How should I fix my short meta descriptions?
-
I recently added meta descriptions to several community-supplied pages for our open source website
Google Webmaster Tools is complaining/warning that the meta descriptions are too short. The descriptions are being supplied by our users and they typically do not lend themselves to anything much longer than what is being entered already.
I was thinking of adding some text to the end of the meta description. Something like "This is one of many third party extensions for Spree supplied free of charge by our community" or something else like that.
Is it acceptable practice to reuse a snippet in your meta description like this? Do you suggest other alternatives? Since meta description doesn't affect page rank can I use terms that I'm trying to rank for on my home page without cannibalizing my link juice?
TIA,
Sean
-
Hey Sean,
We have talked before as we work on one of the spree stores. You need to get content up on all these pages.
For example
http://spreecommerce.com/extensions/267-spree_product_zoom
If it is all user generated content, than you need to make some fields required to help automate this when people add new extensions. Such as title, description.
-Sean
-
Hi Sean,
Note that the meta description tags aren't going to be impacting your rankings. Google doesn't use this tag when determining a pages relevance.
What you do want to be considering is the impact it will have on the click through rate of your listings. By having short meta descriptions you are losing out in two areas:
- Less space is taken up on the page by your listing making it less obvious
- Less time to convince users that they should click on your advert.
Perhaps consider adding on a call to action on the meta description tags to counter both of these issues. Something link - "check out our huge range of third party extensions"?
Hope that helps,
Ben
-
Hey Sean, I had a look at a few and I think you could easily expand these descriptions so enourage your users to work towards a certain number of characters:
Create a multiple slideshow for Spree
becomes
Download page for the spree_multi_slideshow plugin which creates a multiple slideshow for Spree.
That's a bit rubbish but I don't know what Spree is but really, encourage your users to write a more accurate description. Don't use a generic chunk of text, that sucks and does not a strong description of the page make.
To be honest, you may have bigger problems as these pages are all pretty thin on content so getting them to rank at all, let alone display meta descriptions may need a bit of work.
Hope this helps!
Marcus
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Branded keyword results meta description is different then long tail branded search term in SERP
Search "Venturize", the first result is Venturize with the
On-Page Optimization | | WWWade
description "Get help on finding the right loan for your small business
and learn what to look for when comparing your options." However, if you Google "Venturize opportunity finance network", the
first result is Venturize with the description "Playing:360p@30. Embed
size: CDN:fastly. Open link. Twitter · Facebook · About Venturize ·
Contact · About OFN · Mission-Driven Lenders: Locator Map." Why is Google not taking the meta description in the longer tail search? I have checked: All of google's indexed pages for the website- A 3rd party crawl of the website- Multiple other keyword combinations Nothing produced the same result or indicated a reason why "Venturize opportunity finance network" has the incorrect meta description in the SERP.any ideas?0 -
Why does Google not show my Meta Descriptions Sometimes ?
Hi Friends We have Meta Descriptions on our Pages but when certain keywords are typed into google search , different meta descriptions are created , for example when searching for "fancy dress" we see our meta description which is correct - Shop with Party Domain for all your Fancy Dress. 1000s of Fancy Dress Ideas at CHEAP Prices. Halloween Fancy Dress. Next Day Delivery and Same Day ... However when searching for "fancy dress costumes" the same page is ranked but the meta description is Fancy Dress. Female Pirate Fancy Dress Costume. £ 13.80. Female Pirate Fancy ... SKU: G11034. Pirate Captain Fancy Dress Costume. £ 12.22. RRP: £ 15.02 ... Thanks Adam
On-Page Optimization | | AMG1000 -
What are the benefits of the URL meta tag?
We have too many meta tags and want to get rid of all the outdated ones. However, we don't want to eliminate valuable meta tags by mistake. So, before we say goodbye to the URL meta tag, we want to make sure we understand the pros and cons, if any. By the way, we are not referring to canonical URL tags, just URL as in:
On-Page Optimization | | GRIP-SEO0 -
Too many links on page -- how to fix
We are getting reports that there are too many links on most of the pages in one of the sites we manage. Not just a few too many... 275 (versus <100 that is the target). The entire site is built with a very heavy global navigation, which contains a lot of links -- so while the users don't see all of that, Google does. Short of re-architecting the site, can you suggest ways to provide site navigation that don't violate this rule?
On-Page Optimization | | novellseo2 -
Duplicate Content - Meta Data for International Site Roll Out
Hi All, We have a site targeting Ireland, so all on-page SEO is completed and launched on the Irish site. We are now rolling out this site to the UK...how much of this content & SEO meta data has to be changed for Google to not recognise it as duplicate content? Site structure is as follows: http://www.domain.com/ie-en/ - Irish site http://www.domain.com/uk-en/ - UK site Or will it even be considered duplicate content as we have the uk and Irish signals in the subfolders, will be using geo targeting on webmasters, and will have UK specific addresses and phone numbers? We will be rolling this site out to may more countries so would be great to get this straight from the start so we don't waste time creating many versions of the meta data unnecessarily! Many thanks Emma
On-Page Optimization | | john_Digino0 -
Curious meta-tag
Has anyone met this meta tag? <meta name="ranking" content="Top10, Page=1" /> I imagine it has no effect but I'm curios where did it came from, i saw it on many sites
On-Page Optimization | | seo.academy0 -
Should we create separate product descriptions for our customers' web sites?
Still got my SEO learner plates on, but I'm trying to help a small e-commerce site which makes and sells baby products . They have upwards of 150 independent retailers also selling their products. Mindful of the fact that many of these retailers are copying the same product descriptions to use on their own web sites, I wondered if there was any value in creating separate sets of product descriptions, one for our web site and one for all their trade customers, in order to minimise the amount of duplicated content devaluing our site. In theory Google ought to know that ours is the original source of the content, but some testing has shown customers ranking higher for the same product descriptions. We have a separate area on the site for trade, which contains lots of media information they can use, and we could include a set of product descriptions in this area for trade customers to download, keeping a unique set of product descriptions for ourselves. We won't stop duplicate content entirely, I realise - but do you think it's worth the effort of trying to implement? Our web developer thinks it's a total waste of time and not worth bothering with for the miniscule benefit he thinks we'll gain. Grateful for any pointers.
On-Page Optimization | | Mandy_Cochrane0 -
Quick and easy Joomla 1.5 Duplicate content fix?
www.massduitrialalwyers.com has a TON of duplicate content based on the way joomla 1.5 uses articles. Do you have a tried and true method to eliminate (automated would be preferred) the issues>? if not, might you suggest a plug in that takes care of the rel canonical?
On-Page Optimization | | Gaveltek-173238
Cheers0