Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Duplicate meta descriptions
-
Hi all,
I'm using Yoast's SEO plugin and when I run a On Page report card here on SEOMOZ it says there are 2 descriptions tags
I've been trying to fix this but can't (I'm new!)
Anyone any ideas on this?
Thanks
Elaine
-
No problem, glad I could help - and I agree the Yoast plugin is a good one but if you're a paying member of SEOmoz, follow up using it with the on-page optimiser so you have a variety of angles covered.
-
Hi Martin
That's what I am doing now, going through pages and taking out the description and using Yoast for everything else. Love his Plugin.
Thanks again for all your time and help
elaine
-
Maybe for now then, use the Description you can provide via the theme you're using and use Yoast for the other bits?
-
Hi Martin
You're very kind to help. I checked, theres only one SEC plugin and every single url on the site was showing duplicate meta descriptions according to SEOMOZ tools. This is resolved when I don't use Yoast description.
-
Hmmm. Which URLs is SEOmoz saying are containing the duplicate meta description?
And have a look in Wordpress under 'plugins' and see if there are two 'SEO' plugins, as you might be able to disable one if one has shipped with the theme you're using.
Another experiment might be to temporarily apply a different theme and re-run the SEOmoz tool and see if you still have duplicate META DESCRIPTIONs as that would help you to see if it is the theme causing the problem.
-
Hi Martin
Thanks for coming back to me so quickly! I don't think there are different pages causing the problem. I've looked at it again.
My theme has an SEO description box, as does Yoast's plugin. When I do not use Yoast, and run a page report there, it comes up with a tick on the box, saying that I do not have a 2 meta descriptions.
I am guessing the problem is with my theme (having SEO already in it). God help us all, at the moment I am in the header php having a look at that. I am not a tech person, I'm a psychologist, so that should tell me loud and clear "Get out of the PHP!
I have just emailed the theme support to see if there is a way to disable their SEO, as I want to continue with Yoast.
I should say that it is not showing up in google webmaster tools. It shows no errors or problems with the site
Thanks again for posting
-
Hi there!
What you need to do is note down which two pages are causing the duplicate META DESCRIPTION and then log into Wordpress and go and edit those posts or pages.
At the bottom of the page editor are boxes for title and meta description, so you will need to change one or both of them and then republish the page.
Let me know if you need screenshots as I have a couple of clients who we use Yoast's SEO plugin as a part of managing the on-site SEO.
Thanks,
Martin
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Adding CTAs in Meta Descriptions
Whats peoples opinions about putting Call To Cations CTAs in Meta Descriptions, and does this ever occur a Google penalty, as it can sometimes look a bit clickbait. For example I am looking at a site which currently has this meta description Meta Description: For more information on our sustainable, natural office furniture, click here to get in contact. Is this kind of description ranking unfriendly, Ive seen them used a lot but IM not a big fan of this myself. Any thoughts?
On-Page Optimization | | Donsimong1 -
Duplicate content in sidebar
Hi guys. So I have a few sentences (about 50 words) of duplicate content across all pages of my website (this is a repeatable text in sidebar). Each page of my website contains about 1300 words (unique content) in total, and 50 words of duplicate content in sidebar. Does having a duplicate content of this length in sidebar affect the rankings of my website in any way? Thank you so much for your replies.
On-Page Optimization | | AslanBarselinov1 -
Product Descriptions (SEO)
So I would like a few opinions. How long should a product description be? Enough to get the point across? 100 words? 800 words? Over detailed? Any advice would be appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | mattl990 -
Does using Yoast variables for meta content overwrite any pages that already have custom meta content?
The question is about the Yoast plugin for WP sites. Let's say I have a site with 200 pages and custom meta descriptions / title tags already in place for the top 30 pages. If I use the Yoast variable tool to complete meta content for the remaining pages (and make my Moz issue tracker look happier), will that only affect the pages without custom meta descriptions or will it overwrite even the pages with the custom meta content that I want? In this situation, I do want to keep the meta content that is already in place on select pages. Thanks! Zack
On-Page Optimization | | rootandbranch0 -
Duplicate page titles and Content in Woocommerce
Hi Guys, I'm new to Moz and really liking it so far!
On-Page Optimization | | jeeyer
I run a eCommerce site on Wordpress + WooCommerce and ofcourse use Yoast for SEO optimalisation I've got a question about my first Crawl report which showed over 600 issues! 😐 I've read that this is something that happens more often (http://moz.com/blog/setup-wordpress-for-seo-success). Most of them are categorized under:
1. Duplicate Page Titles or;
2. Duplicate Page Content. Duplicate Page Titles:
These are almost only: product category pages and product tags. Is this problem beeing solved by giving them the right SEO SERP? I see that a lot of categories don't have a proper SEO SERP set up in yoast! Do I need to add this to clear this issue, or do I need to change the actual Title? And how about the Product tags? Another point (bit more off-topic) I've read here: http://moz.com/community/q/yoast-seo-plugin-to-index-or-not-to-index-categories that it's advised to noindex/follow Categories and Tags but isn't that a wierd idea to do for a eCommerce site?! Duplicate Page Content:
Same goes here almost only Product Categories and product tags that are displayed as duplicate Page content! When I check the results I can click on a blue button for example "+ 17 duplicates" and that shows me (in this case 17 URLS) but they are not related to the fist in any way so not sure where to start here? Thanks for taking the time to help out!
Joost0 -
No meta description on category page
Hi Moz is reporting no meta description on a wordpress category page like this one: http://www.dwliverpoolphotography.co.uk/category/uncategorized/ Can I add a meta description to a category? Best wishes. David.
On-Page Optimization | | WallerD0 -
My Meta Description changes when i use different keyword in google search.
Hello everyone, I have a question for the community. I have a website with several articles and news that i manage. I set specific meta descriptions for every page but when i search in google it gives me back different meta descriptions depending on the keyword that i use to search. What i notice is that google looks in my page for the most relevant part of the text that combines with my keyword and gives me back that result. I thought that this only happen when i have an empty meta description. Anyone felt the same ? Best Ricardo www.meuportalfinanceiro.pt
On-Page Optimization | | Adclick0 -
Does keyword at the very front of meta description have impact?
I know that it is important to have your primary keyword target as the first word or two words of your title tag. But what about your meta description tag? does it matter where they keyword is in the description tag? I see a lot of other sites stuffing their keywords right at the front of the description tag and it looks somewhat unnatural. What's your take? do you put the primary keyword as the first word or two words of your description tag?
On-Page Optimization | | adriandg0
