How does Google generate the site description?

Google used very bizarre text to generate a description of my site

[limitup]

My site is finally indexed in Google, but in the serps the description of my site is bizarre. Google totally ignored the meta description on the page. So I always thought they would grab the first X number of characters of the page, etc. But apparently not - they have used 1 random sentence from one paragraph, and combined it with another random sentence halfway down the page. Is there any rhyme or reason to this? Does Google completely ignore the meta description tag? Or does it just mean my description tag was ignored because it was too short, too long, too many keywords, or who knows what other reason?

[limitup]

As a follow-up, I just tried a different search using site:mysite.com - and for that search they have used my meta description exactly as I intended. So I guess now the question is, when I search for my site's name and pull it up that way, why the random description? And more importantly, once I get ranked for some of my keywords, what will they use for a description?

[bether2]

This thread from a couple of years ago may shed some light:

[webmasterworld.com...]

[siteseo]

limitup - G pulls a description from your page based on the keywords used in the search string. If the keywords are not physically present on your page, it will display your meta description tag most likely.

[createErrorMsg]

If the keywords are not physically present on your page, it will display your meta description tag most likely.

If the keywords aren't physically present on the page, how would it turn up on the SERP at all?

cEM

[pageoneresults]

I do believe there are ways to control the snippet and it all has to do with the layout of the page itself and how the content is structured. ;) It also has a lot to do with the search query.

[DerekH]

If the keywords aren't physically present on the page, how would it turn up on the SERP at all?

Easy!

Wanna know more?

Well, I'll tell you anyway <smile>
One of my minority sites is number one in 2 million for a 2-word phrase, and it has no keywords on the page at all.
None.

Why not? Because that particular site uses a URL forwarder and I can't change the text that Google indexes.
Why? Because I've got good inbound links.
DerekH

[siteseo]

What he said.

Google is even nice enough to tell you...when you view the cache of such a page, it will say something like "this word is not present on the page, but may exist in links pointing to it..."

[bether2]

I do believe there are ways to control the snippet and it all has to do with the layout of the page itself and how the content is structured.

Thanks for the hints. Not to be greedy, but any further hints would be appreciated. :)

[brian_mc_d]

Google shows my description tag in the search results. And Google does this for the Number One site in my category too.

I was very surprised when I saw this myself as I thought Google ignored this tag but I am not complaining of course.

I am not an expert, but my description (and that of my main "competitor") is really close to the content of the site, perhaps that's it...

[WebWalla]

Google does ignore the description tag when producing its results ... i.e. the description tag isn't used to provide a match for the search term.

However, it will be displayed under certain cicumstances, as mentioned by others above. But, I insist, this doesn't mean the text in the tag is a factor used to produce the results.

[jaffstar]

Here is my 5c, Google SERPS have similar properties to PPC Ads. The ads with the best copy get the best click thoughs.

Most sites in the SERPs have terrible descriptive tags. Many of my pages ranked very well with no onsite text, and Google did not use the meta description, so I had to get creative by putting text on my page in various places (for google) and I can now adjust my meta description to increase click throughs :)