Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Let your business shine with Listings AI
      Moz Local

      Let your business shine with Listings AI

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. On-Page Optimization
    4. Meta descriptions for subpages in the SERPs

    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.

    Meta descriptions for subpages in the SERPs

    On-Page Optimization
    4
    5
    1182
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • themegroup
      themegroup last edited by

      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.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • JaneCopland
        JaneCopland @themegroup last edited by

        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.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • themegroup
          themegroup last edited by

          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!

          JaneCopland 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Andy-Halliday
            Andy-Halliday last edited by

            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

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • mosquitohawk
              mosquitohawk last edited by

              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.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • 1 / 1
              • First post
                Last post

              Got a burning SEO question?

              Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


              Start my free trial


              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.

              • See all categories

              Related Questions

              • Mosaj

                Meta keywords

                should every site have meta keywords or is this not used anymore? I don't use yoast and prefer rank math but there is nowhere to insert it. when I look at moz bar it shows meta keywords as a field so maybe it is important...

                On-Page Optimization | | Mosaj
                0
              • SneakerFiles

                SERP Hijacking/Content Theft/ 302 Redirect?

                Sorry for the second post, thought this should have it's own. Here is the problem I am facing amongst many others. Let's take the search term "Air Jordan Release Dates 2017" and place it into Google Search.  Here is a link:
                https://www.google.com/#q=air+jordan+release+dates+2017 Towards the bottom of the page, you will see a website that has SneakerFiles (my website) in the title.  The exact title is: Air Jordan Release Dates 2016, 2017 | SneakerFiles - Osce Now, this is my content, but not my website. For some reason, Google thinks this is my site. If you click on the link in search, it automatically redirects you to another page (maybe 302 redirect), but in the cache you can see it's mine:
                http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qrVEUDE1t48J:www.osce.gob.pe/take_p_firm.asp%3F+&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us I have blocked the websites IP, disallowed my style.css to be used so it just shows a links without the style, still nothing. I have submitted multiple google spam reports as well as feedback from search.  At times, my page will return to the search but it gets replaced by this website. I even filed a DMCA with Google, they declined it. I reached out to their Host and Domain register multiple times, never got a response. The sad part about this, it's happening for other keywords, for example if you search "KD 9 Colorways", the first result is for my website but on another domain name (my website does rank 3rd for a different Tag page). The page I worked hard on keeping up to date. I did notice this bit of javascript from the cloaked/hacked/serp hijacking website: I disabled iFrames...(think this helps) so not sure how they are doing this. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Note: I am using Wordpress if that means anything.

                On-Page Optimization | | SneakerFiles
                0
              • RosemaryB

                Can we change Title and/or Descriptions Dynamically Based on Search Query

                If I recall we used to be able to change our title attributes tag dynamically based on the search query but not sure if it's possible now or if it makes sense to do so. Thoughts? Rosemary

                On-Page Optimization | | RosemaryB
                1
              • Exa

                Meta Robots index & noindex Both Implemented on Website

                I don't want few of the pages of website to get indexed by Google, thus I have implemented meta robots noindex code on those specific pages. Due to some complications I am not able to remove meta robots index from header of every page Now, on specific pages I have both codes 'index & noindex' implemented. Question is: Will Google crawl/index pages which have noindex code along with index code? Thanks!

                On-Page Optimization | | Exa
                0
              • WallerD

                No meta description on category page

                Hi Moz is reporting no meta description on a wordpress category page like this one: http://www.dwliverpoolphotography.co.uk/category/uncategorized/ Can I add a meta description to a category? Best wishes. David.

                On-Page Optimization | | WallerD
                0
              • stephenfishman

                Do quotation marks in content effect SERPs?

                Some of my art object products have words and phrases  engraved on them. The words  relate to the images on the product. In the product descriptions, I have been putting quotes around the entire list. Would I get better long tail results if I didn't use the quotation marks?   In other words, do the quotes make everything between them an exact match phrase? For example:
                Current product description: 
                The worlds around the edge of the lazy susan read, "Explore nature. Dream big. Take time to smell the flowers. Enjoy the changing seasons. Seize the day. Relish the night. Live life to the fullest." Thank you for helping with this, all comments on how to present this kind of content are welcomed- Stephen kSOjt5a

                On-Page Optimization | | stephenfishman
                0
              • BobGW

                Ecommerce On-Site SEO: Keywords in Category Descriptions

                Hello, I'm doing on-site SEO for a client's ecommerce site. Are 160 words enough for a category description? I'm using the keywords once at the top of the description, and once at the bottom of the description, with the ones at the bottom reworded so that they are the keywords with a different word order. I used to put the keywords in 3 times but it just feels like stuffing. Is twice, worded differently the second time, enough for a category description? Thanks.

                On-Page Optimization | | BobGW
                0
              • oeroek

                Date stamp in serp

                I have a website with sauna reviews. These are mostly pages that exist for years and regularly change because comments/reviews are added by visitors and/or because I change information on the page. When searching in Google for competitive keywords I noticed that the snippet of my direct competitor included a date stamp in the format (9 hous ago). How can I include a time stamp in the snippet, and more important how can I make sure that the timestamp is very recent. Is it sufficient to add a date on the page every time the page is updated or is ther emore to it?

                On-Page Optimization | | oeroek
                0

              Get started with Moz Pro!

              Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

              Start my free trial
              Products
              • Moz Pro
              • Moz Local
              • Moz API
              • Moz Data
              • STAT
              • Product Updates
              Moz Solutions
              • SMB Solutions
              • Agency Solutions
              • Enterprise Solutions
              Free SEO Tools
              • Domain Authority Checker
              • Link Explorer
              • Keyword Explorer
              • Competitive Research
              • Brand Authority Checker
              • Local Citation Checker
              • MozBar Extension
              • MozCast
              Resources
              • Blog
              • SEO Learning Center
              • Help Hub
              • Beginner's Guide to SEO
              • How-to Guides
              • Moz Academy
              • API Docs
              About Moz
              • About
              • Team
              • Careers
              • Contact
              Why Moz
              • Case Studies
              • Testimonials
              Get Involved
              • Become an Affiliate
              • MozCon
              • Webinars
              • Practical Marketer Series
              • MozPod
              Connect with us

              Contact the Help team

              Join our newsletter
              Moz logo
              © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
              • Accessibility
              • Terms of Use
              • Privacy

              Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.