Head description tag, what now

[Shuffled]

Recently I heard Google virtually dropping the description tag for seo scoring? and it takes the data off the page, however one of my clients description is just pulling a url rather than any content from the page. is there some way thats ethical to suggest a description to google?

[Matt-Williamson]

The meta description tag hasn't had an impact on your actual ranking in the search results for a very long time. However you should still be utilising this tag and writing a custom description for each page on your clients site in order to help increase your click-through in the search results. I always view it as a call to action to help increase CTR - how can you entice searchers to click your page over others surrounding you?

http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/meta-description

Great bit of info by DR Pete of SEOMoz -

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/why-wont-google-use-my-meta-description

[underscorelive]

Definitely agree Matt - I find the description tag needs to be optimised to inform users about the site and to inspire click-throughs, as opposed to optimising keywords for Search engines.

good advice

[Matt-Williamson]

Thanks - I have always found it a quick win in terms increasing traffic to your site and it is one of the first places I would look at optimising in order to see noticeable benefits.