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Longer Search Snippets in Google? What?

by bullfrog
4 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I've been doing SEO for a long time, so I'm probably embarrassing myself by asking this question.

Today, I noticed that some search engine results are beginning to get more than the typical 156 or so characters you normally see in the Google search snippets.

For example:



It seems like this is the result of Google putting together a customized snippet instead of simply pulling from the meta description, but I've always seen that sort of snippet limited to around 156 characters as well.

Why are those 2 results getting WAY more than 156?

Thanks!
#google #longer #search #snippets
  • Profile picture of the author bullfrog
    Nevermind. I found it.

    Official Blog: Two new improvements to Google results pages
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      You found something from 2009....

      You forgot logic. The number of words in a search query is in direct
      proportion to how long a snippet may or may not be. Depending
      on the pages found in the results. Google was never bound to a limit.
      SEO people thought they were, so gave out some false info (not
      recently I hope) about how long your description should be. If google finds
      words through out your page that are relevant passages, they must
      somehow incorporate those in the snippets.

      Google has been pulling data other than meta for years.

      Paul
      Signature

      If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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      • Profile picture of the author bullfrog
        Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

        You found something from 2009....

        You forgot logic. The number of words in a search query is in direct
        proportion to how long a snippet may or may not be. Depending
        on the pages found in the results. Google was never bound to a limit.
        SEO people thought they were, so gave out some false info (not
        recently I hope) about how long your description should be. If google finds
        words through out your page that are relevant passages, they must
        somehow incorporate those in the snippets.

        Google has been pulling data other than meta for years.

        Paul
        Paul,

        Thanks.

        I've known that google pulls data over meta and wasn't surprised to see that ... I just hadn't noticed that from time to time, the snippet was so long.

        That article I pasted above basically explains that in 2009 they started allowing for longer snippets when search queries exceed 3 words.

        Apparently, I managed to go 4 and a half years without noticing ... shhhhhh, don't tell my clients. :-)
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  • Profile picture of the author tdanz
    I would guess because google loves ibm.com and wikipedia.com
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