Comments on: Why a Search Engine Might Choose Something Other Than Meta Descriptions for Page Summaries in Search Results

By: Jason

Jason — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:33:08 +0000

I do believe that ranking factors, today, have an immense consideration if the title/description fits very well with the content. keeping contents relevant to the given description is a plus, especially if you’re targeting exact queries, and it should be the main agenda in the first place. though I have a question, what’s your take about those pages that are not really relevant to certain search terms (keywords not even mentioned on the title, url, description – all efforts done through off page anchored text links)? I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately.

By: Bill Slawski

Bill Slawski — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 11:13:13 +0000

Hi Michael,

It’s possible that your meta description might show up for other searches that your page might be found for if it contained terms from that search as well. But it’s just as likely that a search engine might decide to include other text from you pages that might include those terms.

By: Michael Kehoe

Michael Kehoe — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 15:48:52 +0000

Thank you for this article. I wasn’t really aware of this. I suppose if you are trying to put keywords into your meta discription it wouldn’t show for a different search. I’ve not noticed this on my website but now you’ve mentioned it you see it all the time.

By: Bill Slawski

Bill Slawski — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 14:50:28 +0000

Hi Marty,

Thank you. Google does seem to be willing to include a meta description if if is well crafted and relevant, including the main keyword a page may be optimized for. It will also try to use content from a page itself if the query terms within a search exist on that page. But, there are other times that pages may appear in search results, such as when they are considered relevatn for a term used only in anchor text pointed to that page. In instances like that, the choice of what to include as a snippet becomes harder.

By: Marty Rogers

Marty Rogers — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 06:12:16 +0000

First off, great post.

Second, I noticed that Google uses my META description in the search results if I use just the right amount of words or characters, as well as being relevant, of course. This is only when searching for the main keywords used here, though. If my website appears for a keyword that appears within a paragraph of my page then Google will show a snippet of this. I think it works well.

By: Bill Slawski

Bill Slawski — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 01:16:21 +0000

Hi Alex,

I’m guessing what you are saying is that when you do a search for a term that your home page ranks for, and the front page of the site shows up in the search results, that the snippet that appears is from the excerpt (or full article) showing on your home page instead of your meta description or from some other post that may appear on your home page. That’s not quite the experience that I’ve had. It sounds like it’s worth investigating more.

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 13:08:48 +0000

I have a blog and google alwasy display some lines from first article on serp.
Even if i use plugin like all in one seo.

By: Bill Slawski

Bill Slawski — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 13:58:40 +0000

Hi Clinton,

The problem with just sticking to the webmaster guidelines is that they only provide a limited amount of information regarding what might make a good meta description, and what might not. What is helpful is to make sure that you consider carefully the words that someone interested in what you offer on your page might use in a search to find that page, and to include those words and phrases in your meta description and within the content of your page in ways that describe that page in an engaging manner while also describing the content of your page well.