Different meta-descriptions in SERPS for a page than in site: query

[youfoundjake]

I've started to really notice the snippet in the Serps reflects the tag on the page while the site: listing in the webmaster tools console shows the navigation of my site instead of an actual description. Its not happening on all pages, but most. And the tag is different for each page in the actual code.
Has anyone else noticed this similar behavior?

[tedster]

There is a dedicated team at Google that works on the snippet-generation algo. The displayed snippet is dependent on the actual query - and site: queries do not give the snippet algorithm much to work with, so they usually default to the meta description when there is one.

If the query term is related to the meta description, I still see the meta as a snippet, and sometimes one or two phrases from the page content. But in my opinion, the snippet algo still grabs site navigation too often for true keyword queries, but that's what we've got for now.

[edited by: tedster at 3:20 am (utc) on June 24, 2008]

[youfoundjake]

I think we can almost shoot ourselves in the foot if we go by the data in the console, because I see page after page with the same snippet (usually a navigation menu) and we start to think "oh no...duplicate content issues because the descriptons aren't unique" when in actuality the Serps are unique....just the console is reporting generic information in that sense.

[youfoundjake]

Upon further pondering, I use a fairly large chunk of javascript to create the navigation menu that expands on a mouseover.
I would imagine there is a way to put that menu in an external .js file which would
A. cut down on the text to code ratio
B. maybe help with the Search Engines displaying the actualy meta description tag as opposed to the menu...

Thoughts? Ideas?