What to do with bad META DESCRIPTION tags?

Discussion in 'Google' started by rgkopchak, Jul 10, 2008.

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  1. #1
    Alright, this is branching off another thread, because its a seperate issue from the original.

    I've started working for an ecommerce site that has 10,000 some-odd pages, divided among 20 or 30 product lines. Each product line HAS THE SAME META DESCRIPTION. I know this is bad. I am setting up procedures to ensure all new data has proper META DESCRIPTION tags.

    BUT the question is: "What do I do with old tags?"

    I seem to have two options:

    1) Leave them as they are. Maybe fixing them slowly over time if possible.
    2) Wiping out all META DESCRIPTION tags (using the software the site uses).

    Usually I'm of the opinion that no data is better than bad data.... but I wanted a second opinion before I wipe all this data away.

    Thanks in advance.
     
    rgkopchak, Jul 10, 2008 IP
  2. salman4raza

    salman4raza Peon

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    #2
    better ask in scripting section of dp. i don't know what you are telling about completely.


    but still i think leave them as they are. it may help google when they will not find enough date in the page.
     
    salman4raza, Jul 10, 2008 IP
  3. ORIGIN

    ORIGIN Active Member

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    #3
    I think no data is beter as it will force google to look for it deeper down the page or somewhere else.

    in google tools duplicate descriptions comes up as an error, while having no descriptions does not show an error. so if I had to choose, i would take out all the duplicates and rather have none.
     
    ORIGIN, Jul 10, 2008 IP
  4. alviother

    alviother Peon

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    #4
    in my opinion you should go for the second option "ORIGIN" is right .it should not effect google bcoz they will find relative description from your pages
     
    alviother, Jul 10, 2008 IP
  5. Bryce

    Bryce Peon

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    #5
    Origin is absolutely correct. Wipe them out as soon as possible. The funny thing about META tags is that they can hurt you more than they can help you. I'd suggest not using them if you're generating dynamic content that is changing on a regular basis.

    You can see the effect he's talking about when you look at your site in the Google webmasters console. Duplicate META description and keywords tags are the first level of on-page SEO errors.
     
    Bryce, Jul 10, 2008 IP
  6. ranjuse

    ranjuse Banned

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    #6
    Just verufy your site with GOOGLE webmaster tool

    You can find the duplicate title and desciption pages which google has mensioned
     
    ranjuse, Jul 10, 2008 IP
  7. rgkopchak

    rgkopchak Peon

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    #7
    Its been a slow process, but replacing the tags seems to be helping. More and more pages are showing up on google everyday.
     
    rgkopchak, Aug 22, 2008 IP
  8. debunked

    debunked Prominent Member

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    #8
    Does the software you are using have an SEO addon to generate the tags? Many of the ones I have seen do this and use the product name / description as the Title.
     
    debunked, Aug 22, 2008 IP