Meta descriptions for subpages in the SERPs
-
Hey Mozzers!
Something occurred to me the other day was that, while we can write title tags and meta descriptions to be within the character count and therefore appear nice and neatly in the SERPs, when Google et al decide to pull subpages out as further site links, it seems to still pull the normal meta description but with a far lower character count. As this looks untidy and could potentially impact CTR, is there a way I can amend the preferred text for the shortened version, via Webmaster Tools, for example?
Thanks in advance for your help!
Nick.
-
Hi Nick,
I believe there is no longer a "character count", but more a space or pixel limit - http://www.seomofo.com/experiments/serp/snippet-ascii-art.html
This has been played out by a few people's experiments, so looks fairly solid - the limit relates to space, not character count. You could certainly try to create something that looked good both as a regular result and a sitelink.
-
Thanks guys. I thought that may be the case as all the ones I've seen have been cut. Is there even a set character count, as I could potentially write one that would at least look neat if cut early? Or does it depend from search to search?
As you say, this seems like something they maybe should look at, because while you would undoubtedly lose real estate by cutting all meta descs, you also lose a chunk by having your call to action cut, often in nonsensical or messy ways (I'm aware that this can happen anyway, but anything we can do to minimise this is always welcome!)
Thanks again!
-
Hi
Marty is correct there is no way of currently doing this, but I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't out soon, as they are always trying to get a better user experience for their users.
I will ask Google later this week and let you know what they happen to say, I will keep you updated as soon as I find out
-
Hi Nick,
Unfortunately at this time there isn't a way to specify a shorter meta description. The only way to achieve what you're looking for would be to shorten all meta descriptions for sub-pages but that means you'd lose a lot of real estate if it showed up in a normal SERP.
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
-
The meta tags: Title and Description, showing unexpected results on google
When I type my company name on google "Navneet Gems", it shows a very different meta tag then what it actually is. How do I change this meta descrption when its non-existent on my homepage? The worst is, it is having a spelling mistake. We want to correct this.
On-Page Optimization | | Navneet.Agarwal20160 -
How to organise subpages for good SEO content without duplicate text?
We are working on many subpages for our services. We have original content for each page however there are few text which we need to always duplicate like: Contact sales window, why to choose us window, supported files etc. What's the best way to do this so it's not consider as duplicated text. Should we redirected it or add it as a picture and always change name of the picture? Thank you Lukas
On-Page Optimization | | Lukas-ST0 -
Generating a meta-description
What are some things I should know before implementing a process whereby (public) user account data is used to generate a meta-description? I can't find much information in the existing forums. Are rich snippets a better option in 2015?
On-Page Optimization | | CallumClothierfairs0 -
Will changing order of bullet points in product descriptions add some uniqueness?
We write our own unique product descriptions and have a unique product video for each color variation and multiple unique product images and display seperate user reviews per color variation. We prefer to have seperate product pages for each color variation for several reasons (targeting color searches and user experience seeing all color variations when browsing category pages). Product descriptions of color variations are quite similar.
On-Page Optimization | | lcourse
I was thinking about spinning dynamically order how bullet points of product descriptions are presented to add some more uniqueness. I am not expecting a massive impact, but do you think this increases a bit googles perception of page uniqueness?0 -
Different Categories, Same Meta Description?
I've heard that having duplicate meta descriptions is bad for SEO and can even be the cause of penalties. However, a duplicate meta description would make sense for different categories on many sites. So I'm wondering what the best solution is for a case like this? One of my sites has around 150 topics, and each topic page is exactly the same, aside from including only things that are related to that specific topic. So why would I want to create 150 different meta descriptions? Not only is it time consuming, and nearly impossible to create 150 unique descriptions for the same type of content, but it also serves no purpose for visitors coming from the search engines. A logical approach would be to use the same meta description and just switch out the topics in the description... but then all of those descriptions would be 95% the same - and I imagine Google might see that as spam. So... suggestions?
On-Page Optimization | | JABacchetta0 -
Google SERPS showing wrong page.
I am new to SEO and trying to rank for keyword 'corporate entertainment' and my site is currently at 26. However google is showing the homepage http://www.musicliveuk.com in SERPS as opposed to my optomised page http://www.musicliveuk.com/home/corporate-entertainment. Any ideas why it is choosing so show the home page as the most relevant result?
On-Page Optimization | | SamCUK0 -
Any SEO effect(s) / impact of Meta No Cache?
Hi SEOMoz Guys, Hope you guys are doing well. I've been searching online and bumped into this archived page (http://www.seomoz.org/qa/view/34982/meta-nocache-affect-ranking). I would like to get an updated take on this issue whether or not the meta no cache code on a page bears negative/positive or no SEO impact / effect. <meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache" /> <meta http-equiv="Cache-Control" content="no-cache"/> Thanks! Steve
On-Page Optimization | | sjcbayona-412182 -
How much does page load time affect SERPS?
I've been digging through SEOMoz and couldn't find a straight answer to this, so I thought I'd ask here. How important is page load time to Google and your SERPS position? If you're answering, I'd also love to know 1) how you know that your answer is correct and 2) if you've personally seen a webmaster improve his page load time and subsequently his position in the SERPS.
On-Page Optimization | | Cairmen0