Having no Meta Description?

10 years ago

according to a video of matt cutts meta description is just for describing your website page on SERP snippet. but I guess the importance of this is when you can use keywords inside the meta description and optimized that keywords or use as an anchor text for your backlinks, this can be helpful in terms of your keywords ranking.

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aars14

10 years ago

Meta description isn't that necessary, your cure focus should be on quality content + building authority links.

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ketul

10 years ago

Meta description will show show your result in SE snippet. It provide information about your company that helps user to search it better.

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nettiapina

10 years ago

Should not harm you, and it can actually help you in some cases. If you've got long articles that touch several different points within the topic of the article, Google's dynamic meta description might serve you better than a static one.

I'm usually dealing with straightforward business pages with one major keyword per page. Writing a good meta description is easy, and you can even have a CTA.

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martinluther

10 years ago

If you don't have meta tag, then Google doesn't count it as a negative. There are many website that don't have meta optimize, but still ranking well. Try to keep your most important information in the first row page when you are not have meta information.

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abhijit12a

10 years ago

No there is no problem if your site does not have description tag, Google will pick random content from website and display as description but having good description will help you to rank for specific keywords or search terms. Description allow you to tell visitor what exactly your web page all about. Having good description will increase you click through rate.

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Anteela

10 years ago

Originally Posted by abhijit12a

No there is no problem if your site does not have description tag, Google will pick random content from website and display as description but having good description will help you to rank for specific keywords or search terms. Description allow you to tell visitor what exactly your web page all about. Having good description will increase you click through rate.

This is a good point. I play a lot with meta descriptions to create text that is engaging, entices a reader to click, and still maintains any necessary SEO. While it may not hurt you SEO-wise to not include them, a clever description still can serve an important purpose.

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UnkwnUsr

10 years ago

Originally Posted by abhijit12a

No there is no problem if your site does not have description tag, Google will pick random content from website and display as description but having good description will help you to rank for specific keywords or search terms. Description allow you to tell visitor what exactly your web page all about. Having good description will increase you click through rate.

Exactly, a well written meta description will increase CTR which in turn will increase your rankings. If you write poor descriptions though then it may be better not to have them at all. It is also very important to deliver what you promise in your description or else your bounce rate will increase and you'll end up lowering your ranking.

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MikeFriedman

10 years ago

Wikipedia doesn't use them, and they seem to be doing just fine...

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yukon Banned 10 years ago

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

Wikipedia doesn't use them, and they seem to be doing just fine...

Agreed,

Also leaving out the meta description allows to customize multiple SERP descriptions based on the actual keyword phrase being searched. If there's 3-4 phrase variations for a single keyword the one page can be optimized for all versions & most likely show up in a Google SERP description. That also includes image alt-text in the SERP description.

This way allows multiple customized SERP descriptions per keyword which can help boost SERP CTR.
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- paulgl 10 years ago
  
  I have not said this in quite a while. Meta description, and keywords, is just something that
  people do to make them feel good. it does nothing. Like those folks who stand at a crosswalk,
  pushing the walk button, constantly, thinking it's going to magically change the light.
  
  How many of you still wait one hour after eating before swimming, cuz your gut feeling
  is mama was right?
  
  Feelings are not SEO.
  
  Paul
  
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frettcarla

10 years ago

Keyword may not keep importance but meta description keeps importance. Its quite recommended to have the meta description and and yes as mentioned the schema is also an important part of the SEO now a days.

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yasser

10 years ago

just add your keywords to your meta description. It still helps

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mkgg

10 years ago

Harm you ? Nah.

Google will sometime completely ignore your meta description and pick up stuff from the webpage if it likes that over your description. Not having it is better than having it over-optimized as the latter can hurt you.

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andrej

10 years ago

Thank you all for your replies.

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WPExpert

10 years ago

Originally Posted by andrej

Thank you all for your replies.

Andrej, there is more bullshit per square inch in the thread than I have read on Warrior Forum in a long while. There are people here who clearly have no idea of what they're doing just trying to big themselves up by giving you answers. And most of them are not just worthless but will actually harm your site.

If you don't add meta description, not only do you lose an opportunity to rank in search engines for keywords, but social media sites rely on meta description tags to help figure out what to add in that preview box under your post. If a website has a poorly written description or no description at all, the preview box will look pretty boring or embarrassingly sad.

Meta tags are very helpful for SEO. But they can only be helpful when used correctly and this includes the description!

People who share your information on social media sites will most likely only bother to get to know you if you write a meta description properly. The added benefit is that you will get better search results too. Not doing so would leaves us to wonder if your content is useful or if we are interested in what you are writing about, when we browse search results.

If a book can be judged by its cover, a webpage can be judged by the meta description ~ especially when Facebook, Google+, or LinkedIn parses it before you click Post. It's all about appearances! How tidy (or untidy) your website looks in the SERPs will determine how successful it is against the countless websites out there.

In order to make your descriptions look better online, you need to add the meta description tag to each web page between the <head> </head> tags.

<meta name="description" content="Please replace this content with a carefully crafted description of the page using 155 characters and spaces or less.">

Social media websites pull information from a webpage that you are about to share in order to make your post more interesting. Those sites read the information from the meta description tag and sometimes chooses an image from the page to insert in the preview box for your post.

Most content management systems have the ability to create descriptions, yet most people are lazy, throw this opportunity to communicate away, and do not use this feature. Instead, I use a WordPress plugin called WordPress SEO by Yoast to add metadata to my all my websites. Before publishing a post or page, I almost always include a short hand written description.

And in case you forget or can't be bothered, the plugin also helps you out automatically.

Good luck, and don't forget the meta descriptions.

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yukon

Banned 10 years ago

Originally Posted by WPExpert

Andrej, there is more bullshit per square inch in the thread than I have read on Warrior Forum in a long while. There are people here who clearly have no idea of what they're doing just trying to big themselves up by giving you answers. And most of them are not just worthless but will actually harm your site.

If you don’t add meta description, not only do you lose an opportunity to rank in search engines for keywords, but social media sites rely on meta description tags to help figure out what to add in that preview box under your post. If a website has a poorly written description or no description at all, the preview box will look pretty boring or embarrassingly sad.

Meta tags are very helpful for SEO. But they can only be helpful when used correctly and this includes the description!

People who share your information on social media sites will most likely only bother to get to know you if you write a meta description properly. The added benefit is that you will get better search results too. Not doing so would leaves us to wonder if your content is useful or if we are interested in what you are writing about, when we browse search results.

If a book can be judged by its cover, a webpage can be judged by the meta description ~ especially when Facebook, Google+, or LinkedIn parses it before you click Post. It’s all about appearances! How tidy (or untidy) your website looks in the SERPs will determine how successful it is against the countless websites out there.

In order to make your descriptions look better online, you need to add the meta description tag to each web page between the <head> </head> tags.

<meta name=”description” content=”Please replace this content with a carefully crafted description of the page using 155 characters and spaces or less.”>

Social media websites pull information from a webpage that you are about to share in order to make your post more interesting. Those sites read the information from the meta description tag and sometimes chooses an image from the page to insert in the preview box for your post.

Most content management systems have the ability to create descriptions, yet most people are lazy, throw this opportunity to communicate away, and do not use this feature. Instead, I use a WordPress plugin called WordPress SEO by Yoast to add metadata to my all my websites. Before publishing a post or page, I almost always include a short hand written description.

And in case you forget or can’t be bothered, the plugin also helps you out automatically.

Good luck, and don’t forget the meta descriptions.

Nice drama.

For a guy that preaches social I would have thought you knew most social sites are looking at Open Graph Protocol tags (ex: og:description) in the webpage source code.

Welcome to 2014.

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savidge4

10 years ago

I really cant believe that an observation of top listing has no relevance to the topic at hand. Lets look at Wikipedia for a moment. Look at their Las Vegas Page. If anyone reading this even TRIED to get away with that type of Keyword density, we all know the result. There is no sense in even looking to see what the count is. Its straight up no questions asked keyword stuffing. SO like I said, Wikipedia just doesn't count in conversations such as we are having.

The truth is this. Look at BIG keywords. The ones that have millions in traffic, and start looking at source code. With the exception as stated above. Not only do ALL the top listings have Description tags, MOST have Keyword tags. You simply cant sit there and say, well that doesn't make a bit of difference. what if you have multiple keywords on a page? THATS BS...

We all have been told for years that keyword tags aren't used.. but again, look at top listing source code and there it is. And we are not talking this being done by fly by night type web sites. It is CONSISTANTLY being done by the biggest names. WALMART for goodness sakes has keyword tags.

The point is. Will it hurt you not have the description tag? not if your niche is filled with a bunch of other people reading this thread that says you don't need one. But if you want to get results, you need to start looking at what those sites in high completion keywords are doing and replicate. And in the case of this conversation, YES use description tags!

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mkgg

10 years ago

Originally Posted by savidge4

I really cant believe that an observation of top listing has no relevance to the topic at hand. Lets look at Wikipedia for a moment. Look at their Las Vegas Page. If anyone reading this even TRIED to get away with that type of Keyword density, we all know the result. There is no sense in even looking to see what the count is. Its straight up no questions asked keyword stuffing. SO like I said, Wikipedia just doesn't count in conversations such as we are having.

The truth is this. Look at BIG keywords. The ones that have millions in traffic, and start looking at source code. With the exception as stated above. Not only do ALL the top listings have Description tags, MOST have Keyword tags. You simply cant sit there and say, well that doesn't make a bit of difference. what if you have multiple keywords on a page? THATS BS...

We all have been told for years that keyword tags aren't used.. but again, look at top listing source code and there it is. And we are not talking this being done by fly by night type web sites. It is CONSISTANTLY being done by the biggest names. WALMART for goodness sakes has keyword tags.

The point is. Will it hurt you not have the description tag? not if your niche is filled with a bunch of other people reading this thread that says you don't need one. But if you want to get results, you need to start looking at what those sites in high completion keywords are doing and replicate. And in the case of this conversation, YES use description tags!

Yep, lets just ignore wikipedia's sheer amount of backlinks and authority because it is not using meta descriptions and my argument fails if i count wikipedia.

Lets NOT ignore Walmart's same sheer amount of backlinks and authority because it is using meta keywords tag and serves my argument well.

Your whole post is moot

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WPExpert 10 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

Nice drama.

Feeling a bit exposed are we?
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- yukon Banned 10 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by WPExpert
  
  Feeling a bit exposed are we?
  
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paulgl

10 years ago

Originally Posted by WPExpert

If you don't add meta description, not only do you lose an opportunity to rank in search engines for keywords, but social media sites rely on meta description tags to help figure out what to add in that preview box under your post. If a website has a poorly written description or no description at all, the preview box will look pretty boring or embarrassingly sad.

Meta tags are very helpful for SEO. But they can only be helpful when used correctly and this includes the description!

Description and keywords fdo diddly squat for rankings. Not sure why you think they are used.

If you don't add meta description, not only do you lose an opportunity to rank in search engines for keywords...

Like it's been pointed out. Many big sites refuse to play that game. A
description is actually kinda useless when you think about it. Google can, and does, ignore
it in SERPs. They'd be fools not to. They certainly do not take them into account when ranking
sites.

Said this many times lately. Have no idea what planet you people live on.

Paul

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savyeman

10 years ago

Originally Posted by andrej

I wonder if it can harm my website if I don't have any meta description on it? Google just picks some text from my website and displays that in the search results.

I know there is no longer need to have the Meta Keywords, but what about the Meta Description?

Remember the search engine can read every word on your site. So your meta keywords and meta description can help you if you include keywords that get traffic. So don't under estimate them at all. You should use them to include other related LSI keywords that talk about your topic

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beezer123

10 years ago

Your meta description is for the user. It should be a well written snippet that engages the user with a bit of information about what the post/page includes.

Think of it more like a conversion factor rather than a ranking factor. You should use it to boost your CTR% in the Search results.

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reddy183

10 years ago

Hi,

If you have good meta description in your web page. It will increase your click through rates.

Regards,
Reddy Sekhar Reddy.K,
SEO Analyst.

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savidge4

10 years ago

So feeling that the over all answers here are complete well... TRASH. I did a few searches. Top 3 with the keyword term "las vegas" ( the search results before the images ) with the exception of Wikipedia ( they just don't count ) the other 2 had description tags. NOT JUST THAT... they had KEYWORD tags

Looked up "weight loss" ( the listings below "News" and before local listings" ALL had description tags, and 2 of the 3 had KEYWORD tags.

I actually took the time to look at other searches... same results, UNTIL you get into the long tail type key terms.

Take it for what you will. I am simply making a educational observation. RESULTS DONT LIE, they just get more traffic!

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ConsultJoseph

10 years ago

Originally Posted by savidge4

So feeling that the over all answers here are complete well... TRASH. I did a few searches. Top 3 with the keyword term "las vegas" ( the search results before the images ) with the exception of Wikipedia ( they just don't count ) the other 2 had description tags. NOT JUST THAT... they had KEYWORD tags

Looked up "weight loss" ( the listings below "News" and before local listings" ALL had description tags, and 2 of the 3 had KEYWORD tags.

I actually took the time to look at other searches... same results, UNTIL you get into the long tail type key terms.

Take it for what you will. I am simply making a educational observation. RESULTS DONT LIE, they just get more traffic!

The original question was if having no meta description can HARM his site.

Your observations are not constructive to the problem presented. Just because the top 3 sites have META description doesn't mean that those descriptions equate to their high rankings. Seeing a WIKIPEDIA page having no description should have been your clue.

The reason why they have META descriptions are simply because they have put description to increase CTR (click through rate). They don't want Google to choose the words for them; it's their business and so they want to put the description themselves.

And so, to answer the question of the OP, META description is just... description. It doesn't hold any value (at least for now) SEO-wise. If putting in the description will just take you a minute though, why not just put one? It might encourage a searcher to click on your website.

Recap:

SEO = no value
CONVERSIONS = has value

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nettiapina

10 years ago

Originally Posted by savidge4

So feeling that the over all answers here are complete well... TRASH. I did a few searches. Top 3 with the keyword term "las vegas" ( the search results before the images ) with the exception of Wikipedia ( they just don't count ) the other 2 had description tags. NOT JUST THAT... they had KEYWORD tags

If the comments are trash, why do you push the quality even lower by talking about meta keywords? Nobody has said they're an automatic penalty, just that they don't have an effect on rankings with Google.

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Rus Sells

10 years ago

Ever notice that when you do a search for a keyword phrase the words in the phrase are in bold in the link above the domain?

Ever notice that if those same keywords are also in the meta description they are also in bold?

Think critically, why is that?

So to answer the question...

If you don't have a meta description you most likely aren't helping your rankings.

Additionally, why would one not take advantage of something they can actually control
when it comes to what searchers can see right from the search results!

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mkgg

10 years ago

Originally Posted by Rus Sells

Ever notice that when you do a search for a keyword phrase the words in the phrase are in bold in the link above the domain?

Ever notice that if those same keywords are also in the meta description they are also in bold?

Think critically, why is that?

So to answer the question...

If you don't have a meta description you most likely aren't helping your rankings.

Additionally, why would one not take advantage of something they can actually control
when it comes to what searchers can see right from the search results!

Yet i have noticed that Google pulls the first paragraph from wikipedia and shows it in snippets very intelligently bolds the keywords it is ranking it for and then shows it as the first result shown when the results below it have meta descriptions with the same keyword a few times thrown in there but to no help.

If you don't have a meta description the only thing you aren't helping are your CTR but then again thats just a guess.

Don't read too much into these tags, people spammed keywords to death that google said eff this tag, who knows they have already done that to meta description tag already ?.

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yukon

Banned 10 years ago

Originally Posted by Rus Sells

Ever notice that when you do a search for a keyword phrase the words in the phrase are in bold in the link above the domain?

Ever notice that if those same keywords are also in the meta description they are also in bold?

Think critically, why is that?

So to answer the question...

If you don't have a meta description you most likely aren't helping your rankings.

Additionally, why would one not take advantage of something they can actually control
when it comes to what searchers can see right from the search results!

I think your wrong & pointed out why in my comment above.

If the page doesn't have a meta description tag you can laser focus on multiple variations of the same, or even additional similar keywords & get those [exact] keywords/phrases to have bold text in the SERP description. You can't do that with a static meta description tag unless Google does it by some random act which is totally unpredictable & less likely to happen.

Wikipedia pages are a perfect example of how & why to not use meta description tags.

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Rus Sells

10 years ago

I see what you're saying but I do think that meta descriptions still have some baring on rankings even though Google announced a few years ago that it's no longer a factor. We know we should believe everything they say right?

Side benefits of having good meta descriptions are increased click through rates and possible longer time on site. Both are tracked by Google.

Originally Posted by yukon

I think your wrong & pointed out why in my comment above.

If the page doesn't have a meta description tag you can laser focus on multiple variations of the same, or even additional similar keywords & get those [exact] keywords/phrases to have bold text in the SERP description. You can't do that with a static meta description tag unless Google does it by some random act which is totally unpredictable & less likely to happen.

Wikipedia pages are a perfect example of how & why to not use meta description tags.

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yukon

Banned 10 years ago

Originally Posted by Rus Sells

I see what you're saying but I do think that meta descriptions still have some baring on rankings even though Google announced a few years ago that it's no longer a factor. We know we should believe everything they say right?

Side benefits of having good meta descriptions are increased click through rates and possible longer time on site. Both are tracked by Google.

I'm not sure your getting my point. A web page can have multiple laser targeted SERP descriptions without a meta description tag.

Why settle for a single static description when you can create multiple SERP descriptions to try & boost CTR?

Here's an example...

Lets say my main keyword is building repair. I have additional keyword variations that I want to target for this one webpage:

building repair insurance claim
building repair maintenance plans
building repair quotes

Here's my example webpage without a meta description tag.

<title>Building Repair - domain.com</title>

<h1>Building Repair</h1>

<h2>Insurance Claim</h2>
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Etiam egestas mauris eu tortor pellentesque nec iaculis orci eleifend. Etiam lobortis egestas purus vel pharetra. Suspendisse non mi augue. Phasellus quis nulla ac dolor adipiscing sodales. Nunc nibh lorem, congue a tempus sed, rhoncus in lacus. Morbi aliquet nisi nec purus vulputate sit amet congue risus faucibus. Nulla facilisi. Vivamus congue odio luctus tellus scelerisque luctus.

<h2>Maintenance Plans</h2>
Nulla egestas vulputate diam sed adipiscing. Integer convallis turpis at eros venenatis sit amet vulputate justo vehicula. Phasellus cursus congue nulla, vitae cursus metus aliquam id. Integer magna risus, auctor vel commodo ultricies, euismod vel orci. Sed tincidunt, mauris quis facilisis consectetur, ipsum velit porttitor libero, vitae tempus nunc velit ullamcorper risus.

<h2>Quotes</h2>
Vivamus cursus dapibus ligula, eu dapibus lectus euismod quis. Cras purus augue, aliquam id congue sed, vestibulum ut felis. Suspendisse nulla turpis, feugiat nec facilisis non, condimentum vel ligula.

Now lets assume we have 3 unique traffic searching Google for variations of the main keyword (building repair), search traffic would get customized SERP descriptions with the actual keywords they're searching for, not a single one size fits all static meta description text.

Example SERP descriptions,

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Bryan Harkins

10 years ago

This is something I have actually split tested on multiple occasions and I have found that having a meta description doesn't really have much of an impact on SEO. HOWEVER, it does have an impact on your click through rate. So yes, I do think it is important to have one...what's the point of ranking a site if you aren't going to have a good click through rate?

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kiddoman

10 years ago

I used to think Meta description is as important as Meta title but many people here think meta description is no longer important. OK, maybe you are all right but I think some great meta description will attract the search engine users, that is, your website will more likely be clicked by the users. The more people click your website, the higher rank your website may be, am I right? So I think having meta description is better than without meta description.

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stevenjacobs

Banned 10 years ago

yes, it will lower you ctr and your website ranking will be harder then it has to be

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aaronsmithewc

10 years ago

The Meta description tag looks like this: <meta name="description" content="Page content description here.
This meta tag is for webmasters to provide a summary of the web page content.
It's believed to still be used by some lesser-known search engines. Having a meta description tag on each page may give those pages an SEO advantage with those search engines.

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UnkwnUsr

10 years ago

Correlation != Causation

Just because most of the top pages have meta descriptions doesn't mean that they are a major factor. How well meta descriptions work is largely up to the writer. Large corporations for the most part have the resources to do all they can to optimize their pages. That doesn't mean that 100% of the things they do have a major impact on rankings.

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AzzamS

10 years ago

During a site migration, which actually included a site redesign and not just server move the developers did not include the exact meta data for the home page that include 5 of the top keyword combinations. Immediately (2 days) the site dropped to second page for those keywords.

Fixing it bought us back. I have experienced first hand the impact for not getting the meta description right, at least for the target keywords. Of course if someone searches for something else and the keyword is within the content somewhere on the site then Google will display around this 'snippet' of text.

Our keywords were competing across 118,000,000 webpages of 200,000 searches a month, significant to say the least to drop a few notch in the serps when it comes to revenue.

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nettiapina

10 years ago

Originally Posted by AzzamS

During a site migration, which actually included a site redesign and not just server move the developers did not include the exact meta data for the home page that include 5 of the top keyword combinations. Immediately (2 days) the site dropped to second page for those keywords.

In my experience Google rarely even acts that fast.

Drop may very well stem from site redesign, but probably not for the reason you say. You've changed the site so you may experience some "Google dance" - re-evaluation of your positions. If it's a high-quality site it's likely to bounce back.

There's so many factors that it seems silly to say that it's one of those few they've publicly denounced that makes or breaks your visibility.

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pnglifesolutions

10 years ago

I would not leave it empty for simple fact that it is the 'advertisement' for your page on the SERPs. (having said that, google has lately omit meta description and sometimes choose to show an excerpt from your content instead)

For SEO consideration, I use meta description to put in LSI keywords to reinforce the topic of my page.

Thanks

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mukeshpctech

10 years ago

Yes, Meta Description is very important for SEO. Because of;
first description use as snippet.
second if you use your targeted keyword in description, than it's help you in Google rank.
third is this also helpful for user, when user find on Google related his query.

Thanks
1 reply

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nettiapina 10 years ago

Originally Posted by mukeshpctech

second if you use your targeted keyword in description, than it's help you in Google rank.

Only indirectly. Meta description is not a ranking factor, but Google counts clicks from the SERPs so better CTR may help you.
- Thanks
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Links in signature will not help your SEO. Not on this site, and not on any other forum.
Who told me this? An ex Google web spam engineer.

What's your excuse?
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Intrepreneur

10 years ago

Well constructed sentences surrounding your keywords (which is basically natural writing) will be enough to do the job rather than spending so much time crafting meta descriptions.

Do some searches on Google and analyse your own behavior towards the results. You'll find that this way you can get an insight into how Google works with the content. And how other users may interact with the results.

Nothing like a bit of searching Google for keywords and analyzing how it all works. It's all there in plain sight.

Hope that helps.

Thanks

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SEO, copywriting and backlinks service UK

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