Meta tag "description" appeared briefly Saturday ...

Google has never shown "my own" description before

[Meta_Vision]

While Yahoo and MSN etc usually show my Meta tag description text, I'd never seen Google provide it ... until a few hours Saturday.

Anyone else notice this? (Any news about a change with regard to Google's handling of Meta tag description text?)

[macdave]

Google has been showing meta descriptions on and off for quite some time. All the query words must appear in the meta description for it to appear, but even then it doesn't show up all the time. For several queries that I follow, certain sites will sometimes display their meta description, sometimes not. I haven't been able to discern much rhyme or reason.

[Trax]

google is using meta descriptions on some sites for years now - this ain't something new. So put up a clean description ;)

[DerekH]

If you do an allinurl:www.yourownsite.com you'll probably find that most of what comes up are the Meta Descriptions because nothing else on the page will match your query.

One can soon see whether you are using them wisely or not!

Used wisely, than can indeed come up in normal searches...
DerekH

[Meta_Vision]

Observations from (my) experience / history ...

1.A "Back in the days of DMOZ" {smile/no comment} ...
The "standard" Google description for items which had been included in the directory ... was the "edited" directory listing description.

1.B The "description" for sites NOT listed in the directory (DMOZ -> Google)were COMPOSED of SNIPPETS by the Google algorithm ... (because -- as many assume, but arguable to others)it appeared that "site owners" were not "trusted" to describe their site accurately without the intervention of "human editors." (NOTE: This item is not intended to cause a disruptive argument, but rather to lay out my "experience / perceptions" over the past few years.)

2. Some "major sites" (by some calculation which is of course unknown to "us") ALWAYS had their sites described as their META "description" specified (if so specified.)

3. WHAT IS NEW ... is that a FOR THE FIRST TIME IN RECORDED HISTORY {smile} ... Google's algorithm -- for a few hours ... and maybe "yet to come" when the data bases "balance" ... deemed MY OWN DESCRIPTION in the meta tag "WORTHY" of being listed.

I hope this clarifies any "confusion." {smile}

MV