Sometimes our meta description being displayed is not ours?
-
We just launched our new website a week ago (also switched to Wordpress). Yesterday I noticed that sometimes our homepage Meta Description displays something different in Google results than what we have set. I had others confirm the same result on their computers. I asked all who have been involved with marketing for company if that description was ever used for the company, as it seemed odd and worded very strange. No one has ever seen this or used this on any of our listings, social profiles etc ever. I check my meta descriptions set for home page and they were still correct. Also did a view source for cache page by Google and it showed the correct Meta Description. Still confused, I did an exact match search on the description and came up with about 30+ spam/link farm type of websites with this odd description noted by our name along with a link back to us. We never asked or paid for these. Why are they there? And how could this influence our homepage meta description? This has me very concerned that we might already be getting hacked. I see no other issues with the site.
Looking for any help regarding:
- Why is the odd meta description showing up sometimes?
- Why do we have backlinks from these random sites?
- Is this all connected? Maybe trackbacks and pingbacks?
Any help you can provide me is appreciated. Thanks!
-
Good idea. Thanks for the help!
-
As with any backlinks you dont want, if you cant request removal you should disavow them in GWMT
-
Ok. Will do.
Any recommendation as far as those 30+ backlinks from those link farm sites? It is strange that those are the only websites that include that incorrect meta description.
-
Hmm i cant see anything funny going on, this is essentually what googlebot should see when viewing the page. If you'd been hacked i would expect to see the wrong description here.
If the site has been live a week, you might just be in a bit of a blip. Best thing i can suggest is request a reindex / new crawl in GWMT and wait it out. Google can take 3 ~ 4 weeks to update listings properly when meta information changes (in my experiance atleast)
-
Doubtful. This was not on the old website. I'm told it was never used. See below, the wording is awkwardly worded, which makes me think it was a poor translation or something. Not sure.
"Manufactures a fencing system to protect pool systems from children."
-
Ah, completely missed the attachement.
I'll poke about and see if i can spot anything
-
Hi Toby - Please see the image in my first comment above. This includes screenshot of both variations.
-
Can you provide exactly what your seeing? (as in the full meta description that you think is incorrect and what it should be?)
This is what i see when viewing markup on your homepage, but with the above info i have no idea if thats correct or not
-
Old indexed content??
-
David - This incorrect meta description does not appear anywhere on our website or anywhere on our Google+, social sites, etc.
-
Meta Description sometimes are now pulled from the main body content, Google is getting more and more good at finding the most relevant content on a page to display to a particular search.
In the future i can see Meta Descriptions being dropped just the same as the Meta Keywords have
Hope this helps
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
-
Meta Description Length is Doubling (Like Twitter)
Just saw this: https://imgur.com/a/KQ0Hf This is the first time I have ever seen a meta description that long. Ever. I haven't seen any other sites covering this. That's a 275-character-length description that is not being truncated. Thoughts? I'm freakin' out.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | TaylorRHawkins1 -
Having a Size Chart and Personalization Descriptions on each page - Duplicate Content?
Hi everyone, I am coding a Shopify Store theme currently and we want to show customers the size comparisons and personalization options for each product. It will be a great UX addition since it is the number one & two things asked via customer support. But my only concern is that Google might flag it as duplicate content since it will be visible on each product page. What are your thoughts and/or suggestions? Thank you so much in advance.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MadeByBrew0 -
4 websites - meta titles and descriptions
I manage four separate websites/brands that all focus on the same topics and have the same achitecture. I am trying to improve each site's meta title and description, page by page, that I inherited from another before me. My question is, how different should each title/description be from one another for the same page type? Do the search engines consider this heavily in their decision process of who to show on SERPs? Am i able to simply swap out the brand name in the metas and call it done or should each meta be unique? if unique, how unique? As you can imagine, since each page is essentially the same with the same overall content and layout targeting the same keywords, it is very difficult to rewrite metas four unique ways. I greatly appreciate any advice on how you would approach this project.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | dsinger0 -
Meta Description Lengths?
Hi All, I've heard so many different opinions on meta description lengths. What's your general consensus? Some say up to 250 characters, Moz says around 150-160 characters, and Google typically truncates to no more than, say 160 characters. One might say then that clearly you shouldn't go above what Google shows, but my experience shows that it's not a deal breaker at all for ranking. Thoughts?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CSawatzky0 -
Custom Wordpress Theme - HTML5 Outline - H1 display: none
We are using a custom wordpress theme for to help us optimize our webpages. We're trying to structure the webpages so that things are as optimized as possible for our clients. I was wondering if we could get some feedback on whether or not we using the correct page structure across the site. We have set a no-display class on the H1 so that the page title wouldn’t mess up the layout and is placed above the logo and have placed other header tags on the different page sections and added in keyword variations to avoid having untitled sections. Is equal to ? Is there a better way to structure this content? Are we not doing something that we should be or overdoing anything? I guess my main question is what would be the best way to use HTML5 to structure this website?http://estheticdentistry.net
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | projectassistant0 -
A site is using their competitors names in their Meta Keywords and Descriptions
I can't imagine this is a White Hat SEO technique, but they don't seem to be punished for it by Google - yet. How does Google treat the use of your competitors names in your meta keywords/descriptions? Is it a good idea?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | PeterConnor0 -
Is using Zeus's gateway feature to display contents from the different URL OK to do?
I've been writing a blog on free hosting blog platform and planning to migrate that under my domain name as directory. myblog.ABCD.com to www.mydomain.com/myblog now, I've learned that my Zeus server has a way to show myblog.ABCD.com at mydomain.com/myblog without transferring anything by using the Gateway feature. This will save a lot of time and hassle for me, but my question is if this is ok to do?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | HypermediaSystems
Is there a chance that this could be considered a blackhat even though the content is mine? From the Zeus documentation:
"Gateway aliases enable users to request files from the new
web server, and receive them as if they were on the new server, when they are
still located on the legacy server. To the user, the files appear to be located on
the new server. " Thank you.0 -
Is it okay to use hiddencontaining meta information that is a video transcript?
I have been using the tools at DotSub.com to transcribe our YouTube videos. They are free, work really great and I highly recommend them. Today I received an email from DotSub with recommendations for SEO on video. I have a question about #5 on their list. Here it is: "Step 5: Embed the video transcript into the non-visible meta-data of the page" "Always embed the video transcript in the page meta-data This is done by placing
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | danatanseo
the content of the transcription within a non-visible HTML element (a hidden
div). While most search engines do not weight non-visible content as high as
visible content, this will still provide additional SEO for your page. Do
this whether you include the full transcript visibly on your page or not." This is something I have never heard before. And, like many of you, I have always heard that putting anything "hidden" in the HTML is a very bad idea. Is this different? Do any of you do this? Is it really a recommended technique? Thanks all! Dana0