All META descriptions gone

[MarcelMoz]

Hi there,

Since almost a week now, all of my optmized META descriptions has been gone in Google. The last few years Google has always shown all of the optimized META descriptions. My website is an ecommerce site (phone accessories) and all pages have its own unique content (url, text, title, description) and score well in Google. The META descriptions are created by using a template like this:

At [brandname] you find lots of [variable category product] * USP 1 * USP 2 * USP 3

All META descriptions differ from each other only by the variable category product.

Something tells me this is an effect of the Panda 4.0 update. I tested with a category page by replacing the META description for a 100% unique one. Then I asked Google (via Webmaster tools) to reindex the page. Today the new description got indexed. This means uniqueness is important.

My question is: how do I get the optimized META descriptions back? Creating real unique descriptions (means not using a template) for every page is very hard for a webhop since all category pages have the same message to tell (only difference is the type of product), I want to use USP's, and META descriptions of all productpages have been lost too (over 15000 different products).

Please help!
Thanks in advance.

Marcel

[DJ123]

Sometimes they do not choose to utilize the meta description and titles I believe because they may think something is more relevant to return based on the specific user query.

As far as I know, you cannot do anything about what gets displayed by the engine.  So long as you have checked that each page has it's own unique meta, then there is not much else that you can do.

Your meta may appear as intended for some searches and not for others is what I am really saying.  It is the engine's prerogative as to what is displayed based on the user's query and I am seeing more and more that the engine's are ignoring your page/post specific meta tags when it comes to the display.

[TomRayner]

Hi Marcel

Actually, I think the warning signs for this started back in November 2013, when Matt Cutts was asked about meta descriptions and if we should use templates or make them all unique.  See this article and this one.

To summarise those articles, he recommended that you should not use a template as a meta description, as you have expected.  He recommended unique meta descriptions for all the pages you want to rank, but for other pages it's totally fine to use no meta description at all.  Google can generate a decent description for you if you leave the tag out in your HTML.

However, if you want a page to have your own description I'm afraid you'll need a unique one for each.  I'd prioritise those products that are your big sellers or those with the best margin and write them first.  I would also remove the template ASAP so that you have no description by default and then add them in when you have the time.  That's the only way I can see getting your unique descriptions back I'm afraid.  Try to work out a priority system with your team.

Hope this helps.

[MarcelMoz]

Thanks for your quick responses.

I am going to test further with some pages to see what is needed to do now. Still this is a odd change of Google, because the descriptions were clear to Google users and managed expectations right.

Can I conclude that this (for me) major META descritpion change is a part of Panda 4.0?

Something I noticed is that the description of the page I tested, got three lines of text instead of two. Three lines wouldmake things easier to make unique descriptions. I am testing with other pages now to see the possibilities of this.

Marcel

[JaneCopland]

Hi Marcel,

Not sure that this can be put down to Panda: it could be related since Panda deals solely with on-page, but Google works on so many changes at once that it might not be. There is a team dedicated to working on SERP display, optimising click-through from SERPs, etc. so it would be very difficult to say exactly what this relates to. It's definitely been happening (a higher number of people asking in here about why their descriptions and title tags are changing in SERPs) for a few months now.

[MarcelMoz]

Hi Jane,

Thanks for your clarification. Since a higher number of people have asked about META description and title tags changes I guess this is a Panda effect.

I know what to do next, a lot of rewriting work.

Marcel