Is it possible that Google is pulling description from third party websites and displaying in the description section in organic result?
-
Hi all,
I have come across the most weird situation ever in my SEO career.
Google is displaying description in organic results for brand term under the website URL that doesnt exist on the website ANYWHERE but this description does appear on some directory sites created back in 2002 or so.
Is there a possibility that Google is pulling info from directory sites and displaying as a description in the organic results?
I am super confused!
Help needed!
Thanks
-
Thanks. I think the content on page is pretty good and strong as we have just done an upgrade of the website. Just recently Google decided to show this description from DMOZ.
-
awesome thanks!
-
Here is a thread about the DMOZ/Open Directory project that ViviCa1 mentioned. [A lot of people are trying to get into DMOZ but can't, you should be happy you have the link. ]
One thing you could look at though is why does Google think that the directory description is the best one to return?
Check and see whether you can improve the descriptive content on the actual site. [At one point I got two new sites to work on, both in DMOZ, the rich, active one returned site-appropriate information, the long-neglected one returned the directory description.]
-
Yes, this can happen but you can ask Google not to use the description from a directory such as DMOZ by using the "noodp" meta robot tag:
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
-
Google is not indexing an updated website
We just relaunched a website that has 5 years old, we maintain all the old URLs and articles but for some reason google is not picking up the new website https://www.navisyachts.com. In Google Webmaster Tools we can see the sitemap with over 1000 pages submitted but shows nothing as indexed. The site is loosing traffic rapidly and positions, from the SEO side all looks fine for me. What can be wrong? I’ll appreciate any help. The new website is built over Joomla 3.4, we have it here at MOZ and other than some minor details it doesn't show that something can be wrong with the website. Thank you.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FWC_SEO0 -
How to NOT appear in Google results in other countries?
I have ecommerce sites the only serve US and Canada. Is there a way to prevent a site from appearing in the Google results in foreign countries? The reason I ask is that we also have a lot of informational pages that folks in other countries are visiting, then leaving right after reading. This is making our overall Bounce Rate very high (64%). When we segment the GA data to look at just our US visitors, then the Bounce Rate drops a lot. (to 48%) Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GregB1230 -
Why Google scrambles/change our product page titles? And descriptions too?
Here is an interesting issue we are noticing lately: Google is always more scrambling and changing the title of our product pages in the SERPs results. Here is an example: Keyword: "bach arioso sheet music". We are down at the 6th spot, and the shown title is different from what's defined inside the TITLE tag of that page. And that appears often for other keywords/product pages. Why's that? How can we control that? It is hard for us to optimize titles and test CTR and other metrics if Google is showing them differently to the users. Similar issue with the description tag: sometimes Google instead of showing to the users the description tag contents, shows part of the text taken from the page even though the searched keywords are included both in the title and the description tag, and so I can't find justification to show text taken from the page instead... it is quite difficult to understand the motivation beyond all this! Any thoughts are very welcome. Thanks! Fab.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau0 -
Question about Google Search Results
I have a question regarding google search results. I have a website www.911signalusa.com when you type this into google search box the URL comes up repeatedly. I have several competitors here is one of them www.emergencycity.com when you type in their name it only come up as the first result. How did our SEO guys make this happen? I have another site tha when we type in the URL it only comes up as the first result. However when you do site:www.------.com All of these site are indexed in Google. It is not causing any problem we knoe of but it appears to me that our 1 site has it better? Or is it that maybe there are very minimal links to the site? Thank you for your time and consideration in answering my quesiton.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | scamper0 -
Is Google applying some customized search results, even when Private Browsing?
I am including a screenshot of a very interesting search result I received while InPrivate Browsing in Google using IE9. I was spot-checking some keywords while private browsing and the first one I searched was "presonus studiolive." Then, I searched a completely unrelated term "communion supplies." I am attaching a screenshot of the search results page I then received from Google. Interesting, no? I can't even begin to wrap my head around the implications of a search results page that mixes results from two completel unrelated terms. Thoughts? 7QNxPHM.jpg
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | danatanseo0 -
International Version of Website
Our website is AluminumEyewear.com and we're considering launching a specific version for Australia, naturally I want to avoid any dupe content issues but the content would largely remain the same. I have read through this post and wondered if the options given here are still relevant? I'm currently leaning towards using a sub-domain, i.e. au.aluminumeyewear.com or should I go for aluminumeyewear.com.au? Will there be dupe content issues if I do that? Confused and hoping for help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | smckenzie750 -
What is better for google: keep old not visited content deeply in the website, or to remove it?
We have quite a lot of old content which is not visited anymore. Should we remove it and have a lot of 410 errors which will be reported in GWT? Or should we keep it and forget about it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bele0 -
My site links have gone from a mega site links to several small links under my SERP results in Google. Any ideas why?
A site I have currently had the mega site links on the SERP results. Recently they have updated the mega links to the smaller 4 inline links under my SERP result. Any idea what happened or how do I correct this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | POSSIBLE0