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
-
How can i Get this google meta description?
How can i Get the google meta description that has the website Ke Adventure ? https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=ke+adventure I mean with the link of the website section below the SEO TITLE tx
Technical SEO | | tourtravel0 -
Phone Number In Meta Description
People are more likely to call us, than email us. However, if they're using a mobile device, there's a click to call button on that site. My question is this: google does not include our phone number in our meta description. I could try to get the description changed, but it doesn't seem like it would make that big of a deal for just the desktop site. Am I missing something about the importance of the phone number on a desktop site? Any experience with this situation? Thanks, Ruben
Technical SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup3 -
How to link site.com/blog or site.com/blog/
Hello friends, I have a very basic question but I can not find the right answer... I have made my blog linkbuilding using the adress "mysite.com/blog" but now im not sure if is better to do the linkbuilding to "mysite.com**/blog/ "** Is there any diference? Thanks...
Technical SEO | | lans27870 -
Google having trouble accessing my site
Hi google is having problem accessing my site. each day it is bringing up access denied errors and when i have checked what this means i have the following Access denied errors In general, Google discovers content by following links from one page to another. To crawl a page, Googlebot must be able to access it. If you’re seeing unexpected Access Denied errors, it may be for the following reasons: Googlebot couldn’t access a URL on your site because your site requires users to log in to view all or some of your content. (Tip: You can get around this by removing this requirement for user-agent Googlebot.) Your robots.txt file is blocking Google from accessing your whole site or individual URLs or directories. Test that your robots.txt is working as expected. The Test robots.txt tool lets you see exactly how Googlebot will interpret the contents of your robots.txt file. The Google user-agent is Googlebot. (How to verify that a user-agent really is Googlebot.) The Fetch as Google tool helps you understand exactly how your site appears to Googlebot. This can be very useful when troubleshooting problems with your site's content or discoverability in search results. Your server requires users to authenticate using a proxy, or your hosting provider may be blocking Google from accessing your site. Now i have contacted my hosting company who said there is not a problem but said to read the following page http://www.tmdhosting.com/kb/technical-questions/other/robots-txt-file-to-improve-the-way-search-bots-crawl/ i have read it and as far as i can see i have my file set up right which is listed below. they said if i still have problems then i need to contact google. can anyone please give me advice on what to do. the errors are responce code 403 User-agent: *
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-184886
Disallow: /administrator/
Disallow: /cache/
Disallow: /components/
Disallow: /includes/
Disallow: /installation/
Disallow: /language/
Disallow: /libraries/
Disallow: /media/
Disallow: /modules/
Disallow: /plugins/
Disallow: /templates/
Disallow: /tmp/
Disallow: /xmlrpc/0 -
Cross links between sites
hi, We have several ecommerce sites and we cross linked 3 of them by mistake. We realize that the sites were linked through WMT, We have shut down 2 of the sites about 2 months ago, but WMT still shows the links coming from those 2 sites. how do we make sure that google will see the sites are shut down. Is there a better of way resolving this issue. We are no longer using those sites, so do not need them to be active. whats the best solution to show google that the links are no longer there. Crawler shows that it was able to crawl the site 45 days after it is shut down. thanks nick
Technical SEO | | orion680 -
Moving most (not all) content to another domain
Hi there, My company website has 3 main sections, two of those sections (each containing approx. 50 pages) will be moving to a separate website. The new website will also be owned by the same company. The new domain does not yet exist. I read this guide http://www.seomoz.org/blog/seo-guide-how-to-properly-move-domains , its very good, however it refers to moving the whole domain to a new URL. Are there any specific differences to consider in my situation for a partial move? Many thanks in advance! Nigel
Technical SEO | | Richard5550 -
Moving Duplicate Sites
Apologies in advance for the complexity. My client, company A, has purchased company B in the same industry, with A and B having separate domains. Current hosting arrangement combines registrar and hosting functions in 1 account so as to allow both domains to point to a common folder, with the result that identical content is displayed for both A & B. The current site is kind of an amalgam of A and B. Company A has decided to rebrand and completely absorb company B. The problem is that link value overwhelmingly favours B over A. The current (only) hosting package is Windows, and I am creating a new site and moving them to Linux with another hosting company. I can use 301's for A , but not for B as it is a separate domain and currently shares a hosting package with A. How can I best preserve the link juice that domain B has? The only conclusion I can come up with is to set up separate Linux hosting for B which will allow for the use of 301's. Does anyone have a better idea?
Technical SEO | | waynekolenchuk0 -
Robots.txt and robots meta
I have an odd situation. I have a CMS that has a global robots.txt which has the generic User-Agent: *
Technical SEO | | Highland
Allow: / I also have one CMS site that needs to not be indexed ever. I've read in various pages (like http://www.jesterwebster.com/robots-txt-vs-meta-tag-which-has-precedence/22 ) that robots.txt always wins over meta, but I have also read that robots.txt indicates spiderability whereas meta can control indexation. I just want the site to not be indexed. Can I leave the robots.txt as is and still put NOINDEX in the robots meta?0