potentialgeek - 7:19 am on Jul 19, 2008 (gmt 0)

> If a change only to meta descriptions directly affected rankings, that would be a new wrinkle. The most recent official word from Google is that meta descriptions are not used in the ranking algorithm.

What about penalties? Meta tags can help get you 950d or other spam penalties. To be precise, Google says the meta description doesn't help ranking, but it never said the tag can't help you get a penalty. It's not immune both ways (positive/negative). In fact the algo patent clearly says all components of a webpage are considered to determine if it's spam, including tags.

The example of the TS:

First version:
meta name="Description" content="Interviews: Subject Name."

Second version:
meta name="Description" content="Experts discuss the expertness, Interviews: Subject Name."

Clearly the second version is more spammy than the first. Repetition and synonyms are the target of the phrase-based spam index algo.

To the issue of Google suggesting meta tags are too short or too long. I would not recommend reading too much into that. Just because Google pointed it out doesn't mean it affects ranking improvements. Stop for a minute and ask whether a meta tag is irrefutable evidence of a quality site.

Also, to the question of CTR and rankings, it's still to early to guess on that one, too. Matt Cutts, IIRC, already said it's a noisy signal for an algo to take seriously. Frankly I don't see how that signal is ever going to get much less noisy. Authority links inbound to a site are a clear signal. CTR isn't. Even though it may get you a lot more traffic (assuming your page title tag is so wishy washy it needs a full description).

Personally I judge a SERP's links based on the quality of the domain name more than the meta tag. Unfortunately Google is unable to write code into its algo that can recognize quality domain names.

p/g