meta description problems

by 30 replies
34
I've installed yoast to SEO my website on wordpress. For some reason the title and meta description aren't showing on google... It just picks random stuff from the website.

Tried so many things, but non work.

What am i doing wrong?

Website: pcmaintenancelondon.co.uk
#search engine optimization #description #meta #problems
  • Wish I could give you a fix for this that would fix it technically. For me I had the same issue with my home page when it showed in a search. I played with it a lot and figured out that since I didn't have any info on my header that it would just randomly pull content. I added a headed description, and it fixed mine. I'm sure some of these guys could give you the code needed to add the website description. For individual post the description I put in the title section of my meta data is what shows for the page.
  • I use Yoast and it works fine for me.
  • Your page edit screen should have a box called WordPress SEO by Yoast. That's the place you can change the meta description from. If that doesn't work, see Yoast SEO's settings and tell it to force title changes.

    It takes a bit for Google to register the changes to your site, so you need to take a look at the HTML source and verify it's changed.

    I'm not sure what's going on with the laptop and PC repair pages, but page titles are seriously messed up. Have you changed Yoast SEO's settings? Also, you don't want to have two pages with identical content.
  • it could be the technical error, again install the latest version of yoast plugin
  • Please try all in one seo pack
  • First check you title and meta on every page, it is showing or not. In Yoast plugin check the the title and meta setting. Will you please provide the website url and yoast meta setting screenshots so that i can check it.
  • Banned
    Why do you have Home1 as part of the <title> text?

    What's the exact text you see on your SERP title & description, be specific?
  • I have reviewed your website. In all pages you have same meta description. Can you make them unique?

    Note: If Google thinks your Title and meta description are relevant to query then its your title & description. Some time based on search query google shows content from your web page.

  • I've made a few changes to the title and meta description. Waitting to see if anything happens in google. Tried to look at the html, not sure where to find this, the title and meta description options in wordpress in the html code, is this under appearance > editor?

    How long does it take the changes to take effect on google? I've changed a couple of the headings.

    For example, from: pcmaintenancelondon.co.uk/pc-repairs/
    To: ‎pcmaintenancelondon.co.uk/pc-repairs-london/

    I've done this before and haven't seen this change visible in google. It's as if these changes aren't being updated to google search results... Do i need to be doing something for it to update? Trying to figure out what i'm doing wrong.
    • [1] reply
    • Banned
      I guess Your running Wordpress? Changing the permalink doesn't change the title, unless you made a new page that included a new URL.
      • Post the keyword your searching.
      • Post the country search (UK?) your searching.
      • Post the exact SERP title & description your seeing.

      Otherwise we can all keep guessing.
      • [1] reply
  • Yes i'm using wordpress.

    - Keyword: computer repair
    - Location: London, UK
    - google search result title and meta description for two different pages for comparison:

    Front page:

    PC Maintenance London
    pcmaintenancelondon.co.uk/‎
    About PC Maintenance London. Professionally fix, clean & repair your PC or ... Phone: *********. E-mail: info@pcmaintenancelondon.co.uk.  ·  ·  · .

    next page:

    PC Repairs | PC Maintenance London
    pcmaintenancelondon.co.uk/pc-repairs/‎
    About PC Maintenance London. Professionally fix, clean & repair your PC or ... Phone: *********. E-mail: info@pcmaintenancelondon.co.uk.  ·  ·  · .

    These aren't what i've placed as title and meta description...
  • @yukon - <title>Home 1 | PC Maintenance London</title>
    Not sure where you got this from. I imagine you've had a look at the code. I've looked in wordpress but havent seen this specific code. Looked in pages and text, where it shows the code for the page. Also looked in appearances > editer, where the theme is, searched the code but havent seen this. Where is it? Missed something...

    @paulgl - new hobby, sorry for trying to learn, got to start somewhere...
    • [1] reply
    • Banned
      I got that <title> from your Google Cache for your Home page (same link I posted above). It doesn't matter If you've changed the Home page title when Google found a different page title earlier, they haven't found the new title yet.







      This is your Google cache page title (below), it includes the same text/keywords, other than that Home 1 you added to your page title. Look at the source code of the Google cache link I posted.

      What's the problem?

      There's no description tag on your Google cache, so Google pulled a relevant text snippet from your page, that's completely normal.

      I don't see anything wrong other than maybe you've changed your page title/description & Googlebot hasn't looked at your page since you've made edits.

      I don't see you indexed in either US or UK SERPs for the keyword computer repair.

      BTW, there's nothing wrong with running Wordpress.
  • Banned
    One more thing.

    You have <h1> heading tags on the Home page slider (cache page), see that Slide background text on your Google Cache (cache link in my last comment), that's from your slider at the top of the page.

    That Slide background <h1> text is telling Google the text is important when in reality it's useless.

    Remove the 10 <h1> tags.

    [edit]
    You have a total of <h1> tags on the live Home page. Fix it, otherwise your confusing Googlebot.
  • Well that's quite informative! Something learned today, thank you!

    I'll have a look at it.

    "18 <h1> tags"
    What do i use instead, what will work best?
  • Think i have corrected the titles and meta descriptions. Google hasn't gone through the website though so it's not showing any changes when i do a google search.

    I've just put up the site so UK SERPs hasn't been done. I've been doing SEO on the actual website and it's pages i haven't done much outside it. Any advice on SERPs would be great.

    I'm not sure how to edit the source code and remove the h1 tags. Looked at it on wordpress, but the source code for the front page isn't showing up on there, be it on the header, main index or otherwise. How do i edit this? And what do i replace the h1 tag with, so it doesn't mess things up?
    • [1] reply
    • Banned
      The <h1> tags are either in your WP theme files or WP plugin files (If the slider is a plugin). If you don't know HTML, hire someone to help or learn HTML (no time better than now). Make sure to backup your site/theme before making edits.
  • No Yoast does not give you those options by default. But this is an add-on for yoast that does yoast seo extended.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Ok i've managed to alter it, the h1's are now removed and managed to keep the site the same in the end.

    The meta description and title are now as i placed them, i think?

    Find it strange things haven't been updated on google search yet...
    • [1] reply
    • Banned
      Good job on removing all those unnecessary <h1> tags.

      You currently have two <h1> tags on your live web page (Home page), keep in mind Google will sometimes use those <h> tags as the SERP title.

      Here's your text in the current <h1> tags:
      • Computer Repair Service London| Repairs Fix Windows Computer Fix My PC
      • We provide various computer repair services including:

      Now you need to decide If either of those two current <h1> tags text is something you want to be displayed as the SERP title. Like I said, Google will sometimes use the <h1> tags as the SERP title. Personally I would narrow that down to a single <h1> tag per page with plain text that I wouldn't mind being displayed as a SERP title.

      Your Google Cache date for your Home page is Jan 11, 2014, it's possible Googlebot hasn't crawled your page since that date.
  • Awesome!

    I see, i'll remove the extra <h1> and i'll change the <h1> to something more appropriate. It seems this <h1> is very important!

    Think i'm going to start to look at how to SEO the website for location.
    • [1] reply
    • Banned
      Those <h> tags defiantly have weight for optimizing the SERP titles.

      I have a way that I can get Google to ignore my page titles & display my <h1> tags as the SERP title. I've only used it for testing, but it's easy to consistently replicate & proves <h> tags are just as important as page titles (<title>).
  • Interesting! Sounds like you know what your doing.

    Made the <h1> change, i hope i did it right, there should only be one now. I've chosen to keep the first <h1> as i think that will get better results.

    I'm thinking of doing SEO on 3 pages, all concentrating on specific keywords.

    home page:
    computer repair

    second page:
    pc repair

    3rd page:
    laptop repair

    Would this be a good idea?
    • [1] reply
    • Banned
      That's fine, it's all pretty much the same subject (computer, pc, laptop). I would use the pc page & the laptop page as categories (main page per keyword), that way your unlimited on the amount of supporting pages for each category, for instance later on you might want to target the keyword low cost pc repair houston.


      • computer repair (home page)
        • pc repair (category page)
          • low cost pc repair houston (supporting page)
          • pc repair help (supporting page)
          • etc... (supporting page)






      • computer repair (home page)
        • laptop repair (category page)
          • low cost laptop repair houston (supporting page)
          • laptop repair help (supporting page)
          • etc... (supporting page)


      That's just an example of link flow from relevant pages, obviously you need better keywords & page titles.

      Search the SEO sub forum for silo, might give you more ideas.
  • Holy f*** balls! Just checked and the site has gone straight into 2nd place for keyword "pc maintenance london".

    Gotta work out the "computer repair" keyword though...
    Checked SERPs, nothing much is showing there though... hmm!!

    The pc repair section of the website came out in 3rd place. But a 404 error comes up, how to solve this?

    The title and meta description came out perfect.

    Exciting, something actually happening!
    • [1] reply
    • Banned
      Lol, you might be getting personalized SERPs because I see your site/page at position #60 on Google UK. Then again I'm in the US searching with Rank Checker (cleared cache/history).
  • Awesome!

    I've changed a few things about the site. I made the keyword: computer repair london. It's coming up 2nd when i do a search for pcmaintenancelondon, which is great. But it's non existent when it comes to the keyword: computer repair london.

    I've looked the other pages and have also removed the <h1> from them, so that there is only one <h1> per page.

    So you can only SEO the main page, and then only the supporting pages can SEO'd? Not the different pages?
  • Ok just made the final changes. I've done the best i could for now. Hopefully i'll see the effect of it all in the next month or so.

    Thank you to all the people that contacted to help out, especially yukon of course!
  • Ok just made the final changes. I've done the best i could for now. Hopefully i'll see the effect of it all in the next month or so.

    Thank you to all the people that contacted to help out, especially yukon of course!
Join the discussion

Next Topics on Trending Feed

  • 34

    meta description problems

    I've installed yoast to SEO my website on wordpress. For some reason the title and meta description aren't showing on google... It just picks random stuff from the website. Tried so many things, but non work.