All META descriptions gone
-
Hi there,
Since almost a week now, all of my optmized META descriptions has been gone in Google. The last few years Google has always shown all of the optimized META descriptions. My website is an ecommerce site (phone accessories) and all pages have its own unique content (url, text, title, description) and score well in Google. The META descriptions are created by using a template like this:
At [brandname] you find lots of [variable category product] * USP 1 * USP 2 * USP 3
All META descriptions differ from each other only by the variable category product.
Something tells me this is an effect of the Panda 4.0 update. I tested with a category page by replacing the META description for a 100% unique one. Then I asked Google (via Webmaster tools) to reindex the page. Today the new description got indexed. This means uniqueness is important.
My question is: how do I get the optimized META descriptions back? Creating real unique descriptions (means not using a template) for every page is very hard for a webhop since all category pages have the same message to tell (only difference is the type of product), I want to use USP's, and META descriptions of all productpages have been lost too (over 15000 different products).
Please help!
Thanks in advance.Marcel
-
Hi Jane,
Thanks for your clarification. Since a higher number of people have asked about META description and title tags changes I guess this is a Panda effect.
I know what to do next, a lot of rewriting work.
Marcel
-
Hi Marcel,
Not sure that this can be put down to Panda: it could be related since Panda deals solely with on-page, but Google works on so many changes at once that it might not be. There is a team dedicated to working on SERP display, optimising click-through from SERPs, etc. so it would be very difficult to say exactly what this relates to. It's definitely been happening (a higher number of people asking in here about why their descriptions and title tags are changing in SERPs) for a few months now.
-
Thanks for your quick responses.
I am going to test further with some pages to see what is needed to do now. Still this is a odd change of Google, because the descriptions were clear to Google users and managed expectations right.
Can I conclude that this (for me) major META descritpion change is a part of Panda 4.0?
Something I noticed is that the description of the page I tested, got three lines of text instead of two. Three lines wouldmake things easier to make unique descriptions. I am testing with other pages now to see the possibilities of this.
Marcel
-
Hi Marcel
Actually, I think the warning signs for this started back in November 2013, when Matt Cutts was asked about meta descriptions and if we should use templates or make them all unique. See this article and this one.
To summarise those articles, he recommended that you should not use a template as a meta description, as you have expected. He recommended unique meta descriptions for all the pages you want to rank, but for other pages it's totally fine to use no meta description at all. Google can generate a decent description for you if you leave the tag out in your HTML.
However, if you want a page to have your own description I'm afraid you'll need a unique one for each. I'd prioritise those products that are your big sellers or those with the best margin and write them first. I would also remove the template ASAP so that you have no description by default and then add them in when you have the time. That's the only way I can see getting your unique descriptions back I'm afraid. Try to work out a priority system with your team.
Hope this helps.
-
Sometimes they do not choose to utilize the meta description and titles I believe because they may think something is more relevant to return based on the specific user query.
As far as I know, you cannot do anything about what gets displayed by the engine. So long as you have checked that each page has it's own unique meta, then there is not much else that you can do.
Your meta may appear as intended for some searches and not for others is what I am really saying. It is the engine's prerogative as to what is displayed based on the user's query and I am seeing more and more that the engine's are ignoring your page/post specific meta tags when it comes to the display.
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
-
Website title duplicates in SEO description
Hi - My website title (company name) repeats in the SEO description. My host service is Square Space. How do I fix this?
Technical SEO | | Peeker
Thanks! Paula board-directors0 -
How To Change Descriptions On Category Page 2 / 3 etc
I have a quick question that I hope someone might be able to help me with. On a wordpress website I have a lot of posts in each category. My problem is there are now several category pages. ie: https://www.mywebsite.com/category/cat-name/ https://www.mywebsite.com/category/cat-name/page2 https://www.mywebsite.com/category/cat-name/page3 The problem is on the category page I can set page title / description etc. But the problem is I cant do that on page2 / page 3 etc. Does anyone know how I can change the titles and decriptions etc on those pages. Thanks
Technical SEO | | DaleZon0 -
Pages Crawl Per Day Gone Drasitcaly Down, is it google issue?
Hello Expert, In search console in Crawl Stats Pages Crawl per day going day by day i.e. from 4 lac pages per day now it is reduce upto 2 lac in last 15 days. So where is the issue? Where I am going wrong or it is issue from google end? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Johny123450 -
My SERP meta description is displaying 315 characters...
Hi Mozzers, We have recently taken the #2 spot for our main keyword in Google UK serp. I just checked again and we have dropped to #4 and our meta description is no longer there as it has been replaced with some homepage content... 315 characters of homepage content right up to the full stop. I'm a little confused. A couple of our competitors meta descriptions are showing the same, extra long homepage text instead. Is there something totally normal and harmless causing this or do I need to be monitoring/changing something? Has Google made an update to allow for longer meta decs? Any advice appreciated! sWrBcuB.png
Technical SEO | | SanjidaKazi0 -
Missing meta descriptions from Google SERPs
Hullo all, I run an e-commerce website and hence have a lot of product category/sub-category pages to handle. Despite giving each of these category pages meta descriptions, in the Google SERPs, a lot of these descriptions don't show up fully. Rather, only half the text that I'd inputed as my meta desc. shows up; the other half has generic stuff from that page given. I've attached a screen shot to give you an example of what comes up in the SERPs. Could you please tell me what exactly is the problem? Is it a coding issue? Or has Google not crawled that page? Need help asap! Thank you in advance! aE9RKXJ
Technical SEO | | suchde0 -
SEO plugin by Yoast messing up my title/meta description
Hey guys, I'm having some issues with my wordpress blog, and I believe SEO plugin by Yoast could be the one causing it. I have set a title for my wordpress blog, and a tagline. This was set in dashboard > settings > general Under "titles and metas" > home in the plugin it says, title: %%sitename%% %%page%% %%sep%% %%sitedesc%%, and meta description is blank. The reports on seomoz says my title is title+meta description - making it to long (to many characters). What could be the issue here? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | danielpett0 -
Why is therea date in the deescription meta?
Please see the attached example, why is the date here and how can I get rid of it? Capture.PNG
Technical SEO | | cottamg0 -
What Google uses in search result descriptions
Recently, Google has started including certain information from our web pages in their search results description that is a bit puzzling. For example if you google 'Wedding Band Raleigh' the description they are using for our site's (GigMasters) page begins with the text 'Results 1 - 10 of 1005' Not sure why they are pulling that information. That is in on the page but its not high up on the page or marked with any special h1, h2, or h3 tag. We do have that information inside of a div which we have named 'Results'. Maybe that's why? Did we inadvertently use some sort of Google rich snippet or schema.org naming convention?! Any insight would be hugely appreciated.
Technical SEO | | gigmasters0