DMOZ descriptions - why?

[talismon]

I noticed a few weeks ago that Google has reverted to our dmoz description when it always used to show the meta description. this happened to a few other sites in our verticle but some still show the meta description. Any idea as to how Google determines which one to use?

thanks

[Quadrille]

1. It depends on the search term; if the search term appears in your meta d, then that may be used. If it doesn't, then the ODP description is more likely.

2. Depends on which data center and what systems Google is using / testing / playing with at that center at that time.

[g1smd]

If the ODP title and description is deemed a better match to the search term they use that instead.

They also use it when they don't trust the title or description on the website itself, or if the supplied on-site data is judged to be "low quality" in some way.

[mcskoufis]

You can use:

<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOODP">

OR

<META NAME="GOOGLEBOT" CONTENT="NOODP">