meta description

[superpump]

I'm getting errors in my webmaster account due to our meta tags being too short for our descriptions. How long should they be? thanks.

[ssandecki]

You should make your descriptions unique and an "actual" description of the page, below is an example of a description for a contact us page for ABC Dry Cleaning.

Use this page to contact ABC Dry Cleaning. Contact by email, phone or online chat!

Again, this is a rough example to give you an idea, don't worry about stuffing keywords, make an ACTUAL correct description.

[fweikeong]

ssandecki has made a good description example :-

Use this page to contact ABC Dry Cleaning.

First half of the description tell us what the page is all about

Contact by email, phone or online chat!

second half list the options available.

note that : [I]contact, email, phone, chat[I] are all related to 'communication'.

very good example indeed, and google loves it, as well as people seeing it in the search results.

well done ssandecki :)

[magda]

I'm getting errors in my webmaster account due to our meta tags being too short for our descriptions. How long should they be? thanks.

25 to 30 words

[4play]

hey read this
google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35624&hl=en
this should help you out.

[billybw]

My testing shows that Google limits the length to 150 letters and spaces. So you should try to cram your main points into that number of characters.

The other important consideration is to try to create a description that will attract the attention of searchers and increase the chance that they will click on your site.

[aira]

Just make the description short and direct to the point. the shorter the better...

[bedmo]

you should not make a lot of keywords in meta-description.

[magda]

Just make the description short and direct to the point. the shorter the better...
as his original question was about getting an error message for it being too short, he doesn't want to make it shorter, now does he...

[superpump]

you should not make a lot of keywords in meta-description.

i've lengthened 30 of my 69 errors, so we'll see if they are long enough when google updates my account

[trichnosis]

in my opinion, between 60-100 chra. long meta description is great

[Tudi]

The amount of characters that will show in Google SERPS is 150, after which you'll get "..."'ed.

From my studies, I realized that:

1. Google does not index descriptions
2. The only use of having keywords in description tags is that they get bolded in SERPs, thus might increase your CTR
3. The description should be unique for each page, otherwise it could send you to the supplemental index
4. Good, expressive and title-related descriptions can boost CTR in the SERPs

Regarding the desc lenght, I'd have to agree with Trichnosis and say around 100 words. No more than 150 and no less than 50 anyway :)