(If this has already been discussed please let me know and I will delete the thread!) I really don't understand when and how does google use the meta description tags. .... And why now?! Some believe the meta description tags might now affect in some way or another your rankings. Others think that on the contrary the meta descriptions are only used to increase the quality of the text displayed in the search results for the human visitors, but they don't influence in any way the rankings. But why does google choose to display the meta description tag for certain searches and not for other? Sometimes the meta tag is shown when it doesn't contain any of the searched keywords in it!
Metatag descriptions ARE used by all search engines. But it is even more important for your visitors. They will read it from the results page and make a decision whether to click you or someone else. So get them right. Meta keywords and most others except title are not worth anywhere near as much.
meta tag is important for search engines. Here you may have a look: Search Engine Optimization How to indicate search engine spiders which part of your website should not be accessed How to indicate search engine spiders not keep a cached version of your page How to use meta tag to promote your site
Well I was very surprised when Google started to use them after ignoring them for so long! The problem is how do you write a meta description that is good enough and attracts clicks for a variety of searches. That same sentence needs to convince both someone searching for keyword "x" and someone searching for keyword "y" to click on your listing! And the question remains why does google choose to show the meta description for a search and not for another? I know the meta description tag was important in yahoo especially but now google joined the game!
It rather helps with click thrus then results. Try writing something convincing and brief with your keyword because it will become bold.
The problem is that although the keyword might exist on your page, it might not appear in the meta description - let's face it, it's impossible to put all the keywords in one or two sentences and make them sound appealing at the same time! So, the results listing will occasionally appear without any bold keywords as Google will choose to display the meta description despite the fact that it doesn't contain the searched keyword in it.
Descriptions alone will not have that much effect in rankings. However combining title, description and keywords with your term in position 1 will. Descriptions are also good for that 'elevator' sentence ending with, CLICK HERE (prompt for action) as Google displays your description, word for word in some cases.
IMHO - thats why its important to learn how to string keywords together so that they sound good in a sentence togther.
But CLICK HERE is just so wrong from the usability and accessibility point of view . plus the description in the search results is not clickable, only the title is.
I'm getting traffic via big keywords but I also get a lot of traffic from obscure keywords. Now if anyone suggests that you can stick in the meta description all of the keywords...! What bothers me is google now often chooses to display the meta description in results listings even when that (more or less) obscure keyword being searched doesn't appear anywhere in the metatag instead of showing the actual snippet of body text where the keyword is actually found!
Yes but sometimes a little prompt for action can make a BIG difference. Many people need to be told. Most se users know what's clickable
While Google is now sometimes using the meta description tag to form part of the SERP desctiption, based on a test that I have had running for over two years it is not indexing the meta description in the word barrels and it does not affect rankings. The test was set up as follows: I placed three different rare or unique words on my index page, one in the page title, one in the meta description and one in the meta keywords and nowhere in the visible content of the page. In Google the page ranks #2 for the term in the page title but not for the terms in either of the meta tags. (Interesting to note that the page that ranks #1 for the term in the page title is ranking because of links using the made up word) In Yahoo the page ranks #1 for the term in the page title, the meta description tag and the meta keywords tag. In MSN the page ranks #1 for the terms in the page title and meta description but does not rank at all for the term in the meta keywords tag. Another interesting, but somewhat unrelated, fact is that the totally madeup word which I used in the page title and which I verified had no listings in Google when it was set up two years ago now returns 586 results, mostly from scraper sites.