» »

Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Sign In with Facebook Sign In with Google Sign In with OpenID Sign In with Twitter
Sign In Apply for Membership

Forums

Sponsors

Gold

Gold sponsor

Silver

Silver sponsor Silver sponsor

Bronze

Bronze sponsor Bronze sponsor Bronze sponsor Bronze sponsor Bronze sponsor Bronze sponsor

Meta Descriptions Don't work In Google

Matt Jo
in Google
Hi everyone. I'm the owner of We got This Covered. I have a question about Meta Descriptions. For some reason, the Meta descriptions on my posts aren't working. Google doesn't display what I put down for the meta descriptions.

I'm using the Wordpress SEO Plugin by Yoast. In the settings, I went to titles and post meta description and put in %%excerpt%%, which is supposed to make it take the excerpt for the meta description. Now for those familiar with the plugin, in the add new post screen there is also a meta description box where you can fill in your own custom meta description, which I do as well. BUT, for some reason it doesn't work. Google still shows my meta description as something messy and random. Any idea why? How can I get Google to show the proper meta description?

Thanks
Flag   Off Topic Disagree Agree Like

Posts

  • Kate
    said:

    How can I get Google to show the proper meta description?


    First check the page source on your pages and make sure the Meta Description is being generated properly.

    After that.... In reccent weeks ... Google has been experimenting with Titles other than what is coded on the page. They were already doing this with page descriptions. When google analyzes the page.... it decides to either use your Meta Description or an extract of your page text. Only in recent weeks has google alterd the title in the search results.

    For example.... if you have a page with a title of "Kitchen appliances" and a META description of "Kitchen appliances for less free shipping". A Google user searching for the Search term "Blenders Kitchen appliances" may be shown an extract of the page text where it applies to what the user was searching for.

    Something like...

    SERPs Description: Kitchen appliances and free shipping... kitchenaid Blenders and accessories... GE Blenders

    That is an extract that is relevant to the search term and may or may not be what you had in the meta description.

    Try it on a few searches and you will see what I mean. Do a real general searh not related to your area of business
    Flag   Off Topic Disagree Agree Like
  • Matt Jo
    Ya but sometimes Google displays a really weird snippet. Sometimes they'll include the image alt tag before the content and sometimes it'll just be something totally random that has nothing to do with the post. My site is called We got This Covered. Try playing around with it on Google, you'll see what I mean
    Flag   Off Topic Disagree Agree Like
  • BigJohnBen
    I just searched for a few terms your site ranks for and the descriptions looked fine to me...
    I wouldn´t stress it too much, this is not something we really have a lot of control over...
    Flag   Off Topic Disagree Agree Like
  • growpublicity
    Even i had the same issues for tradinghive.co.nz but after 7 to 10 days my meta description started showing in Google.
    Flag   Off Topic Disagree Agree Like
  • HostColor
    This SEO plugin is very good. I would suggest you to migrate from WordPress to another CMS platform if your website is not a blog or any other content oriented website. I think that Drupal, Joomla, MODx, and many other work better for business websites.
    Flag   Off Topic Disagree Agree Like
  • ishika
    check that you put meta description after title and if there is no meta description according to google then google use relevant content for ranking as well show in serp
    Flag   Off Topic Disagree Agree Like
  • bogs
    even though google consider meta as the description on result snippet.. it still up to them which is the best content they want to use for your site. I suggest to create meta description that best describe your site and make it a little longer..
    Flag   Off Topic Disagree Agree Like
  • chotabachcha
    I also faced this type of problem once. Sometimes Google takes time to show you the proper description on search engine. The data center updates could be the reason. Wait for a while and see if you face the same problem.
    Flag   Off Topic Disagree Agree Like
  • Kate
    Just stick to your core strategy... Google is doing a lot of experimenting right now and I think it sucks. For about 3 weeks now I've been getting 3-4 results from the same domain when I search for new things.


    I search really fast and It's absolute retardation because I'm trying to find say: "SEO Tools".. I hit a crap domain that looks like it was designed 8 years ago. I bounce off it... but then I run into it again on the next result ( the same crap site ). Then I have to start scanning down the page for the next domain.
    Flag   Off Topic Disagree Agree Like
  • BigJohnBen
    Emily Pupy, this is patently untrue. It may have been the case several years ago now, but these days google better taylors the description to fit the users search queries. It may use elements from your metadescription, combined with other on-page text. However, if you are optimizing your pages for particular sets of keywords and have crafted your metadescription with care, the chances are that google will use it for those queries. For other queries, it will do what it feels like at the time, it seems.
    Flag   Off Topic Disagree Agree Like
Sign In or Register to comment.