Meta Description May Affect Rankings After All
It’s “common SEO knowledge” that your meta description does not help your Google rankings. I’m not so sure I agree with this assessment, though.
The meta description is the snippet that shows up in a Google search below your title. If you don’t have a description in your source code, Google will pull a snippet from the content of the site, which may not be what you want to show up when you’re trying to get a searcher to visit your site. So it is important to pay attention to that factor in your SEO efforts.
Try a few searches in Google, and you’ll see that your search words are highlighted in the titles and description. I’ve noticed that if the search term is not in the title, it will be in the description. I’ve yet to see a result that didn’t have it in one or the other. This indicates to me that having keywords in the description does affect your Google SERPs to some degree.
The highest ranking sites usually have them in both the title and the description. My conclusion is that, although having your top keywords for a page in the title itself is most important, it’s vital to have them within the meta description also.
Thanks for this post. I hate to admit I didn’t get the connection between my meta description and my title. This cleared things up.
Question. Do search engine’s look poorly on the number of keywords you have, and if so how many is the number to do? For example, if I have 50 keywords in my meta tag, is that better than 10?
Let me know. I have like 30 in mine.
http://www.jscreeb.com
I’m hoping I’m not ruling myself out.
Debbie – Lots of people get confused about the meta description – I’m glad this helped.
J. Screeb – Ouch! Waay to many keywords. I hope you’re talking about your meta keyword tag and not description tag. 10 keywords is plenty; we used to add reams of them but there’s no point. Just use the top keywords for that page. In your description, put in 2 or 3 that naturally occur as you write something to draw visitors into your site.
Diva,
Although your guess is genuine there is very little fact in it.
The argument that meta description affects the search rankings in some degree is fine but it does not happen always and cannot be assumed as a thumb rule.
A well optimized site with very high competition will have no or less value given to the meta description but to other offsite factors. Ive seen that if its a less comeptitive keyword, the the occurances of the keyword in description is highlighted but that does not mean the weightageis given to it. If it was true, we could’ve fund X number of ways to rewrite the description to optimize engines.
Now this is how I see it.
Titles – Lot of weightage.
Desc – No direct affect esp when competition is high, but serves more or less like an ad copy that will help your visitors click on your site, if you are on the first page that is.
Just my two cents.
Cheers!
Mani Karthik
Thanks for the advice, I will cut it down to 10. What do you mean you hope I’m talking about the description? I missed that part?
http://www.jscreeb.com
I’ve noticed (by accident) that sites without a description don’t show up in the ranking as quick as one’s that do.
There are a lot of differing opinions on meta descriptions. It’s a pretty big controversy on forums… it’s good to get a couple more peoples’ thoughts on them, though
SEO India Guy – I understand where you’re coming from – I used to think the same thing, but do a search and see if you get a result on page 1 of Google without the keywords in the description.
J Screeb – My mistake, you were talking about keywords. I thought you meant you had that many in your description!
Dallas – I agree with you, and if you use Webmaster Tools, it gets very upset if you leave out the description.
Chadwyck – Yes, it is. I’m always glad to hear the opinions of others. Anyway, better safe than sorry!
I’m a little confused about this matter too, although I’ve tried to put my keyword on the description as well as on the title, I had pr3 but for some reason I’ve lost it. I don’t exactly know what went wrong.
bittersweetcollide – A couple of suggestions for you…use All In One SEO to make sure the title/description is different for every post. Also, never put the name of your blog at the beginning of the title. Not sure why you lost your PR3, though. I would contact Google and ask them about that.
just found your blog
some really interesting stuff on here thanx
I agree with you. Recently we just moved our main keyword to the very first words of our description and after 2 weeks we had a raise of 6 on our position.
Of course it’s not as important as it used to be but I wouldn’t think is 100% useless as some people think.
From a relevance standpoint it makes sense. All other factors being equal the more relevant the overall page the more it relates to the search term.
Interesting Stuff…………
According to me it dose not effect much whether we add description or not……..
yes frd, i too think keywords into desc are useful somewat for sure … as the reason u stated is absolutely correct.
I have a site on big site on “truck sales” so i have to target many keywords (of diff types of truck sales listing n all) … so i have used many keywords in the meta keywords tag …. i m used to small sites with few keyword target but i am confused a bit for this trucking site ….
i wanna know ur suggestion on meta tags or any changes for the site u recommend.
Thanx in advance
SEO and meta tags is a complete mystery to many people.Great post!
Web Hosting – I’ve seen improvements on sites too, when the description is added.
Green – Exactly.
Rocker – Thanks for your comment, but I disagree.
Puneet – I did a quick glance through the site, and saw that you are segragating keywords to the appropriate pages. The home page is always the hardest when you have a site with a lot of different products. I try to zero in on the main products, and save the rest for their individual site pages. Otherwise it can look too spammy.
Tom – Thanks!
Whats the harm in having meta tags?
Even if it helps a bit, it is worth it.
Farrhad – I agree!
I’ve gone in and changed mine several times over the last couple of months as I have learned more about SEO. Do you think that could hinder my rankings temporarily? or does it help by showing my website as being actively updated?
Kathy – It doesn’t hurt to change it to make improvements. Once your site starts ranking well, though, it’s time to leave the meta data alone. Updating your site by adding content will definitely help.
i have a doubt here :- once we have meta on our site and for 2 to 3 months less rankings (serp) is shown … then can we change the meta again ? will it harm our site in se ?
Puneet – My suggestion is to scale back on the keyword density in your title and description. I would do it now and see if that doesn’t help your SERP after you’re crawled again. The only time changing those can hurt your site is if it’s already doing well in the SERPs – then it’s best to leave it alone.
It has been awhile now since i was rambling about the fact that meta description does indeed help your ranking. After several tests I have to admit that it does, but when? The help is more visible on less competitive keywords, while on the more competitive ones the improvement is almost invisible.
How ever meta description if it helps on search engine rankings or not is up to judge on the person individually, but another important role that meta description plays is the click through rate. If you just stop for a second and analyze how you act in the SERPs you will figure out that you would rather click on a listing in the SERPs that have a descriptive and intriguing meta description over a one with poor written meta description.
No matter how competitive, it’s all part of the game and, It works.
Leverage a subtle Meta change with fresh content and a density of 1.5 – 3% matched for term / phrase
Edward – I find more and more evidence to support my theory. You are absolutely right about leveraging Meta descriptions.
Have tried this … and a good description surely improves ur serp in search engines for sure with a good support.
SEO Diva – I have noticed the same thing and started to pay more attention myself – again, like it was said we are in a very competitive keyword searches along with national companies like Trulia, Homegain, etc. – Cyndee
http://www.sandbarstosunsets.com/idx
But why blogspot blog can get good result in google result? they dont have description or even keywords
Hi Diva, a little late to the party – I just found your post. I think there’s a very good chance that engines will “value” keywords in the meta description to some degree, but I don’t believe it’s an absolute. More possibly, it’s situational. Maybe it comes into play if it has little else reliable to go on.
Here’s an example of a search term that ranks a page on the front page without the term being in the title or meta description, or even the keywords for that matter. If you google “zappa” today, you’ll find a listing on the first page with the title “IINK”, and no meta description. This page is being served by content and/or links, but not because of the keyword in the title or description.
Great blog!
The meta description for my Colorado Springs Real Estate website is more of a phrase (i.e. assisting buyers and sellers in Colorado Springs).
I have noticed high ranking sites do not have a phrase or sentence explaining their website in the meta description but instead, load it with keywords. I am not an SEO expert but wouldn’t Google see the keyword stuffing as spammy?
Thanks for the post. I will now add more attention to my meta descriptions. I hope it will help in my rankings.
I find that the Meta is needed at all times. Even if google doesn’t use it the other engines do. I find personally that the only time I EVER see Meta text is on the Homepage Meta. Never the Sub Pages. Ive tried 100 times and Never does the meta show. It’s food for thought. Try it out.
I never believe the hype until I try it for myself, and I do think meta tags still help. How much is another argument. I think it helps a lot more in engines like MSN and Yahoo, so it’s still worth the effort.
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hey diva,
lots of spam out here … i think ur not checking out here.
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Diva,
In my case what I had observed that..if you are searching for a key phrase in google…the result which displays contain the combination of TITLE & META DISCRIPTION.
I mean in the first line of SERPs (search engine result pagess) google will display the TITLE & just below (in the second line) they will display the relevant Meta Description keyword.
True or not, it’s a good place to use your creativity to obtain the user’s attention and their clicks!
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