Is this a prelude to the update?

Meta description showing again.

[Axacta]

A week before last month's dance the SERP description for my index page switched from a ransom note to a combination of the meta description and the first line of text on the page. After the dance it reverted back to a ransom note again (a crummy one).

Well, the meta description is showing again, so does that mean the dance is less than a week away?

Anybody else seeing their meta descriptions being displayed?

[jdMorgan]

Axacta,

Nope... Still the ransom note followed by the ODP description here.

Jim

[Marcia]

Axacta, on one site I've been monitoring for changes the past few days, www has been showing snippets all along and still is, but www2 has been showing the meta description. The two are different, but there's still no indication that the update is starting or imminent.

There are little changes going on all month; all we can do is guess when the next update will be. My guess is that we've still got around 7-10 days to wait for it.

[Axacta]

Today the SERP for my site has changed in www, www2 and www3.

[Grumpus]

It is about a week before the dance, kids. Remember, though, that every time you think you have an understanding of Google, it does something completely weird and unexpected.

Last month, after seeing these "Ransom Note/Descriptions are changing" threads start to appear again, I did a little research and I found that right around the 17th of every month, this topic started to show up on this site (regularly since the start of this year, but occasionally as far back as October, 2000).

My hypothesis then, as it is now, is that google is employing a little "Spam" check before the dance. It compares your DMOZ listing (if it exists) and your Meta tags to the actual content of the page in question. Do words in the title match? Do words in the description show up in the page? Can you really call Jack Sprat's plate "clean?"

That's my theory and I'm stickin' to it.

G.

[Markus]

As Marcia said, www2 and www3 are showing the meta description all the time. If you see the meta description on the www SERPs, check the URL to which the 'cached' link points to. If you see the IP 216.239.35.100 or 216.239.35.101, you have the www3 results on www. There's nothing special about it.

[Axacta]

>Today the SERP for my site has changed in www, www2 and www3.<

Sorry, I should have been clearer. I didn't just mean the SERP descriptions had changed, but that my SERP positions had changed.