URL Domain Used in Meta Description

[flcity15]

Today I was asked if using a domain url in your meta description can have a negative impact on your website. This description includes a list of the homepage url, but directs visitors to a different internal page of the website.

My concern fell with directing visitors to a different page of the site, but promoting the homepage in the description/snippet. With Penguin 2.1 release on the 4th, I'm very cautious of my links/urls.

What are your thoughts behind this? What are the possible, if any negative impacts this could have on a site?

This URL does have a brand name as so the Title.

[William.Lau]

I don't think your question is clear. How would a URL point to another page when they click through from the meta description? The description doesn't allow hyperlinks, so I don't see how putting a URL in there would result in any clicking through.

Also Penguin 2.1 and Penguin in general are link spamming tactics, what you mentioned seems to be about on page optimization, more likely Panda than Penguin.

[flcity15]

The meta description just includes a listing of the homepage. For instance

Description: Visit www.blah.com today

Title: Savings on Blah | Blah.com

URL:www.blah.com/savings-coupons

Obviously the description doesn't include a hyperlink to a different page, but can list a different URL than what the actual page URL is.

So my question is, can listing a homepage in the description of an internal page have a negative impact on a site? The reason I thought more of Penguin is because Penguin deals with links where an anchor text is overly optimized. So would Google see this tactic as keyword stuffing/over-opitmized if my brand/keyword is in the title and URL?

[MikeRoberts]

If all the meta description said was "Visit www.blah.com today" then I'd be more worried about it not being interesting or descriptive enough to grab a user's attention.

[flcity15]

Yes that was something I explained. And thats not all the description said, it was just an example of how the url would be listed in the description.

I wanted to see how other SEOs would respond. I myself have not done this so I wasn't sure what the right answer would be when I was asked if this was something that could negatively impact the site. Nor have I read much about it. This was brought to my attention by a co-worker whose client has a firm that practices this. I'm curious what others thought and how they would respond.

[William.Lau]

I see, so you mean.

Title tag: SEO Tools @ Moz.com
Description Tag: SEO tools are awesome at Moz.com
SERP URL(Where the result actually points to): Moz.com/Tools

Nowadays Google includes your brand name automatically to the end of your title tag(if theres enough space), so it doesn't make any sense to include your URL in the title tag or description.

From an user POV it makes no sense to make a description or title not related to the actual URL. You want everything to relate to THAT URL, so Google ranks and prioritizes the correct one.

[flcity15]

I agree! Thank you for your response. I wanted to make sure I gave an appropriate answer.