7 Ways Your Page May Be Described in the SERPs
Jill Whalen explain's what bearing the meta description may have on the way your results are displayed in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS). Important stuff if you want to display the right text to tempt users to click on your links!
Dear Jill,
I have just read your article on "How To Create a Meta Description Tag for
Search Engine Optimization" that was written in 2004.
I found it very helpful. I am relatively new to the SEO scene and still
finding my way around. I work for a travel company and we have just
relaunched our website. If possible I would like to know whether this
article still holds true today.
I have written all my meta tags for our major pages yet the description that
Google shows is not always (if ever) what I have written. Now, working for a
travel agency we obviously rely on our description to entice our visitors to
come to us, say for example on a specific accommodation. But if a keyword is
put in, the description sometimes does not make any sense (e.g., it uses the
alt tags in the photos).
My question is whether there is a way to make sure a certain description
comes up? I look forward to your other articles.
Regards,
Jeremy
++Jill's Response++
Wow! Has it really been that long since that article was updated? Seems like
just last year! Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I just read
through it again and did some checks on Google and Yahoo to see if anything
has changed. For the most part, a lot of what I found is similar to what I
noticed 3 years ago, but there are some differences in how the Meta
description tag is displayed. It's important to note that the search engines
are always playing around with what they display as the descriptions for any
given URL in the search engine results pages (SERPs), so you may see
something other than what I see. In fact, I believe that Google has an
entire "snippet team" devoted to this!
Below is what I found to be happening in the SERPs as of today, in terms of
what they show for descriptions and snippets:
1. Unlike 3 years ago, today Google will default to your Meta description
information when you search for a page by URL such as www.example.com. Yahoo
does the same, which was also true for them in 2004. But of course, not many
people other than the site owners themselves search using a page's URL.
2. Google will often default to the Meta description information, even if
the searched-upon keywords do not appear within it, which they weren't doing
as much back in 2004.
3. Yahoo will also default to the Meta description info; however, they tend
to take just the first part of the Meta description and then add a snippet
of text from the visible page copy that happens to have the searched-upon
keywords within it.
4. Google does not (at this time) seem to give any weighting to pages when
the keyword queried is used only in the Meta description tag and nowhere
else. I say "at this time" because I know in the past I have seen them show
pages that have the keyword only in the Meta description, and I wouldn't be
surprised if this is something they turn on and off at various times.
If/when they do show pages that have the phrase only in the Meta description
tag, it would tell us that they give some bit of weighting to words in that
tag. If they don't show it, then there would be no weighting attached to the
words in the Meta description tag.
5. If the page has no Meta description tag, Google appears to display a
description that is almost always the start of a sentence that happens to
contain the keyword phrase as opposed to a snippet grabbed from the middle
of a sentence. This is interesting, as they often used to just grab the
first instance of the keyword phrase, which didn't always make for a nice
snippet. Grabbing the start of a sentence definitely makes the SERP itself
look nicer and I commend Google for displaying things this way currently. If
the page is listed in DMOZ and lacks both the description and "NoODP" Meta
tags, Google will also sometimes display the DMOZ description for a page.
(See here more info.)
6. If the page has no description Meta tag and is in Yahoo's directory,
Yahoo will default to using their directory description, unless the "NoYdir"
Meta tag is placed on the page (see article referenced in #5). If it's a
short description, they will also add some snippets of text from the page.
This can look jumbled at times, in my opinion.
7. If the page has no description Meta tag and is not in Yahoo's directory,
Yahoo will take a snippet from text on the page that contains the keywords
(or some of the keywords) in the query. Unlike Google, they do not take the
snippet from the start of a sentence, making their SERPs look not quite as
nice as Google's.
Those are pretty much the highlights of what I found. It's easy enough to
test this for yourself if you're so inclined. Simply do some searches at
the engines and review the SERPs, the source code on the page, and the words
on the page. Don't forget that results will depend on whether the page has a
DMOZ (dmoz.org) or Yahoo directory listing (dir.yahoo.com).
In terms of what this means as you're optimizing your pages, it's clear that
it's worthwhile to create a unique and compelling Meta description for each
page of your site, as that will provide you with the most control over what
your potential audience sees in the SERPs. Barring that, as long as you have
well-written content on the page that naturally uses your keyword phrases,
you still have a good chance of having a decent description show up -- at
least in Google.
Jill
Jill Whalen of High Rankings® is an internationally recognized search engine optimization consultant and host of the free weekly High Rankings® Advisor search engine marketing newsletter. Jill's handbook, "The Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines" teaches business owners how and where to place relevant keyword phrases on their Web sites so that they make sense to users and gain high rankings in the major search engines.
Jill specializes in search engine optimization, SEO consultations, site analysis reports, SEM seminars and is the co-founder of Search Engine Marketing New England (SEMNE) a local networking organization.
Dear Jill,
I have just read your article on "How To Create a Meta Description Tag for
Search Engine Optimization" that was written in 2004.
I found it very helpful. I am relatively new to the SEO scene and still
finding my way around. I work for a travel company and we have just
relaunched our website. If possible I would like to know whether this
article still holds true today.
I have written all my meta tags for our major pages yet the description that
Google shows is not always (if ever) what I have written. Now, working for a
travel agency we obviously rely on our description to entice our visitors to
come to us, say for example on a specific accommodation. But if a keyword is
put in, the description sometimes does not make any sense (e.g., it uses the
alt tags in the photos).
My question is whether there is a way to make sure a certain description
comes up? I look forward to your other articles.
Regards,
Jeremy
++Jill's Response++
Wow! Has it really been that long since that article was updated? Seems like
just last year! Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I just read
through it again and did some checks on Google and Yahoo to see if anything
has changed. For the most part, a lot of what I found is similar to what I
noticed 3 years ago, but there are some differences in how the Meta
description tag is displayed. It's important to note that the search engines
are always playing around with what they display as the descriptions for any
given URL in the search engine results pages (SERPs), so you may see
something other than what I see. In fact, I believe that Google has an
entire "snippet team" devoted to this!
Below is what I found to be happening in the SERPs as of today, in terms of
what they show for descriptions and snippets:
1. Unlike 3 years ago, today Google will default to your Meta description
information when you search for a page by URL such as www.example.com. Yahoo
does the same, which was also true for them in 2004. But of course, not many
people other than the site owners themselves search using a page's URL.
2. Google will often default to the Meta description information, even if
the searched-upon keywords do not appear within it, which they weren't doing
as much back in 2004.
3. Yahoo will also default to the Meta description info; however, they tend
to take just the first part of the Meta description and then add a snippet
of text from the visible page copy that happens to have the searched-upon
keywords within it.
4. Google does not (at this time) seem to give any weighting to pages when
the keyword queried is used only in the Meta description tag and nowhere
else. I say "at this time" because I know in the past I have seen them show
pages that have the keyword only in the Meta description, and I wouldn't be
surprised if this is something they turn on and off at various times.
If/when they do show pages that have the phrase only in the Meta description
tag, it would tell us that they give some bit of weighting to words in that
tag. If they don't show it, then there would be no weighting attached to the
words in the Meta description tag.
5. If the page has no Meta description tag, Google appears to display a
description that is almost always the start of a sentence that happens to
contain the keyword phrase as opposed to a snippet grabbed from the middle
of a sentence. This is interesting, as they often used to just grab the
first instance of the keyword phrase, which didn't always make for a nice
snippet. Grabbing the start of a sentence definitely makes the SERP itself
look nicer and I commend Google for displaying things this way currently. If
the page is listed in DMOZ and lacks both the description and "NoODP" Meta
tags, Google will also sometimes display the DMOZ description for a page.
(See here more info.)
6. If the page has no description Meta tag and is in Yahoo's directory,
Yahoo will default to using their directory description, unless the "NoYdir"
Meta tag is placed on the page (see article referenced in #5). If it's a
short description, they will also add some snippets of text from the page.
This can look jumbled at times, in my opinion.
7. If the page has no description Meta tag and is not in Yahoo's directory,
Yahoo will take a snippet from text on the page that contains the keywords
(or some of the keywords) in the query. Unlike Google, they do not take the
snippet from the start of a sentence, making their SERPs look not quite as
nice as Google's.
Those are pretty much the highlights of what I found. It's easy enough to
test this for yourself if you're so inclined. Simply do some searches at
the engines and review the SERPs, the source code on the page, and the words
on the page. Don't forget that results will depend on whether the page has a
DMOZ (dmoz.org) or Yahoo directory listing (dir.yahoo.com).
In terms of what this means as you're optimizing your pages, it's clear that
it's worthwhile to create a unique and compelling Meta description for each
page of your site, as that will provide you with the most control over what
your potential audience sees in the SERPs. Barring that, as long as you have
well-written content on the page that naturally uses your keyword phrases,
you still have a good chance of having a decent description show up -- at
least in Google.
Jill
Jill Whalen of High Rankings® is an internationally recognized search engine optimization consultant and host of the free weekly High Rankings® Advisor search engine marketing newsletter. Jill's handbook, "The Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines" teaches business owners how and where to place relevant keyword phrases on their Web sites so that they make sense to users and gain high rankings in the major search engines.
Jill specializes in search engine optimization, SEO consultations, site analysis reports, SEM seminars and is the co-founder of Search Engine Marketing New England (SEMNE) a local networking organization.