Why is Google ignoring description meta tag?

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Why is Google ignoring description meta tag?

Google meta tags description ignore

itrainu

3:58 am on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

On the search engine results page, Google is displaying my client's title, and then directly showing text from the web page - not the description in the meta tag.

I checked the traffic logs and Googlebot spidered the site yesterday -this description has been up for a while. I can tell that Google has updated this listing because I did not like the text that it was showing previously, so made changes on the web page, and Google is reflecting those changes in it's results, but still not showing the description.

I have checked the other sites that appear on the same SERP and their descriptions are being listed, so it is just my client's site.

The order of the meta tags is title, description, keywords...

Any ideas appreciated!

itrainu

percentages

4:08 am on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

The Description Google displays is the start of the description from the Google directory which currently comes from the ODP at dmoz.org, not the one in your META tags.

To get a description displayed you need to register the site at dmoz.org and wait for an update of the Google directory.

Depending upon the category your site is in it may take sometime to get into the ODP. It may also be a while before Google updates from the ODP again.

At the very earliest a description may appear following the next Google update (probably end of Jan/early Feb), but more than likely it will be a few months. ;)

itrainu

4:23 am on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

Well that sounded good....

My client is indeed in ODP, but the description there is really old (before I came on board) and is not at all similar to that shown in Google.

For other websites in Google the description is identical to their description meta tag...

Any other ideas? :-)

itrainu

hmgab

4:27 am on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

I noticed on one of my sites yesterday that the META description tag was actually showing on Google, instead of the H1 tag which usually shows.

percentages

4:35 am on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

itrainu,

I assume you are talking about the text that appears next to the word "Description" in the SERP's? Just above the category line and not about the snippet Google grabs from the page contents?

If so that description definately comes from the ODP description. Take a look at the site in your profile and you will see their is a difference between your ODP description and your META Description.

If you are talking about the Google snippet (it appears right below the title), and why some sites show their Meta Description in the snippet it is usually because of one of three reasons.

1. They don't have any relevant content from which to take the snippet. i.e. they got into the SERP's based on backlink anchor text only.

2. They don't have any text content on the page at all. Then Google picks up the description Meta tag instead.

3. They have requested Google doesn't display the snippet and you see the description below the title instead.

percentages

4:37 am on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

Possible 4th reason, the Description META tag is actually the most relevant piece of text for that particular search term.

Brett_Tabke

5:36 am on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

Try nosnippet:

More info:
[webmasterworld.com...]

hthota

5:38 am on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

>>Possible 4th reason, the Description META tag is actually the most relevant piece of text for that particular search term.

Hmmm.. so having the Description META tag for a page doesnt really help in the optimization, or does it?

I'm confused...

Plz help... I had the same problem as itrainu....

percentages

6:46 am on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

hthota,

I most definately believe the META description tag does help for optimization of the SERP's.

The point I made was that if the page has no text at all in the <body> section then Google will display the META tag description instead of the usual snippet it grabs.

As an example a page that is all images, not a single word of text, has nothing for Google to grab as a snippet so it uses the META tag description instead.

I personally don't recommend for a minute that you replace your text content with images in order to get your META tag description displayed (suicide). Telling Google to remove the snippet is the correct way to do it.

Marcia

7:20 am on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

Google's traditionally used snippets from the page. Back in June they started showing the meta description. I've seen where they'll use part of the meta description, truncate after a certain number of characters (in one case 88), and go on to also include snippets. Altogether, with both it can make for some wonderful descriptions. They seem to be using it when the exact phrase for the search appears in the meta description. That's why you don't see it for all searches for a page, from what I've seen anyway. The meta description isn't always relevant to the particular search.

hthota

9:12 am on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

Thanks Percentages. That was helpful. But how to tell Google to remove the snippet. Any coding trick to do that?

Marcia

9:16 am on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

[google.com...]

It also removes it from the cache.

itrainu

1:02 pm on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

Something makes sense now out of what Percentages said first...it just happened that I was searching on "blue widgets Canada" as opposed to "blue widgets" and since this is not a specific category at DMOZ, the category was not listed with each result!

I've looked at several other listings and if they have a description, that is used; otherwise snippets.

At first I didn't like the snippet that was being used (last month) and racked my brain to figure out why Google was ignoring a line of important text near the top of the page. Turns out the webmaster had used the font tag to make h1 smaller! Doh! When I pointed this out, I finally convinced them to use style sheets ;-)

I just put in a request to change categories at DMOZ. My client was in a regional category for manufacturing; we requested a non regional for the specific widget that they manufacture ;-)

I'm not sure that I want Google to remove the snippet...after all if someone searches for blue widgets and my description mentions widgets but my snippet mentions blue widgets, this would be beneficial...

Thanks for all the ideas!

itrainu

Marcia

1:21 pm on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

Google using the ODP description is part of what's shown, it's a separate thing from the meta description being used.

annej

2:27 pm on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

I'm having a hard time getting ODP to update a description on one of my sites. They are just too short of volunteers I think and many topics don't have anyone to update or put in new sites.

Anne

percentages

2:44 pm on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

The OPD reserves the right to use the descriptions it sees as most appropriate. If you are trying to get an editor to change your ODP description just because you don't like it, you will probably have some difficulty.

ODP descriptions should be about the site content only. As an ODP editor myself I see lots of people try to change their descriptions to be self promoting. e.g. "Cheapest widgets in the west!"

Editors (most anyway) will not allow that kind of description. You sell widgets, editors have no way of knowing they they are the cheapest, best, biggest or any of that other hyped "stuff".

Having said all that, if you have changed your site drastically and it deserves a new description then it maybe that an editor just hasn't got to it yet. ;)