Google not displaying meta description
-
Hi,
one of my clients is receiving the following error in SERP - "A description of the page is not available because of this site's robots.txt".
The site is built on WordPress and I realized that by default, the settings were checked to blocks bots from crawling the site. So, I turned it off, fixed robots.txt and submitted the sitemap again. Since, then it's been almost 10 days, the problem still exists.
Can anyone tell me what should be done to fix it or if there's a way to get Google to recrawl the pages again.
-
Hi Mayank,
Use the fetch tool listed above to see what URL's are being blocked. If any, it maybe it is just taking Google some time to get things indexed for you.
-
I have fixed robots.txt, have submitted fresh sitemap to the webmaster. the problem still exists.
Also, when i look for webmaster >> Google Index >> Index Status >> Total indexed are 896 and Blocked by Robots are 626. The numbers have got better, but very slow. I don't think pages are blocked by Robots any more. Not sure what can be done about it.
-
Don is correct. In GWT you'll be able to fetch as Google and see the results of your changes. Another thing that can help crawl the page would be making sure the site has at least a few inbound links, but Don's answer should have you covered in the near term.
-
Hi Mayank,
After you fixed the Robots.txt you can ask Google to recrawl it. I recommend you do a fetch first to make sure it is crawlable.
Depending on the site, and frequency Google sets up its own recrawl rate but using the methods above you can be sure the problem is fixed.
Hope this helps,
Don
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
-
I have never seen this in Google SERPs before?
What is this that I am seeing in the Google SERPs? It's a bank of 3 separate articles from one site, but they are grouped together like an organic listing. Checkout the link to see what I'm talking about http://imgur.com/xbUk1NG
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MJTrevens0 -
Breadcrumbs not displaying on Google
Hello, We have set breadcrumbs on some of our pages (example: https://www.globecar.com/en/car-rental/locations/canada/qc/montreal/airport-yul) for testing purposes and for some reasons they are still not showing up on Google: http://screencast.com/t/BSHQqkP69r6F Yet when I test the page with Google Structured Data Testing tool all is good: http://screencast.com/t/Fzlz3zae Any ideas? Thanks, Karim
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GlobeCar0 -
Google Not Pulling The Right Title Tag & Meta Description
Hi guys. We've found Google is pulling the wrong information for our title tag and meta description. Instead of pulling the actual title tag, Google is pulling the menu name you click on to get to the page: "Bike Barcelona" instead of "Barcelona Bike Tours | ...." Also, we've found that, instead of pulling the meta description we wrote, Google is using text from the pages copy. Any tips?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BarcelonaExperience0 -
Switched to HTTPS, now Google ALWAYS changes Page Title & Meta in SERPs
Wordpress website using Yoast. Website switched over from HTTP to HTTPS successfully about 6 months ago. Noticed after the fact that Google almost never displays the Page Title or Meta Description I've created in Yoast. Yoast is the only SEO plug-in enabled. Yoast is set to Force Rewrite the Page TItles. The Page titles & Meta Descriptions are always within the character limit. They also contain either an exact or partial match the queries in which Google shows a different Page Title & Meta Description. For some Queries, Google will display the URL as the Page Title for certain queries. Concrete example, search for: public administration jobs Screenshot of results attached. First time working with HTTPS. The redirects appear to be have done correctly. I'm not sure what the issue is. uOnFjNt
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 2uinc0 -
Google Places Multiple Location
Hi everyone, I have a client with multiple locations in the same city. I would like to have their Goolge places listing show up under the main website listing. Currently, one of the Google places listings in being pulled in directly below the main website but not the other. The Zagat rating is being pulled in as well. I would like to have both locations show up when you type in the name of the business. Any ideas how to do this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SixTwoInteractive0 -
What is a good content for google?
When we start to study SEO and how google see our webpage, one important point is to have good content. But, for beginners like me, we get lost on this. Is not so black and white: what for you is a good content? the text amount matters? there is any trick that all good content websites need to have?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Naghirniac0 -
Custom Attributes in Google Places
Hi Guys I'm looking for some clarity of what I can and can't add to the custom attribute fields in a Google Places listing. From my understanding, you can add additional information about your services, but not what those services are. The issue I'm trying to resolve is that a client of mine offers far more than the 5 services/ category options Places allow. They are a home services company, covering all sorts from plumbing, painting and decorating, through to extensions etc. They have about 25 different services. At the moment I'm restricted to just getting rankings for 5 services (correlated to the categories in Places), when I'd like to rank locally for them all. As Google is showing local results for most search queries related to their services whether those searches are geographically modified or not, I'm in a position where even if I am ranking top 5 organically for the terms, I'm still on bottom of page 1, or top of page 2. Would it be wise to add these additional services to the custom attributes section of the Places listing, or would this set off the potential for a listing suspension? Any ideas how to combat this problem would be very welcome.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PerchDigital0 -
Duplicate Listings on Google Maps
About 3 weeks ago google created a duplicate listing for our law firm on google maps. In building links I have tried very hard to ensure that our address and company name was always listed identically. Our correct firm name and address is Feldman Feldman & Associates, PC 2221 Camino Del Rio South, Suite 201 inevitably somehow the new listing stated Camino Del Rio S, Ste 201 All of our reviews moved over to this new profile, I claimed it, changed it to make it the same reported it to Google. Google merged them. Now Google has created another profile this time the firm name and address matches ours exactly (South and Suite both spelled out), but all of the reviews have moved over except for the most recent one(s). I have claimed it again and reported it to google, changed the address. Google then created another listing. Our page rank for keywords has been hurt by this. any idea why this keeps happening suggestions? Here are the two pages. This is our original listing http://maps.google.com/maps/place?hl=en&cid=468564492130231259 This is the new one google self created that stole all our reviews, but is ranked very poorly for the keyword searches. http://maps.google.com/maps/place?&cid=468564492130231259
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jfeld2220