Comments on: Did You Know Google Ignores Your Description?

By: Gloria Rand

Gloria Rand — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 11:46:47 +0000

Josh, thanks so much for including that article from Google. I was trying to explain to a client’s web master yesterday why I their site needed specific descriptions. When I meet with him in person, I can show him this article to back up my assertions!

By: Nick Stamoulis

Nick Stamoulis — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 10:18:55 +0000

@Zain Ansari – Thanks for the comment Zain…glad to see other folks agree!

By: Zain Ansari

Zain Ansari — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 07:23:35 +0000

I agree with Dave, Google is not just ignore the description, may be some other factors involve in the above mentioned post by Nick. But description is one of the important SEO factor

By: Nick Stamoulis

Nick Stamoulis — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:08:53 +0000

@Josh Greenfield – Excellent information, thanks very much for taking the time to dig this up for everyone!

By: Josh Greenfield

Josh Greenfield — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 18:59:39 +0000

meta name=”robots” content=”NOODP”>

meta name=”googlebot” content=”NOODP, nofollow”>

By: Josh Greenfield

Josh Greenfield — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 18:58:34 +0000

There are actually meta tags to direct the engine on which description to use.
You can use NOODP and NOYDIR
//
//.
//

Follow this link for the official goog resp.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=4&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fsupport%2Fwebmasters%2Fbin%2Fanswer.py%3Fhl%3Den%26answer%3D35264&ei=0xbuScStEITQMrHPvfEP&usg=AFQjCNF5mIqnOa_fw3mENQvQCFfXa-sDhQ&sig2=NDAyI_2mPxWGKIkQAfU2qw

By: Nick Stamoulis

Nick Stamoulis — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:35:59 +0000

@Chris McElroy – Thanks for the tip, that makes total sense )

By: Chris McElroy

Chris McElroy — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:05:04 +0000

Google first looks at the meta tag description, if the key phrase searched for is not in the description, then google pulls the description from where it is mentioned in the text on the page.

Hope that makes sense.

By: Nick Stamoulis

Nick Stamoulis — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:41:05 +0000

@Dave – Thanks for stopping by! As you know, there are things that we sometimes can’t control, this is certainly one of them! )

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:18:42 +0000

Hiya Nick… it’s not that they ignore it really, it’s more that they decide what is relevant to the perceived query intent. Some times they use the meta-d when appropriate and other times it will be actual page text. So, they know it’s there… simply not always the chosen snippet. This should only increase as the whole Orion thing gains traction.

So your assertion that; “has its algorithm set to ignore your Description when it can find text on the page that is better optimized and more relevant to the specific search query.” – is pretty much how it works. We don’t generally have complete control.

ciao bro… cya on the trails!