Meta Description On Categories
-
Is it really necessary to add a meta description to your categories and admin pages? I don't even have that option with my Genesis platform. When i received my first crawl test, those are the things that stick out as errors...
-
thanks for all the input, but do the search engines really find author pages, tags and admin pages? those are the ones that are showing errors...
-
Take the time and do it right. Add your "description meta tags".
While it may not directly affect rankings it can indirectly affect rankings. You want the description tag to add a little bait on your hook for the searcher. Google monitors CTRs and therefore having a higher click through because of better description will improve your rankings.
-
I would agree with EGOL. Custom meta descriptions are important for all pages (at least the main ones if you don't have time for all of them). It's all about user experience and when one of your web pages displays in the SERPs, it's important for users to be able to quickly scan the snippet of what that page is about and if it's what they are searching for. EGOL's right, the more content you control the better from a SEO perspective because you know what keywords your targeting and how your content should be described.
-
If you don't have a meta description, Google will grab some relevant text from your page and display it instead. I know a couple people who would rather allow google to choose the description, however, I would rather craft it myself in an attempt to elicit clicks.
I don't know anything about Genesis... but if it does not provide for something as important as a description tag I would be wondering what else is missing?
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 using part of a meta description already on your site for another product considered duplicate?
I'm writing meta descriptions for this site, trying to keep them different, however, for two product types, I want to add the same info I added in the other likeminded product's meta descriptions. Is this ok as long as it's not the whole sentence or am I really to rewrite the same info another way, which is hard for " quick shipping available for x amount of colors ". Any Advice?
Technical SEO | | Deacyde0 -
Meta keywords shown in Google SERPS as site description
I'm seeing Google display meta-keywords in the SERP description for some sites (at least a half dozen that I've checked). I BELIEVE IT IS AN AJAX ISSUE BECAUSE: The sites all use AJAX to display content. So the meta-keywords are in the header, and the javascript that displays the content. Non-AJAX parts of the site display properly in Google SERPS The meta-keywords don't visibly appear anywhere on the page. When I turn off images and Javascript in Chrome I don't see any hidden keyword text. I BELIEVE IT IS A GOOGLE-SPECIFIC ISSUE BECAUSE: Each site displays properly in Bing and Yahoo SERPS - the meta-description is the description. However, (as expected) I see the same strange meta-keyword activity in Aol search In Screaming Frog's SERP preview I see the meta-description as the description. Google has been ignoring met-keywords for years. Any idea why it's appearing in the SERPS for these AJAX powered sites? I found one other person who saw that Google may be reading and displaying their content in AJAX even though that content is meant to appear on a different "page". No one on that Google Forum seemed to understand the person's problem. The only reason I get it is because now I'm seeing it with my own eyes. I know the Moz community can do better, so i'm posting about it here.
Technical SEO | | AlexCobb0 -
Advice urgently needed on best practice for handling multiple product categories on Magento website
I have an ecommerce site built using Magento and urgently need advice on best practice for handling multiple product categories (where products appear in more than one category on the site creating multiple URLs to the same page). In April this year, based on advice from my SEO who felt that duplicate content issues were causing my rankings to be held back, I changed about 25% of the product categories to 'noindex, follow'. This has made organic traffic fall (obviously) as these pages fell out of Google's index. But, contrary to what I was hoping for, it didn't then improve rankings - not one iota, nothing - which was the ONLY reason why I did this. This has had a real negative impact on sales, so I'm starting to think this was actually an a terrible idea. Should I change them back? And to ask a wider question, what is best practice for this particular scenario?
Technical SEO | | Coraltoes770 -
How do I handle duplicate content of the same product in Multiple product categories?
I am building a BigCommerce store for selling framed art. Many of the pieces of art will fall in more than one product category. Let's say I have a framed print of a photograph of a western landscape. This piece of art would fit into these categories; "western", "landscape", and "photography". I would have three pages with duplicate content for just this one framed print. Will google give me less page rank due to this? Can all the link juice be given to just one of the three categories by use of rel=canonical? If so, does anyone know how to do this for a bigcommerce site? I would appreciate any feedback. Thanks, Kelly
Technical SEO | | Kelly_S0 -
Meta Refresh for No Javascript message
We're currently using meta refresh tag to check if JavaScript is enabled or not in users browsers. And if not then we redirect them to jsnotfound.aspx page: <metahttp-equiv="refresh"content="0;url= default.aspx?jse="0"/"></metahttp-equiv="refresh"content="0;url=> It's being flagged in SEOmoz tools so our developer tried solution highlighted in this Question: http://www.seomoz.org/q/meta-refresh-nojavascript-url ...but he couldn't get it to work. Is it really imperative we don't use the meta refresh for this purpose? Thanks in advance. Michael
Technical SEO | | LawrenceNeal0 -
Product category paging
Hi, My product categories have 2-3 pages each. I have paging implemented with rel=next and rel=prev. from some reason Google GWT now reports the pages as having duplicate titles and description. Should I be worried? Should I set a different title like "blue category - page x" ? Thanx, Asaf
Technical SEO | | AsafY0 -
Meta keywords
I heard that Google doesn't use 'meta keywords' for ranking. Is that true and does it harm to use the meta tag? And how do the other big SEs use the tag?
Technical SEO | | kortingsplanet0 -
WordPress Question: Canonical field in Category Section of Yoast SEO Plug In
I've added the Yoast SEO Plug In for my word press blog. When I add a new category, there is a listing called "Edit Category". On this page there is a listing "Yoast WordPress SEO Settings." In this section, there are two fields in which I need guidance on what is supposed to be included. One: There is a field called "Canonical". What info is supposed to be entered in this field and how does it need to be formatted? Is it a URL. If so, what URL is supposed to go there? Two: Breadcrumbs title. What is the purpose of this field? (Isn't it OK to just use the category name as the breadcrumb title?)
Technical SEO | | EricVallee340