Duplicate description error: one for meta one for og:type

[jessential]

I am getting the duplicate description error from Moz. I use both the og:description and  .  I am not sure if that is going to get me penalized by the search engines or my pages somehow discounted if I have meta description and og:description on the same page.

What does Moz recommend?

NOTE: for years I have followed this in the best practices format put out from other sources.

Found at: http://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/52600/should-i-have-ogdescription-and-meta-description-together-on-every-page

Short Answer: Use both!

Long Answer:

The OG stands for Open Graph which is apart of the Open Graph protocol of which works on platforms such as Facebook.

The meta description element is for search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Since these are two separate tags that kinda do the same thing but they are designed for different types of platforms, one for Facebook and the other for Search Engines. The reasoning behind this is that the Open Graph protocal is more rich in what content can be feed to Facebook without scrapping the full page, think rich snippets. So images, description and more information is feed to Facebook via the Open Graph.

Using both is a good idea.

[MikeRoberts]

Have you tried combining them into one? e.g. name="description" property="og:description" content="My meta description copy."/>

[jessential]

Hi Mike,

Is it common practice? I have never heard of that before. You are correct in that it does resolve the Moz error.

I will need to see how Google Analytics responds before making the change on all pages. Do you already have personal experience with if GA ranks the combined description as "ok" or an "error"?

NOTE: While Moz threw an error with my former structure, GA did not. If I now can eliminate the Moz error, will it throw a GA error?

[MikeRoberts]

I don't know if its common practice but its not a new fix. Never heard of there being any issues with doing it that way (at least no one has ever told me this suggestion threw other errors for them if it has).