A Lot of Duplicate Meta Descriptions

[JonnytheB]

Hi Everyone

Its polesandblinds.com newbie here again, I've Just been in Webmaster tools and see my site has:

• 278 Duplicate Meta Descriptions
• 13 Long Meta Descriptions
• 4 Short Meta Descriptions
• 304 Duplicate Title Tags

We are Using Magento version. 1.6.0.0, It seems that our description content which is unique per page (200 to 300 words) is somehow getting put into the meta description, which I confirmed when I viewed the source code, however its not showing in the meta description boxes in magento. I would say its been like this since the re-launch of the site in December 2012.

example page

http://www.polesandblinds.com/curtain-tracks/

view-source:http://www.polesandblinds.com/curtain-tracks/

My BIG worry is how Google views this and what effects it may have or had on a site. My site has taken quite a big hit on rankings since the Google updates.

I'm really looking forward to your responses good or bad.

Many Thanks Jonathan

[LynnPatchett]

Hi Jonathon,

Well yes the big meta desc text is an issue, not great for google but even worse for user experience in term of a nice targeted description texts that show up in the serps and entice searchers to click on your site rather than the others. So you want a nice clear call to action text that says in 156 characters or less why users should check out your site (or more specifically this particular category/page of your site). Have a look at this serp preview tool, it is really useful: http://www.seomofo.com/snippet-optimizer.html

As to the technical implementation, it sounds like you have a custom template in use and the description text is being put into the meta desc field also. It is an easy fix for you or your developer to switch that over to using the category meta desc field from the magento admin instead.

Hope that helps.