Comments on: Google Selectively Ignoring Meta Description Tags?

By: Catfish

Catfish — Wed, 27 May 2009 21:25:17 +0000

The key is for competitive keyword phrases, if the phrase is used in the Meta description, then the snippet will be pulled from there. Otherwise if the keyword is not found there, the description may be pulled from page content.

BUT, for long tail keyword phrases, the description tag is not used, the snippets are noticably longer in terms of what Google displays, and the snippets are constructed from segments of text that are found in source and relevant to the query.

It just depends on the query. The same way that competitive keywords are not ranked the same way as long tail keywords are ranked.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:10:13 +0000

What about when Google doesn’t use the meta description but also doesn’t use a snippet – it doesn’t list any text at all. Anyone know why it does this?

By: spazdaq

spazdaq — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 20:44:33 +0000

Its annoying when you spend time setting up a system to generate dynamic meaningful descriptions for each page and see google forgo it in favor of the global nav menu.

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:20:28 +0000

I saw this issue crop up a few weeks ago as well for a two word search. The phrase is the first word in the meta description, and is mentioned a couple more times in there yet Google is using a sentence from the content. Have the exact match in the meta used to always cause Google to display that. Not anymore for some reason…

By: mike

mike — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 19:45:51 +0000

Really SEJ??? Are there any search marketing related sites out there anymore that don’t just recycle old content as new content?????

By: Rob Woods

Rob Woods — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 19:23:10 +0000

We’ve been seeing this activity for several weeks at least. It’s occuring for us for any 2+ word phrases. My testing shows that it’s happening for our more popular keywords where all the terms in the query are not represented in the title tag or meta description of the page.

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 16:56:58 +0000

I would have to agree with Danny Sullivan. Google is simply trying to show why it has come up with the results that it has. In a way, your results may even point the opposite direction, that Google gives priority to the Meta description, but will use site content if the result is not 100% relevant.

By: Gabe Gayhart

Gabe Gayhart — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:24:18 +0000

Yeah I concur with Danny – Google has been doing this for at least a couple of years to my recollection. Granted years kinda morph together, but it’s been awhile. I am just amazed this is a fresh topic on Search Engine Journal. Google is merely serving the most relevant content to the searcher per their keyword inquiry.

By: DVD Repair Tips

DVD Repair Tips — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:36:07 +0000

Yeah I vote for the Danny guy too!.
If the search term matches the meta description closely then Google displays the tag. If not then it displays a snippet from the page.

By: Melissa Fach

Melissa Fach — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 23:15:47 +0000

I am with Danny on this one.