Reasons why Google indexes category pages with home page meta tags

[Angelina123]

hi,

I was wondering if anyone could shed some light on why google will index category pages using the same meta tags as the home page.

The links i have out there point to category pages - so i'm discounting the incoming links as being a factor here.

Regards

Angelina
x

:)

[weeks]

How much Google uses and doesn't use meta tags is something of a mystery.

What do you mean, "google will index category pages using the same meta tags?"

[Marcia]

Are you referring to what's in the snippets they show in the SERPs?

[tedster]

What Google shows as the description, or snippet, is dependent on the search query. In other words, there's no one set text that is always used for the snippet. There's an entire snippet team who works on the algorithm that determines what to show for what searches.

I've never seen the home page meta description used for an interior page's snippet.

Or are you talking about the title element, perhaps, rather than the meta tags?

[Angelina123]

tedster, yes i understand and agree with your statement and yes the title element rather than the meta tag

looking at several of my pages (interior) and how they are displayed in the serps i can see the 'snippet' or description does vary somewhat based perhaps upon what keywords are entered into google search - but why is my home page title element oftened displayed in the serps for my interior category pages ? are there key elements to the page layout which may determine this?

in addition to the title element, im also finding google lists in the serps my home page url for the interior pages - i.e

widgets home
title home
url to home page

blue widgets
title home
url to homepage

green widgets
title home
url to homepage

any clues to how i can have:

blue widgets
title blue widgets
url to blue widgets

Yahoo and MSN do a good job of displaying the results - i'd get better click through if it showed the true page title and url.

Appreciate any ideas around this.

Kind regards

Angelina

[tedster]

Do you have a DMOZ entry for your site - perhaps the same as your Home Page's title? If so, Google may favor DMOZ's title for category pages, depending on the exact user query. The solution is to use the NOODP meta tag [webmasterworld.com] on your pages.

[Angelina123]

hi Tedster, yes we use this already.

[g1smd]

Do you use WMT?

Are any of those pages flagged in the "Content Analysis" section of the reports?

[Angelina123]

yes we use WMT

no issues with the content analysis

any other ideas / things to check ?