Has anyone any experience of Google pulling through random meta descriptions.
-
If you search "venn digital" then the correct meta description is pulled through, but if you search "venndigital" then it pulls through our twitter feed from the bottom of the page.
My only suggestion is that it is doing it because there is no mention of " Venn Digital" in the body of the copy, so it is going to the twitter feed at the bottom of the page where Venn Digital is mentioned to pull this info through.
-
I have the same problem, sometimes i optimize the metadescription to increase my CTR but google doesn´t want to show it.. grr
-
Yep, seems Google treats the meta description tag as mere suggestion then anything else.
Very normal.
-
Hi Andrew. Yes, Google has been known to pull other text for its results instead of what is in the meta description. Same goes for title tags as well. Like you've inferred, what they're trying to do is match their search result with the most applicable portion of text from what they deem the most relevant page.
Edit. See: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35624 for Google's larger explanation of this process. Cheers!
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
-
Is it okay to update Page Titles and Meta descriptions over a period of time?
Some of the page are not performing even after having good content, videos, images and faqs. I am planning to update the page titles and planning to use Long Tail keywords in it for example, Contact US - Brand name would be Contact US - Brand Keyword. Is it okay to do that for all the pages?
Local SEO | | Ravi_Rana0 -
Variation on the subdomain/sub-directory question... Descriptive TLDs
Hi there, We have a variation on the subdomain/sub-directory question... Our business has two monetising areas, a clinic and a shop. To market them, we do recipes, blogs and social media, rather than relying primarily on SEO, but we do want to up our SEO game. Our primary site is www.example.co.uk This is Wordpress and where we market the clinic, host the recipes and blogs, and is our main email domain. Our second site is Woocommerce, at www.example.shop Our shop market is primarily in the UK, but we seem to pick up a fair amount of international business, partly because the clinic does virtual consultations to many countries. The shop is online only. We have physical clinics across the UK. Both sites cross link extensively, eg with blogs advertising products in the shop. The branding is intentionally related yet different, because they have very distinct functions, and eg. I don’t want to clutter the interface or distract people with blog or clinic once we have funnelled them to the shop checkout. I would also like to separate the blog and recipe elements from the clinic, using a slightly different theme with different functions. We use a lot of plugins, and the more we aggregate functions on the same Wordpress instance, the more likely something is to go wrong. I like the new TLDs because they are more “human”, and they identify where you are and what you are doing more clearly. We do email footers with links to example.clinic (redirected to www.example.co.uk) and example.shop. They are simple and explain what is going on. Conversely, shop.example.co.uk is not so easy to write or read out. www.example.co.uk/shop looks like an afterthought, rather than a shop in its own right with its own home page. So there would have to be a really good SEO reason for me to merge the shop into the main site with reverse proxy or multisite. Do you think that there is such a good reason? If not, by the same token, would it make sense to separate out example.blog or even naturedoc.recipes from example.clinic and use .co.uk as a single page portal to the three separate sites? My instinct, for what it is worth is that Google is smart enough to have started thinking that domains linked by topic TLDs can be equivalent to subdomains, and to recognise that we are not trying to build links from spammy unrelated sites. My last area is about human behaviour... Are people are as happy to click on or type in a new TLD like .clinic as a local .co.uk one? ...when (a) it is not a discredited TLD like .biz, and (b) it gives them more insight into what they will get when they arrive. And since we have the .uk domain, should we switch to this shorter version at the same time? I already use it for custom shortcodes (eg. example.uk/fte6 for people to type in from printed material or instagram). I can’t help feeling .uk has been unsuccessful, and its use now looks bad, even if it is shorter. Many thanks in advance.
Local SEO | | MizRabble0 -
Can we use the same titles and meta descriptions for all of our office locations? We have 18 locations in total.
Hello, TTR Data Recovery has 18 different office locations and I am wondering if we can use the same title and meta description for all locations and just change the location name...For example: #1 Best Data Recovery Services in Atlanta, GA| TTRDATA TTR Data Recovery offers a comprehensive suite of data recovery services in Atlanta, GA including Hard Drive, SSD, Server and RAID/NAS. Get A Free Quote! #1 Best Data Recovery Services in Miami, FL | TTRDATA TTR Data Recovery offers a comprehensive suite of data recovery services in Miami, FL, including Hard Drive, SSD, Server and RAID/NAS. Get A Free Quote! Would this be already, or would it be better if we had a unique title and meta description for every location? We want to get the same message across and it would be difficult to change the wording 18 times. I look forward to hearing back from you guys. Thank you.
Local SEO | | Kiakh19870 -
Indexed by Google but only ranking in Bing and Yahoo
I have a website nativeamericanpalmhut.com that has been up and running for months. The sitemap was created and submitted in GWMT and the site was indexed pretty quickly. Here's where I'm lost all of the pages are indexed but only the homepage ranks and only for the exact match domain query "Native American Palm Huts". What's even more confusing is that Google Analytics and HotJar Analytics are both showing hundreds Google organic search traffic coming to the site on multiple pages (not just the homepage). This on top of the fact the that website is ranking well for several different terms in Bing and Yahoo lead me to believe this is a Google search specific problem. I have checked the backlinks to see if maybe there was a penalty on the domain but couldn't find any record of it. I've searched the Moz Q&As, Countless Google forums, etc with no luck. I'm scratching my head at the moment so if anyone has any ideas on what could be causing the problem that would be great.
Local SEO | | White_Shark_Media1 -
When you think you know Google, but realise you don't
I've just typed "Private Investigator" into Google, location set to "Coleshill" (it's near Birmingham!)
Local SEO | | Solid_Web
The search results were surprising:
Position 6: <cite class="_Rm">birmingham-privateinvestigators.co.uk</cite>
Position 8: <cite class="_Rm">privateinvestigator-coventry.co.uk</cite> Both sites are the same source of information altered to suit the city - INCREDIBLY SPAMMY. They are just full of SEO text stuffing. No doubt any city you enter they will appear with [city]-privateinvestigators.co.uk..
How are they ranking with such old-skool dirty SEO tactics? You can't say they will be found eventually, because Google has released algorithm after algorithm updates to penalise sites like this. Could it be the importance of having a local phone number and (supposedly) physical address?0 -
Showing a preferred Google location in branded search for a multi-location business?
Background: A business has 5 brick and mortar locations, in 5 different states, with 5 separate Google+ profiles. The corporate headquarters are in Michigan. The Michigan Google+ Local profile is the one that should be most closely associated with the brand. Problem: We want the Michigan Google + Local page to show up for branded searches nationwide: right now, it only shows up on geolocated searches in Michigan. Of course, it totally makes sense that the other 4 Google+ local pages will appear for users searching with IP locations (or logged in locations) near those states. But for other states - is there a way to help Google understand or give preference to the main corporate location? What we're trying to prevent is someone in New York City searching for "company name", and then seeing a lesser location appear in SERPs associated with the brand, instead of our favored Michican location. Ideas so far: Continue to enhance out the Michigan location's Google+ page (check categories, photos, description, share content frequently, expand circles, get reviews, yada yada yada - we've already done much of this). _Maybe give this page more attention and content than other locations if we have to? _ Build links into Michigan Google+ page? Ensure general citations are up to date - use localeze/moz local etc. Website - We have a page for each location. While Michigan is featured, we also do promote our other offices as well - all kinda promoted equally on site in terms of metadata, content, etc. Any other brainstorming advice or out-of-the-box (oh no, did I just say "out-of-the-box"?) ideas to help Google associate the Michigan location as our "primary" one we want shown on more generic branded searches, even though of course the other 4 are impt too? Tricky...
Local SEO | | mirabile0 -
Wrong Finance Card Result in Google SERP.
Hi All, How do I correct wrong stock price card information for the specific brand in Google SERP? When I search for "DBS Bank stock price" it returns PowerShares DB Silver Fund (ETF) stock price instead of the correct D05.SI Thanks
Local SEO | | PUREGRAY0 -
Google My Business
HI everyone, I hope you can assist me. I am trying to set-up the Google graph that appears in the Google search results pages that appear to the right hand side of the screen. I have tried contacting Goolge but never receive a response from them, which I think is rather strange. If anyone knows how to action this please help. Regards,
Local SEO | | KJDMedia0