Dmoz Description in Google SERPs - update

Some rules for when and why it happens

[SteveJohnston]

Following on from previous threads on this subject:

[webmasterworld.com ]
[webmasterworld.com ]

I don't presume that what I have established for my site will necessarily work for everyone, but following a redesign of my own site, the dmoz description popped into my entry in the Google SERPs.

I noticed early on that I had forgotten to replace my Meta Description tag, so updated it. Whilst waiting the day or so for it to be reindexed I tested the content of the snippet with other searches that put my site in the SERPs. What I found was interesting.

1. Title tag searches only
When searching only for words that are included in my Title tag, the dmoz description was populated in the SERPs. Any combination of these words produced the same effect.

2. Body copy searches
The minute I included words from the body copy of the page in the search term, a snippet was created to include the terms searched for.

Now that my home page has been reindexed with the new Meta Description tag in place, the dmoz description is history, replaced by my new description and the new description's appearance conforms to the rules above.

Does this match with other people's experiences?

Steve

[selomelo]

That is exactly what I see for one of my sites now.

1. Any combination of keywords in title => DMOZ description
2. Any keyword(s) + any word from the body of text => the body text.

However, upon inspecting my metatags, I noticed a "bug," as it were:

<meta name=description content="my description">
<meta name=keywords content="my keywords">

Which, I think, should be:
<meta name="description" content="my description">
<meta name="keywords" content="my keywords">

BTW, this happened after an update I made recently which also caused a slight decline in SERPs.

I think the googlebot fails to recognize description and keywords due to wrong syntax.
I will correct and try.