Comments on: Search Engine Optimization Tip #2: The Meta Description Tag

By: Michael Redbourn

Michael Redbourn — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 07:20:02 +0000

How long does it take to write the tag? One minute?

I often spend an hour writing an article, so a minute for the tag is not something that I’d be concerned about, “for a minute”.

Mike

By: Small Business Advertising

Small Business Advertising — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 05:02:33 +0000

I see writing a good meta description (in conjunction with your page title) akin to writing a great envelope teaser when doing direct mail. Its goal is to get someone to click (or open the envelope). Yes maybe it’s not used all the time by SEs but why not have it ready for when it is? I wouldn’t only rely on snippets that might not sell a larger story.

By: Jen

Jen — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:03:25 +0000

I recently added a meta description tag, but Google doesn’t seem to have caught on. When I perform a search, I still see the same page snippet that was displayed before I added the tag. And idea how long it takes for this to change?

By: intel352

intel352 — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 05:11:02 +0000

If you define a meta description tag, Google typically overrides your “page snippet” with the meta description value, as Google feels that the meta description value may better describe the page to users.

The meta description tag does *not* affect result ranking, it only affects appearance.

In regards to the OP suggesting that you focus more on creating quality content, actually if you just copy some relevant text from your page body and use that as your meta description, then you haven’t wasted your time, as you’re using existing content.

It’s important to note that when using meta descriptions, they *must* be unique per page. The meta description value can replicate your page content in part, and is a valid approach when you can’t/won’t summarize the page.

By: Bill Hartzer

Bill Hartzer — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 22:10:11 +0000

Jared, I understand your viewpoint. But I don’t understand the concept of “wasting your time” writing a good meta description tag.

If we leave it up to Google to pick a snippet of text from the page and don’t write a great meta description tag then we don’t have any control over what is displayed.

I know it could be a “shot in the dark” as to whether or not they include the meta description tag, but I would at least take a chance that it’s included when someone searches.

By: Jared

Jared — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 21:59:10 +0000

You state “In this case, you can see that the meta description tag that was used on the web page shows up in the search results in Google because the keyword phrase I used to search is located in the meta description tag (I searched for “meta description tag”)”

this is not necessarily true. The fact that the phrase is in teh meta description isnt “why” google decided to use that as the snippet. Google decided to use it because it is the phrase it considers the most relevant to your query and teh site.

It would be just as likely and IMHO a better choice to let Google use a snippet of the actual text on your webpage. Why waste time on a meta description when you can spend time developing catching content? There is no guarentee Goog will use the desc as the snippet and the text itself adds nothing other than the “maybe” factor. Using the phrase in the first sentences of your site is just as likely to result in a quality snippet without wasting time writing content users dont see…