What an SEO meta description is and how to make it effective
It is the best-known and most important non-direct ranking factor used by Google and is essentially used to gain readers and encourage clicks from SERPs. Today we delve into some features of the meta description, trying to understand what it is, how and what should be written in the appropriate field, how many characters we have available and how to make this snippet effective. Above all, we try to understand why more and more often now, the text we enter in the appropriate field is not “chosen” by Google, which instead draws on the more general content to generate the description provided in the preview snippets.
What is the meta description
Let’s start with a simple definition: the meta description is an HTML attribute or tag of limited length, usually one or two sentences, that is used to provide readers with a concise preview of the web page content. As Google’s guide explains, “sometimes” the search engine uses the contents of the meta description tag to generate the snippets it shows in SERPs, immediately below the blue link.
More practically, meta descriptions are a short summary, two sentences at most, that offers a presentation relevant to the topic of a specific page on the site, potentially helping to convince the user that the proposed content is exactly what they are looking for and need.
Common best practices call for persuasive, descriptive meta descriptions that also include the target keywords for which we want the page to be found. Through this optimization, this snippet of text, typically about 155-160 characters long, can provide users with immediate context about the content of the page and its relevance to their search.
Refine your meta descriptions
That is why meta description can help bring a reader from the Google results page to our site and is one of the means to win a click-through at the expense of competitors. And thus, meta descriptions can be defined as a method to generate click-throughs from search engines, as on the other hand also confirmed by research on CTR and position value on Google, and to improve the quality and quantity of search traffic.
Where the description is written and located: example of description meta tag in code
The meta description is found in the HTML header of a web page, within the meta tag name=”description” content=”Here goes your meta description.”
This text is not visible directly on the web page we are visiting, but it is coded in the source code and can be easily added or edited through common CMSs, such as WordPress, through dedicated fields or plugins.
Although many words have been spent on the meta description, SEO management of this attribute still remains quite complex, and even on our FB group we often read questions and requests for clarification about it.
For those who chew code, this attribute appears with this string:
<head> <meta name="description" content="This is an example of a meta description. You can usually see this text on the search results page, but Google can also grab other content."> </head>
Why does Google change the meta description I wrote?
For the past few years, in fact, the actual weight of the text we personally enter for our pages has therefore decreased, because Google has officially (and perhaps permanently) made it clear that it prefers to automatically create the snippets, and especially the description, by inferring text from the page content.
Although the underlying goal does not change-which for Google is to emphasize and preview the page content that best relates to a user’s specific search query, for sites is to provide users with an accurate description of the page content-there is therefore a very real and frequent risk. Regardless of the content produced and the effort and attention we put into filling out the tag, Google can twist the meta description it decides to show in SERPs by somehow adapting it to the user’s query to better respond to the search and search intent.
Indeed: for the same page, Google Search might show different snippets for different searches.
Technically, Google cannot manually modify snippets for individual sites, but it has trained its algorithms to “extrapolate” and generate snippets that are as relevant as possible to the search intent. Specifically, in the latest update of the guide (dated January 5, 2024) we then read that “snippets are created primarily from the content of the page itself” and that only “sometimes Google uses the ‘HTML meta description element to provide users with a more accurate description of the page than content taken directly from the page.”
As we see in these examples of meta descriptions for the query “SEO,” we note that Google rarely uses the text set by the site-which is also there in all cases, as can be verified with an analysis of the source code-but reshapes the content to provide the information it deems most useful, extrapolating a sentence from a specific content point (thanks in part to on-page headings or even putting together non-consecutive portions of text and then creating a description from scratch (noted by the presence of suspensory dots).
Small fun fact: in the case of this query, Google also changed the description manually entered by the authors (translators) of Google’s SEO guide! Moreover, it is completely capable of adding a description from scratch, without a source text (for example, Wikipedia pages do not have a description set, but the snippet is there anyway).
It’s getting even worse, in some ways, for cooking sites and recipe searches: instead of finding the description of the dish, in fact, in the vast majority of cases the meta description written by Google shows the list of ingredients, as we can see for the query “chicken curry.”
These examples thus confirm to us that “sometimes” (and seemingly randomly and without any particular obvious criteria) Google uses the <meta> description tag of a page to generate the snippet of a search result, and that the variable is the algorithm, which may (or may not) believe that the written tag “gives users a more accurate description than that provided solely by the content on the page.”
Nothing “wrong” with that, SEO effects side, except for one paradoxical aspect: if Google can (and often does) completely transform the text we enter, why does it keep suggesting that we “create unique descriptions for every page on the site”? What is the point of devoting care and time to this activity, if our text is not going to be used anyway?
Why are meta descriptions important
The meta description, put simply, is thus the text that appears under the title of a site in search engine results.
From a practical point of view, a catchy description can attract users’ attention, tease them and induce them to click, and as a result, it is often pointed out that creating good meta descriptions can boost a site’s returns, helping to increase the number of clicks and visits to placed pages.
As far as SEO is concerned, however, as early as 2009 Google made it clear that meta descriptions are not a direct ranking factor (i.e., there is no correlation between description content and ranking, partly because the search engine may decide not to consider the description given by the website owner for that particular page), but there are various studies that prove how indirectly descriptions can help improve a website’s organic ranking.
Again, an official Google source – Maile Ohye, then Senior Developer Programs Engineer for the company – had clarified just a year after this announcement (and then in 2010) that “for years the search engine did not consider meta descriptions because they were considered to be a source of spam, but now they can be considered crucial in determining a page’s relevance for a given search.”
More precisely, the descriptions that appear in SERP under a title represent a kind of calling card that makes users quickly understand whether they can actually find what they are looking for within the proposed page-that is, what is meant by the relevance or pertinence of the page to the query.
For this reason, a catchy description that can pique curiosity can induce the user to visit the site and consequently increase the CTR (click-through rate) on that page, a signal that Google can interpret for ranking evaluations.
How to write an SEO meta description
But what does it mean to write a good description?
Net of the inconsistencies indicated earlier, Google explains in detail that a meta description tag “should inform and interest users with a brief, relevant summary of a specific page’s theme,” because this attribute is like “an introduction to convince the user that the page is exactly what they are looking for.” In this light, meta descriptions-and preview snippets more generally-serve precisely to provide users with information that may be important in the pre-evaluation phase of a link, while for sites they are a weapon to grab a click.
Best practices for writing quality meta descriptions
For it to be effective and of quality, the meta description must comply with certain rules, clarified again and again by Google, which indicates what are the priority requests to indulge in writing this field:
- Add a meta description to each page of the site.
- Create unique descriptions for each page of the site, or at least a description for crucial URLs such as the home page and popular pages of the site.
- Include relevant information about the content in the description. The meta description “doesn’t just have to be in sentence format, but is a great place to include information about the page” to provide potential visitors with highly relevant information that might not otherwise be displayed in the snippet.
- Generate code-level descriptions.
- Use quality descriptions, which have a better chance of being displayed in Google search results and can help improve the quality and quantity of organic traffic.
Our approach should always be geared toward the goal of providing users with as concise and accurate a description as possible of the content that awaits them on the landing page, because the meta description serves to “inform and interest users with a brief, relevant summary about the topic of a particular page.” So we need to think of this element as “a presentation that convinces the user that the page is exactly what they are looking for,” knowing that, according to the official document, “there is no limit to the length of a meta description, but the snippet is truncated in Google Search results as needed, usually to fit the width of the device.”
Google’s advice: best practices and bad practices with descriptions
To clarify the expected quality standards and provide some more specific guidance on how to create useful, descriptive meta descriptions (which are more likely to get clicks and traffic), Google later added a list of examples of best and bad practices for writing this element.
It is considered a good meta description template:
- Explain what the store sells and provide details such as opening hours and location– the example from the guide is “Get everything you need to sew your next garment. Open Monday-Friday 8-5pm, located in the Fashion District”.
- Use a portion of the specific news story– the example is “Upsetting the small town of Whoville, a local elderly man steals everyone’s presents the night before an important event. Stay tuned for live updates on the matter.”
- Summarize the entire page-as in “Learn how to cook eggs with this complete guide in 1 hour or less. We cover all the methods, including: over-easy, sunny side up, boiled, and poached,” as in “Learn how to cook eggs with this complete guide in 1 hour or less. We cover all the methods, including: over-easy, sunny side up, boiled, and poached.”
- Be specific and detailed-as in “Self-sharpening mechanical pencil that autocorrects your penmanship. Includes 2B auto-replenishing lead. Available in both Vintage Pink and Schoolbus Yellow. Order 50+ pencils, get free shipping” (which, however, runs close to 200 characters…) or in Italian “Self-sharpening mechanical pencil that autocorrects your penmanship. Includes 2B self-healing lead. Available in both Vintage pink and School Bus yellow. Free shipping on orders of more than 50 pencils.”
Instead, it is considered a bad approach:
- Keyword list – example “Sewing supplies, yarn, colored pencils, sewing machines, threads, bobbins, needles.”
- Use the same description for each news item, as in “Local news in Whoville, delivered to your doorstep. Find out what happened today.”
- Don’t summarize the page – “Eggs are a source of joy in everyone’s life. When I was a small child, I remember picking eggs from the hen house and bringing them to the kitchen. Those were the days.”
- Being too short, as in “Mechanical pencil.”
The length of the meta description
Exactly the length of the meta description is generally considered a difficult aspect of their optimization, because the theories about it are various.
Let’s try to put things in order: Google clearly explains that “there are no length limits for a meta description,” but that, at the same time, in SERPs “search result snippets are truncated as needed, usually to fit the width of devices.”
Wanting to provide some more details for those who have to write an SEO meta description, we can say that the length depends not only on the total number of characters used, but also on the pixels.
As a rule, Google shows snippets that contain between 145 and 160 characters, and editors such as WordPress, for example, report as “acceptable” a description that is around that range; but a letter “W” takes up more space than an “I” and is a variable that should not be overlooked to avoid precisely that our descriptions are truncated and shown only partially in Search results.
Thinking about useful, descriptive and persuasive text
The advice we can give, therefore, is not to focus too much on the precise length to give to the attribute (also because, as we will see, Google could potentially take other parts of text to show), but to write text that is between 145 and 160 characters and that, above all, is descriptive, useful and sufficiently persuasive.
Tips for optimizing an SEO meta description
Going even more specific, we can say that there are some simple rules to follow in order to succeed in writing a meta description text that is also effective in terms of SEO and user experience:
- Write natural, flowing text.
- Create an interesting and engaging presentation.
- Uniform the style and tone used on the site;
- Add a call to action to push the user to click.
- Do not limit yourself in the use of numbers, symbols, emoji and special characters, if functional to the goals and the page. However, we must be careful not to overdo it and, above all, avoid using superscripts and quotation marks (usually descriptions containing them are not taken into account by the search engine, which generates an automatic content to be shown in the snippet) or special symbols such as ” # # £ $ % & @ π (which likewise implies the exclusion of the meta description thus drafted from the SERP, replaced by an excerpt of the referenced web page).
- Use keywords in a thoughtful manner, consistent with the topic and appropriate to the search intent.
The basic goal to be achieved is to attempt to provide clear and precise directions in the limited space available, without overdoing the wording or being too vague.
It is quite obvious (but not superfluous) to add that matching the content is crucial: the phrases in this tag must match the content of the article; they can never be completely unrelated or talk about something else.
Generally, it is suggested to include the page’s main keywords in the description as well, always trying to use them naturally and organically, without forcing or overdoing keyword stuffing. The goal, remember, is to invite the reader to click on the link, so you should never write something unreadable or unpersuasive, but stimulate his curiosity and convince him that our page represents the best answer to his initial question or need.
To achieve these results, one can also think of leveraging some SEO copywriting weapons, and thus insert a direct call to action, clearly specify what is on the page, anticipate the main parts of the content or directly answer a question (to be further elaborated later in the on-page content), launch a benefit that waits for the reader to click on the result.
Meta description and Google, when the algorithm changes the text we have written
On an intuitive level, we might think that if we comply with these best practices and directions (mostly related to common sense) we can consequently increase the likelihood that our <meta name=”description”> tag that we thought of, constructed and wrote as a snippet will appear in SERPs in search results.
In reality this is not the case, and indeed in recent times it happens more and more often (or even all the time) that Google decides to show a meta description different from how we have thought of it-which is why the guides make it clear that there is no 100% certainty that the meta description for the page set by the site will be used-and John Mueller had already tried in 2020 to explain why this situation occurs.
Responding to a user who specifically wanted to know if there were ways and tips to prevent Google from rewriting the meta description tag of a web page shown in search results, the American company’s Search Advocate first confirms that Google does not always use the meta description of a page as written and provided, and then quickly goes into an analysis of the most likely reasons for the change.
Why Google changes the meta descriptions we set
As we said, on a general level for Google, meta descriptions are meant to help users understand whether and how a particular page is relevant and relevant to what they searched for. Thus, the search engine intervenes on its own to rewrite the snippet shown in SERPs when certain circumstances occur.
According to Mueller, there are at least three reasons for Google to word the meta description produced by a site differently:
- The text provided is not relevant or useful (e.g., it is just a list of keywords with no informational value to the user).
- The exact same meta description is used on a large number of pages.
- The meta description does not match what the user is looking for, but the content of the page is instead relevant to the query and search intent.
How to prevent Google from rewriting meta descriptions
Mueller explains that there is no certain and valid method to avoid rewriting the snippet-which, however, is done to the benefit of the site, because it improves the information provided in SERPs by making it closer to the real needs of users, as, by the way, the search engine has also tried to do with rewriting titles.
Sometimes, this element is completely out of the hands of the site owner and, at the same time, there is no method to convince Google to use the meta description provided in 100 percent of cases.
What can be done, therefore, is to optimize the work on this field and try to make Google show the desired meta description more often.
Tips for improving meta descriptions according to Google
If in the production of content we meet these three specific criteria, says John Mueller, there is a high probability that Google will use the meta descriptions we have provided. Specifically:
- Meta descriptions are unique and singular to each page.
- They are short enough to fit in the search results snippet.
- They correspond to what users generally search for when they access that specific page.
Rewriting is a potential benefit to the site
Yet, the Googler continues, even if we meet precisely all of the above criteria, Google may still decide to show a different meta description.
There is a practical reason why this situation occurs, and as we said earlier, rewording can be a benefit to the site. For example, if a person makes a particularly obscure or very specific query that matches only a small portion of the content of our web page, Google will likely intervene to fix the problem by overwriting the meta description that we originally provided with that snippet of text.
This means that Google’s algorithm reads and interprets our overall content and finds the information requested by the user, even though our page probably has a different and broader focus (as does the original meta description), and changing the snippet increases our chances of being chosen as a better and relevant result.
How to handle modified meta descriptions and when to rewrite descriptions
Ultimately, then, what is best to do when Google modifies our meta descriptions? Obviously, the first rule is to check if we have worked well and have not made any serious mistakes such as the ones pointed out by Mueller.
If so, if we find reformulated meta descriptions in SERPs we have two options in front of us: if these are low-volume, low-impact queries – and if the page anyway has a good CTR from Google for other searches – better not to waste time and focus on other optimizations.
If, on the other hand, the “new” query glimpsed by Google within our content is interesting and profitable (high search volume and low competitiveness keywords that we had not evaluated well in the keyword research phase), then it might be useful to modify the meta description and make it as relevant as possible to this new focus, reasoning in the case also about more massive interventions on the onpage content. Of course, this also means evaluating the current CTR and traffic volume produced by the page, to avoid worsening our returns.
The 5 most common mistakes with meta descriptions
We should therefore have understood why writing an effective meta description is a particularly delicate task, requiring both technical skills and persuasive writing: when effective, the meta description can help bring users, and therefore traffic, to the site through clicks on search results pages, while otherwise it can result in the poor performance of otherwise good onpage content.
From the latter point of view, there are at least five major mistakes we should try to avoid in SEO management of meta descriptions.
- Not taking care of the writing of the meta description
We can summarize what we mentioned earlier in one expression: we need to write quality meta descriptions, which in this case takes on several meanings.
Meta descriptions must be truly expository, composed of text that makes sense, with inclusive sentences and consistent with the content of the page. The writing should be fluent and natural, and therefore the description should not be a simple list of words or, worse, manipulative or supposed keywords.
We must never forget that the description is meant to entice the user to open the page when they find the result in SERP, so we need to think about the reader and the words that can convince them to prefer our content instead of another one shown by Google.
- Pay attention to the length of the meta description
We have already said it: the length of the meta description can be a critical element, because basically there is no single and always valid value, but we have to orient ourselves around 160 characters, a quota that usually makes a modifier and truncator intervention of the search engine algorithm less likely. In addition, writing a meta description that is too long also risks not being convincing to users, as well as being automatically panned by Google.
- Not filling in the meta description
Compared to other types of content, not writing a meta description is a minor mistake, because as mentioned Google can interpret the onpage content and generate an automatic description to be shown in SERP (and it also does so when it thinks the parameter is not in line with the query, too long or otherwise ineffective).
In any case, it is still preferable to create descriptions that precisely illustrate the specific page and, if you cannot manage all the pages, set a priority for your content and at least make meta descriptions for essential URLs, such as the home page or the most visited and strategic pages for your business.
- Using duplicate meta descriptions
Far more relevant is to differentiate the descriptions of the various pages, and this depends precisely on the nature and objectives that you achieve with this field: meta descriptions serve to summarize the content of the page, and therefore writing identical or similar descriptions for every page of a site means not providing precise directions to readers. Acting in this way also makes it very likely that Google will intervene to correct and modify the text shown in SERPs.
The practical tip: generate descriptions through programming
Attention to writing an accurate and unique meta description turns out to be easier for sites where each article is handwritten, because the copy must simply add a summary sentence of the content. Different is the case for sites that have huge databases, such as product aggregators, for which manual compilation is burdensome or even impossible: the option available is to generate descriptions at the programming level.
Even if you choose this route, however, you must keep the descriptions distinct and easily readable by the user, using page-specific data are ideal for programming-level generation and avoiding long strings of keywords, which do not provide users with a clear idea of the page content.
- Do not optimize the information provided
There is another important addition to be made: the description can be the ideal place to include information about the page, as long as you code those details appropriately to improve the related rich snippet displayed. It is again the Google guide that explains this further: “News or blog posts can indicate the author, publication date, and source information, and in this way potential visitors will get very relevant information that might not otherwise be displayed in the snippet.”
Similarly, “on product pages, key information (price, age, manufacturer) can be distributed throughout the page,” and “an accurate meta description groups all this data together.”
Meta Description and SEO: does it serve ranking or not?
Now that we have explained what a meta description is, why it is useful, and how it can be curated from an SEO perspective, we have the information to try to answer the question “can meta descriptions improve a website’s search engine ranking?”
The concise answer is “yes, but indirectly,” by helping to improve relevance signals and CTR, and thus considering CTR influential for a page’s ranking in search results, as even tests from a few years ago now said, because it would precisely make the page more relevant from the search engine as it better responds to the query typed by the user and its underlying interest.
In any case, whether it is a direct or indirect ranking factor or, on the contrary, has zero weight on ranking, it is still advisable to take care of and optimize meta descriptions because they are definitely elements that entice the user to click on the result and help the search engine “understand” the context of the page and the information present.
