Are we penalized if our meta description is longer than 150-160 characters?

[jmbuytaert]

I've read on other SEO sites that description can be 350 characters or 60 words long. Some of my descriptions are a little bit over those numbers. Will Search Engines stop crawling through the description at after a certain amount of characters, or will it completely ignore it if it's too long, hence hurting my site's SEO performance?

[seomasterbrasil]

Hello!

Search Engines don't care about Meta Descriptions! It's NOT a Ranking factor.

Although, it's very important because is that text that that appears below the TItle and the URL in the results.

But, 170 characters are the maximum that is showed there. So, this is the recommended maximum number, as you can predict what your potencial customers are going to see.

And it's another chance to write something catchy and get their attention!

=]

Hope it helps!

meta-description.gif

[jmbuytaert]

Thanks for fast and accurate response! Appreciate it!