Long meta description

[mandinga]

Hello,

I apologize in advance because the question must have already been posted, but 90% of my searches in "Search for a Question" drive me to a "no questions found" (i would be nice to improve this aspect of the Pro Q&A Forum 

So, a friend of mine asked to me what he should put for the meta description of automatically generated pages for his project. He has no tool to set a customized meta description for every page (and does not want to find one !) but he asked me the following : what is the less worse between :

• put the first words of the content (150 characters)

• put nothing and let google find what will be the better parts of the content for the user request

• put the whole content (600 characters) in order to avoid having just the begining of the content, which is not always useful in that case

Did anyone try these options, what would be the less unproductive ?

Thanks

Loïc

[brandonjschwartz]

Your meta description isn't really a factor in ranking and more of a call to action for a user to click the search result. That said, putting too much there is probably a spam signal.

My suggestion would be to either leave it blank or put the first words of the content. Google will replace the snippet based on user query no matter what your decision.

[Mark_Jay_Apsey_Jr.]

First words of the content is the best option. But I would recommend some combination of taking some of the title and content to make sure you have some of the solid keywords. DO NOT PUT NOTHING. DO NOT PUT 600 CHARACTERS.

As a reference here is what the search engines show:

Google shows 69 Characters (Including Spaces) for Page Title.

Google shows 156 Characters (Including Spaces) for Meta Description.

Yahoo shows up to 72 Characters (Including Spaces) for a Page Title. (PDF’s up to 75 characters)

Yahoo shows up to 161 Characters (Including Spaces) for Meta Description.

Bing shows 65 Characters (Including Spaces) for a Page Title Tag.

Bing shows up to 150 Characters (Including Spaces) for Meta Description Tag.

[MSWD]

I always put a meta description.  I do keep them less than 150 characters.  I agree that this is the call to action in organic rankings.  I love to ask a question that uses the keywords for the page.  For example:

Looking for Security Officer Training Classes in Houston Texas? Enroll today for Top Gun Security’s Level 2 security officer/security guard class.

or

Need a Houston Electrician? Call ProLectric an expert electrician serving Houston, Texas. For fast electrical service call 281-957-5514.

I hope this helps!

[mandinga]

Thanks for all your answers, I understand putting nothing is the worse option. For other options, it depends on the tools provided by the website, but taking the first 150 characters is the right thing to do when no more accurate method is available.

Thanks again

[Dr-Pete]

Putting nothing actually isn't always bad these days. If the pages are clearly unique, Google can create a snippet with no trouble. In fact, they often do this anyway (regardless of your META description). Most people prefer some control over the snippet (you never have total control), but I've seen cases where leaving a META description off worked fine.

There really isn't much benefit to going beyond the length limit - it's not a ranking signal and Google will only display up to the limit. If you had a long META description, it's possible Google would display a middle section of it if that matched the query, but in most cases I wouldn't bother. You're just using up load-time for something very low value. Presumably, that text is also on the page somewhere.

All of this is to say that, while I'd lean toward the truncated version, I don't think it's cut-and-dry. I'd actually say the long version is my last pick in most cases. As @Boomajoom said, it could be a spam signal (although probably only if its keyword-stuffed).