Having problems resolving duplicate meta descriptions

[RG_SEO]

Recently, I’ve recommended to the team running one of our websites that we remove duplicate meta descriptions. The site currently has a large number of these and we’d like to conform to SEO best practice. I’ve seen Matt Cutt’s recent video entitled, ‘Is it necessary for every page to have a meta description’, where he suggests that webmasters use meta descriptions for their most tactically important pages, but that it is better to have no meta description than duplicates. The website currently has one meta description that is duplicated across the entire site.

This seemed like a relatively straight forward suggestion but it is proving much more challenging to implement over a large website. The site’s developer has tried to resolve the meta descriptions, but says that the current meta description is a site wide value. It is possible to create 18 distinct replacements for 18 ‘template’ pages, but any sub-pages of these will inherit the value and create more duplicates. Would it be better to:

1. Have no meta descriptions at all across the site?
2. Stick with the status quo and have one meta description site-wide?
3. Make 18 separate meta descriptions for the 18 most important pages, but still have 18 sets of duplicates across the sub-pages of the site.

Or…is there a solution to this problem which would allow us to follow the best practice in Matt’s video?

Any help would be much appreciated!

[iSTORM-New-Media]

What kind of CMS are you using? Is it an in-house one or Wordpress/Drupal/etc.?

[RG_SEO]

Hi there, thanks for the reply. We are using an in-house CMS.

[CommT]

If it is an in-house CMS I see no reason why you can't make your developer do the work to get it exactly how you want it. Otherwise, what's the bloody point in having a bespoke CMS?

Devs will nearly always say things aren't possible when they are. It's a constant battle. I know because I've battled it before.

I should say that I am not involved in this battle currently -  our current dev is incredibly accommodating and just does everything I ask - believe me its a breath of fresh air and makes a massive difference. I have a situation where stuff our old dev said was impossible have suddenly become so!

[iSTORM-New-Media]

I think your best option is to build out your CMS to add values for meta descriptions for each page. You should be able to have your developer build your CMS so that you can inject a meta description value for the page you are working on. This is pretty standard for in-house/WordPress/Drupal.

If your meta description is a site wide value, then the developer has just put one value into the header that loads for every page. You need to be able to customize this as a best practice, as you know. Building 18 template pages is more work than modifying the CMS to inject a meta value, so I wouldn't recommend it.

Is this an option for you?

[RG_SEO]

That sounds like an interesting suggestion and definitely something to look into, thank you. Sadly, the developer for the site is on holiday until next Monday, so I won't be to get an answer until next week.

Theoretically, if the changes were not possible, would it be better to have one single meta description on the home page and none across the rest of the site? Or would it be better to leave the site as it is?