Meta desription

[wilderness]

Anybody have any idea if Google has made RECENT algo changes which no longer show "page descriptions" rather using a method of gathering a decsription from page content?

thanks in advance

[mack]

Google has not been using meta descriptions for a long time. Google always takes either a snippet from the page or sometimes used odp description. I think when it used ODP description this is because it followed an ODP link.

It had been brought up on the boards before about peopel thinking google had used their meta description within the serps, but this coudl have been because the meta content was the same as the open directory description.

[jdMorgan]

You can also see your meta description in the Google results if the meta description is short, there is a limited amount of text on the page itself, and the meta description is the best match for the search phrase. It's more likely to happen if a longer search phrase is used - 3 or more words.

Another way to put this is that Google displays a snippet of text, which can be from the page body OR the description, and often, parts of both.

Following that will be the ODP/Google Directory description if an ODP/Google Directory listing exists. This text is marked "Description:" and is followed by another line marked "Category:" showing the Google Directory Category URL.

<added>But I haven't noticed any recent changes in this behaviour.</added>

Jim

[wilderness]

<snip>haven't noticed any recent</snip>

Thanks for the replies.

Jim
Your the only one I know here :-) Didn't expect a friendly face ;) As your aware I usually stay in a solitary forum.

For some time I've been in the process of updating my pages and changing the layout on some.
Yesterday I found reference to a google search option which I wasn't previously aware of. "inurl:yourdomain.com"
which has finally allowed me to get a count on exactly how many of my pages google has indexed. Formerly I could never gather them together under the same search.

The results were awakening and I might add rude. Some of my pages are topped with a banner (which inlcudes alt text,) on those pages google shows the alt text as the description :(
On other pages the indexes are contained in the description.

I had just accepted without knowing why some of my pages were not ranking as high as similar content.
The result is I'm going to be required to rework the majority of my pages. :( on both sites.
I'm not real content with this and currently reviewing my options.

Don