Forum Moderators: phranque
... anyway I thought this might be the best place to post, since it's not specific to a particular search engine and I don't think it really deserves to be be put into the HTML section (I think ...).
To get to the point, I did a search on Google for translucent tape ... I wont say which site is mine but I noticed the description on the search engine used a paragraph from about a third of way down the page.
So I tried yahoo .... still ignores the description meta ...
MSN: I couldn't even find my site (odd, I must've done something they don't like or my ignoring them has finally caught up with me).
Ask: First paragraph, description meta ignored again.
So my conclusion (minus realizing how much I've neglected other search engines), is search engines don't really seem to pay much attention to the description meta tag, unless it's the one used on the index page of the website.
How right or wrong?
Thanks
Result 1: Used meta description which contained my search term.
Result 2: Used meta description which contained my search term.
Result 3: Indent of Result 2: Used meta description which contained my search term.
Result 4: Had a poor meta description: <meta name="description" content="Inexpensive 120" translucent tape measure."/> Not even sure the engine can interpret the full description since there is a double quote in the middle of the content attribute value. I'm guessing the engine only sees "Inexpensive 120" as the meta description.
Since the term I searched on is not in that partial description, Google tried to find and display content from the page that contained my search term as the description. So it used text from the <h1> tag ("Translucent Tape Measure - Budget - 5 ft.") which contained my search term. It combined this with the first line of content which contained my search term: "A high-quality, low-priced, translucent 120" (5 foot) tape measure with your logo on it." and the line of content that immediately folloed it: "Add to wishlist".
The resulting description was "Translucent Tape Measure - Budget - 5 ft. A high-quality, low-priced, translucent 120" (5 foot) tape measure with your logo on it. Add to wishlist ...".
Looks to me like they did an excellent job creating a good description of this page from the content when the page itself has a poorly formed meta description.
Result 5: Used meta description which contained my search term.
Result 6: Indented from Result 5: Used meta description which contained my search term.
Result 7: This page did not even have a meta description tag. So Google constructed one.
They grabbed the first line of content on the page that contained my search term "This new retractable Translucent Tape Measure is easy to use and is just the right item to display your message." and the line that immediately followed that: "Item Colors: Blue, Green, Orange, Purple or Red".
The resulting description was "This new retractable Translucent Tape Measure is easy to use and is just the right item to display your message. Item Colors: Blue, Green, Orange, ...".
Again, looks to me like they did an excellent job creating a good description of this page from the content when the page itself has NO meta description.
Result 8: Used meta description which contained my search term.
Result 9: The meta description for result 9 did NOT contain my keyword and had content="Mark your company’s milestones by choosing from top of the line pens and calendars, stylish apparel, helpful office tools and much more offered only by Union Pen".
So since it did not have my keyword in it, Google constructed a description from text on the page that did contain my keyword. They grabbed the 1st line of content off the page containing the term "translucent tape". The sentence they found was "The Translucent Tape Measure is a fun advertising tool. Use as a giveaway at trade shows or to say "Thank You" to your most valued customers and employees.".
So the resulting description was "The Translucent Tape Measure is a fun advertising tool. Use as a giveaway at trade shows or to say "Thank You" to your most valued customers and employees. ...".
Again, I think they did an excellent job constructing a description that contained my keyword when the meta description for the page did not.
Result 10: Used meta description which contained my search term.
CONCLUSION:
Overall, I'd give Google a perfect score on the descriptions they showed in these SERPS. I like their approach.
Without knowing which site is yours or what it looks like, if Google is using content from you page as the description they display in the SERPs, I'd be inclined to say your meta description probably doesn't have "Translucent Tape" in it or it's somehow malformed as with Result 4 above.
I agree with Google's approach...
1) They first try to get a hand written, supposedly unbiased description of your page from the Open Directory Project. If they find the page in the the ODP they use it.
If that page doesn't exist in ODP then they attempt to use your meta description. If your meta description contains the keyword phrase used in the search, it is used.
If your meta description does not contain the keyword phrase used in the search then they construct a description that contains content from you page containing the keyword phrase (and do a really good job of it 99.999% of the time IMO).
[edited by: ZydoSEO at 7:21 am (utc) on Jan. 18, 2008]
