No Google meta discription tags any more?

Google changes

[otnot]

I have recently noticed that Googles discription of my web site only includes the top portion of text from my index page. Is this an indication that the meta discription is being replaced by the text of a page?

[excell]

The google description can be picked up from your site description and page content or a combination of both depending on key phrase. As to what is actually in the serp's results from month to month is a bit of a mystery. The best way to handle this is to keep being relevant in your body copy and your meta tags. Always reflect the essence of an individual page in the meta data and title.. do not be slack about it just because some might say "google doesn't figure meta data".

[gsx]

Google doesn't display meta description tags - hasn't done for over two years.

[excell]

sorry that is not correct

google has lately displayed meta description, therefor I think it is important to ensure that it is there and that is correct.

[jamesyap]

Excell,

I have never seen google displaying meta description, can you give us some search term that will return results displaying the meta description?

[troels nybo nielsen]

I have seen them too a few times. Can't show you any right now, though, but the question has been discussed a couple of times here, and I have also read about it in posts from very competent SEOs in another board. There is no doubt that this is really happening. But it seems to be rather seldom.

[otnot]

Thanks for all the reply's. Before Googles last up date my sites meta discription tage was being displayed. And now it's just the text body title which happens to be my company name and address. So I changed the text title to reflect a better discription for the next update. Trying to stay ahead is a full time job!

[Shakil]

Google DOES display meta descriptions!

We have a very competitive site and for the main search term, Google is NOW showing the meta desciption instead of the snippet which it did before.

The keyword is there in the snippet, but Google is choosing "meta desiption" instead.

Personally I think a number of factors come into play for this scenario to take place, and they "include" your Dmoz desciption.

Shak

[Marcia]

WebGuerrilla first posted about seeing this last June.

I've only seen the meta description used with the exact phrase for the search, and stop words figure into it. For widget repair in Los Angeles the phrase is highlighted, but not the word "in."

[Flippi]

From my several hundred pages in Google, exactly one page shows the meta description. It is not a page included in ODP. Why this page? I can't tell you, cause it is similar in construction to many others.

It seems a fact also, that the meta description is not indexed by Google and therefore not searchable (if the keyword is only in the description).

[symivisitor]

Google has displayed the full Meta description of my site for months, on searches on a number of keyword combinations. It's nothing to do with the ODP description (thankfully).