (Liberty Resource Directory) has a spam score of 9/17 and that Google penalizes 71% of sites with a similar score. Fair enough, thin content, bunch of follow links (there's over 2,000 links by now), no problem. That site isn't for Google, it's for me. Question, does that site (and linking to my own sites on it) negatively affect my other sites on the same IP? If so, by how much? Does a simple noindex fix that potential issues? Bonus: How does one go about going through hundreds of pages with thousands of links, built with raw, plain text HTML to change things to nofollow? =/
Technical SEO | | eglove0 -
Dev Site Was Indexed By Google
Two of our dev sites(subdomains) were indexed by Google. They have since been made private once we found the problem. Should we take another step to remove the subdomain through robots.txt or just let it ride out? From what I understand, to remove the subdomain from Google we would verify the subdomain on GWT, then give the subdomain it's own robots.txt and disallow everything. Any advice is welcome, I just wanted to discuss this before making a decision.
Technical SEO | | ntsupply0 -
Site Purchase and 301
Hello, I just started working with a new client. Since then the client has purchased another company. We have re-branded the new companies home page and 301 redirected the rest of the site's links to the corresponding pages on the holding companies site. Since then the rankings have tanked. I looked at both companies back link profiles and realized that they are quite spammy from the last SEO contractor they hired. That said, the site was ranking fine until last Friday. I was wondering if anyone had seen temporary rankings decrease after 301ing a domain to a different site? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | TargetClick0 -
Sitemap Creation + Site speed
Hi there, I am looking for a sitemap creation tool, so I can submit my site to Google. My site is www.vallnord.com On the other hadn I would like to speed up my web. Any tip? Regards, Guido.
Technical SEO | | SilbertAd0 -
Will training videos available on the "members only" section of a site contribute to the sites ranking?
Hello, I got asked a question recently as to whether training videos on the deeper pages of a website (that you can only access if you are a member and log in) will help with the sites ranking. On the SEOMoz software these deeper pages have been crawled as far as I can tell with errors reported on pages from the "members only" section of the site, leading me to believe the members only pages and their content will contribute to the sites overall ranking profile. I have suggested uploading the informational videos on the main pages of the site for now, making them accessible to all visitors and putting them in a more obvious place to encourage more sharing and views, however I've also said I would check it out with some experts so any information will be greatly appreciated! Many thanks 🙂 Charlotte
Technical SEO | | CharlotteWaller0 -
Which is more accurate? site: or GWT?
when viewing urls in google's index, is it more accurate to refer to site:www.domain.com or google webmaster tools (urls in web index)?
Technical SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Duplicate META Description
Two of my urls point to the same site. For example: 123.com and OneTwoThree.com. Because the pages have two separate url's and the same content, my Google Webmaster Tools account is showing this as Duplicate Meta Descriptions. Is there a way around this?
Technical SEO | | BradBorst0