Why does it show (in Moz) that we don't have any meta descriptions on our site when we do?

[BeTheBoss]

We have over 1,330 pages that say we are "Missing Meta Description Tag" when I spot check all of them have meta descriptions? Can you please explain to me why Moz is picking up that we do not have meta descriptions when we do. Our website  http://www.betheboss.ca

Please help. I would like a accurate measure of meta descriptions that are missing.

[LesleyPaone]

Can you give the instance of a couple of pages it does not register them on?

edit: After looking at your main page it looks like you are using a combination of rich snippet / meta description. Have you tried adding the meta description in the normal manner?

IE you have

itemprop="description" content="BeTheBoss makes it easy to find the best franchises in Canada. Search our directory for the top Canadian franchise opportunities and businesses for sale." />

Normally it is written

description" content="BeTheBoss makes it easy to find the best franchises in Canada. Search our directory for the top Canadian franchise opportunities and businesses for sale." />

I cannot find any information if search engines will actually accept a meta description with the rich mark up, I would play it safe and do both.

[BeTheBoss]

<colgroup><col width="523"></colgroup>
|

<meta itemprop="description" meta name="description" content="BeTheBoss makes it easy to find the best franchises in Canada. Search our directory for the top Canadian franchise opportunities and businesses for sale."></meta itemprop="description" meta>

or should they be seperate?

Here are a bunch below; choose which you like and Thank you in advance!

|
| http://www.betheboss.ca/franchise-news-august-2012/PizzaPizzaAhuntsic745.cfm |
| http://www.betheboss.ca/franchise-news-august-2012/PropertyGuysNewFranchisees744.cfm |
| http://www.betheboss.ca/franchise-news-august-2012/Quesada-5-locations743.cfm |
| http://www.betheboss.ca/franchise-news-august-2013/4-Pillars-Helps-Canadians830.cfm |

<colgroup><col width="523"></colgroup>
| http://www.betheboss.ca/industry-experts.cfm |
| http://www.betheboss.ca/suppliers.cfm |
| http://www.betheboss.ca/Future-of-Franchising-Awards.cfm |
| http://www.betheboss.ca/newsroom.cfm |

<colgroup><col width="523"></colgroup>
| http://www.betheboss.ca/newest-opportunities.cfm |
| http://www.betheboss.ca/featured-opportunities.cfm |
| http://www.betheboss.ca/franchise-industry.cfm |
| http://www.betheboss.ca/franchise-investment.cfm |
| http://www.betheboss.ca/franchise-province.cfm |
| http://www.betheboss.ca/franchise-resales.cfm |

[LesleyPaone]

I personally would make them separate. The reason being is we do not know specifically how all of the crawlers are designed. Some might pick it up, others might not. I would look at it a better safe than sorry type situation.

edit: Sorry for the ninja edits, but I ran a couple of pages through a few crawlers and none picked up the meta description. The itemprop is throwing it off. I would do two different tags, the tradition and the rich ones. The reason being there is a collision in the naming convention and I honestly have no data on what crawlers would support in that sense. From what I have observed, and I could be wrong, but I think google might actually use a different crawler for rich markup. The reason being is that normally I can get pages indexed on the first crawl, but it takes a lot of time for the snippets to get indexed. Either they use a different crawler or some kind of review process.

[BeTheBoss]

ok, great. Thank you for your help!

[CommT]

Interesting, Lesley - I hadn't made that connection - that Google may have different crawlers for rich snippets and 'normal' pages. Makes sense really, especially when you consider the data highlighter tool in WMT. Good point and I'm pleased I read this posting now!