Matt Cutts on YouTube says that the Meta description is only good if you use it right.

 

Thoughts?

 

Vid here:

He is one hundred per cent right, meta descriptions are useful to an extent but not completely, the way Google is changing means that it's looking at content much more, so it is crawling your site for keywords rather than looking for them in your meta tags, which makes it more difficult for optimisers, but makes it better for consumers. That being said, always make sure your keywords, title tag and description are well written and descriptive, because it does have some effect that shouldn't be ignored.

It's been like this for a long time as far as Google is concerned. A decent description tag can't do any harm though so it should still be taken seriously for both the searchers and other search engines.

meta tags have meant nothing in terms of Google ranking for a long time, but other engines still make use of them, so considering how little effort they take to implement, you might as well.

 

Make them different for every page, don't just whack in the same meta tags on every page, and don't make them them spammy.

 

edit: PS. take anything Matt Cutts says with a grain of salt, he is the head of Google's web spam team after all. Do you really think he is putting himself out there so you can get your site to rank number 1?

Content is (or atleast should be) king with regard to those algorithms. Anybody can throw some words in a meta-field. Well-written and optimized content indicates a level of dedication to the website that extends beyond sticking words in a field. That being said, metas still probably dont hurt the cause.

Like all things 'SEO' - trying to do things just for search engines is always the wrong way to go about things. Now Seth I know you've read SEO SERPS and Parisian Tarts so you know my view on it!

The description field, not to be confused with keyword meta tags, is bloomin' powerful when it comes to getting visitors from the SERPs and actually into your site. In which case does it really matter if it has an 'SEO' effect?

 

Oh, and extend this thinking to web content, site architecture, link-building, marketing, social media and everything else 'SEO' and you're suddenly better at SEO!

Over the last 10 years I've not actually seen any change in the way SE's use meta descriptions. If one is present the SE will usually use it, 'twas the same both pre and post Google

Over the last 10 years I've not actually seen any change in the way SE's use meta descriptions. If one is present the SE will usually use it, 'twas the same both pre and post Google

Having said that (and no, I'm not disagreeing with the Blue one - he's right! ) in the last year I've seen a lot more content outside of the description being pulled-up when searching for related keywords. I've done a lot of experimenting (takes me back to my mad scientist days) with combinations of titles, meta descriptions, body copy and inbound link anchor text... found some very interesting results too for targeting the same page at different search phrases. Google is definitely going deeper than ever into the content as, in said crazy experiments, you can get content that's quite deep to appear in the SERPs text if you're careful how you plan your copy.

Having said that (and no, I'm not disagreeing with the Blue one - he's right! ) in the last year I've seen a lot more content outside of the description being pulled-up when searching for related keywords. I've done a lot of experimenting (takes me back to my mad scientist days) with combinations of titles, meta descriptions, body copy and inbound link anchor text... found some very interesting results too for targeting the same page at different search phrases. Google is definitely going deeper than ever into the content as, in said crazy experiments, you can get content that's quite deep to appear in the SERPs text if you're careful how you plan your copy.

Of course not forgetting that the meta description can be utilised to include extra carewords/keywords/phrases that don't feature in the main copy

I think the key point here is actually that regardless of the fact that it has been irrelevant to Google rankings for years, Google do still use it as the displayed text in the SERP's a lot of the time, so the description tag is your first bit of text that needs crafted marketing to draw people in.

Have to say I totally disagree with you having just read the link!

 

The leaked AOL data from 2007 clearly showed that from a sample of 20 million searches, the % split of total clickthroughs from page one of a SERP was:

 

#1: Will receive 42.3% of the total clickthrough volume

#2: Will receive 11.92%

#3: Will receive 8.44%

#4: Will receive 6.03%

#5: Will receive 4.86%

#6: Will receive 3.99%

#7: Will receive 3.37%

#8: Will receive 2.98%

#9: Will receive 2.83%

#10: Will receive 2.79%

 

The clear and irrefutable conclusion from that data, compared to your personal opinion is that unless you are in position one then you are feeding off the scraps, and in addition crediting the average joe public searcher with far to much credit.

 

I would also suggest asking any SEO professional if they do linkbuilding and linkbait with end users or SE's in mind and you will struggle to find anyone who agrees with you. Great content gets you nowhere - loads of inbound links, well researched keyword use and linkbait do, so the right way to go about things is to do the stuff that will help improve your rank in the search engines. If your view was correct then there would be no SEO industry.

 

 

 

Like all things 'SEO' - trying to do things just for search engines is always the wrong way to go about things. Now Seth I know you've read SEO SERPS and Parisian Tarts so you know my view on it!

The description field, not to be confused with keyword meta tags, is bloomin' powerful when it comes to getting visitors from the SERPs and actually into your site. In which case does it really matter if it has an 'SEO' effect?

 

Oh, and extend this thinking to web content, site architecture, link-building, marketing, social media and everything else 'SEO' and you're suddenly better at SEO!

Have to say I totally disagree with you having just read the link!

 

The leaked AOL data from 2007 clearly showed that from a sample of 20 million searches, the % split of total clickthroughs from page one of a SERP was:

 

#1: Will receive 42.3% of the total clickthrough volume

#2: Will receive 11.92%

#3: Will receive 8.44%

#4: Will receive 6.03%

#5: Will receive 4.86%

#6: Will receive 3.99%

#7: Will receive 3.37%

#8: Will receive 2.98%

#9: Will receive 2.83%

#10: Will receive 2.79%

 

The clear and irrefutable conclusion from that data, compared to your personal opinion is that unless you are in position one then you are feeding off the scraps, and in addition crediting the average joe public searcher with far to much credit.

That shows clicked links but not whether the top sites actually get positive results from the traffic, convert to a sale and so on. Just because a site is on top there's no guarantee that it will be of any quality or usefulness to the user.

 

Great content gets you nowhere - loads of inbound links, well researched keyword use and linkbait do, so the right way to go about things is to do the stuff that will help improve your rank in the search engines. If your view was correct then there would be no SEO industry.

I totally disagree Having content that entertains, informs or makes a sale is vital to the success of any site.

Links are an important part of SEO but so is good content.

Personal opinion? Who said it was personal opinion?

 

I've got my site and those of plenty of clients in say position 3 or 4 for certain search terms and that gets plenty of traffic and leads to plenty of enquiries. Of course being top AND relevant is the most important thing but I don't think it's personal opinion to say that it's not just the number one slot that gets traffic.

 

When I search I DO read the description to see if it's worth clicking through. And I don't click on the really spammy ones, the less relevant ones and I will jump down a couple of places to an eye-catching one that seems totally relevant.

 

Of course I don't target the American market (AOL data) so, Seth can help here, maybe it's different in the US and they just blindly click on the first result without reading it.

 

Oh... and once you get the person to link through they all buy do they? That's great. A bounce rate of zero, conversion rate of 100% - stunning! Converting 10% of 200 visitors is the same as converting 1% of 2,000 - same end result but with 1,800 less visitors to find.

 

There is an SEO industry and ALL the top professionals in it (including Google themselves) consistently and loudly shout from the roof tops that quality content is the key to SEO. What did you think linkbait was? Linking is important (people need to see your content) and quality content means you have to do a lot less chasing around for links and building them yourself... you just have to market your site.

 

SEO does nothing to actually sell. All it does is give you the potential to sell. See if you can get a completely blank page to the top of a search result and how many customers you get!

Edited October 20, 200916 yr by wizely

I personally think that description tag is helpful specially for a new website or blog