SERP display switching between normal meta description and 15+ items
-
The site, www.myrtlebeach.com has been having an issue with the way it displays in search results for the keyword "Myrtle Beach hotels". It is showing as a bulleted/itemized list similar to what's mentioned in this Moz article
I'll begin with a little background. When I started working with the site it would display in SERPs as:
Myrtle Beach Hotels - Reviews, Deals, & Photos - MyrtleBeach.com
www.myrtlebeach.com/hotels/
70+ items - Compare Lowest rates & see reviews on Myrtle Beach Hotels
from $76. Holiday Inn Club Vacations Myrtle Beach - South Beach offers a ...
from $27. Located among the south end Myrtle Beach hotels, Holiday Sands ...We did not want the site showing as an itemized list with 70+ items. We wanted it to show with the meta description we provided.
Our first attempt at getting the SERP to display our normal meta description was to simply change the meta description. That didn't work.Our second thought was to use pagination to reduce the number of items on the page. A few days after we implemented pagination we saw our normal meta description displaying in the SERP. Shortly after that we saw the SERP had reverted, but this time was showing 15+ items rather than 70+. This is when began seeing the SERP display change between a normal meta description and 15+ items.
In another effort to stop the 15+ items from displaying in SERPs, we added relevant blog content like "Top 10 Oceanfront hotels" and "Best Kid Friendly Hotels" to break up the hotel listings on http://www.myrtlebeach.com/hotels/. Again, our normal meta description displayed in the SERPs for the next few days, but shortly after reverted back to 15+ items. Since then we have been seeing the SERP switch between our normal meta description and 15+ items with no rhyme or reason. Because our listings are not using
-
, I'm not really sure why the site would be displaying this way.
Since I have been regularly monitoring the SERP for the keyword "Myrtle Beach hotels", myrtlebeach.com/hotels/ has ranked as high as 5 and as low as 10. I open an Incognito Window and I take screenshots almost daily. I then record how the site was displayed in the SERP and its rank. I also look at organic visits and a Value Per Entry metric I've created. (I looked at Value Per Entry to determine if someone seeing 15+ items was more apt to convert)
Average Visits on days with a normal meta description - 182
Average Visits on days with itemized 15+ description - 174Average Value Per Entry on days with a normal meta description - 131
Average Value Per Entry on days with itemized 15+ description - 120Average Rank on days with a normal meta description - 7
Average Rank on days with itemized 15+ description - 6This data shows that performance is better on days when the normal meta description is displayed regardless of rank.
I have linked 2 screenshots for reference. The 2-6-14 screenshot shows the SERP display with 15+ items and the 2-7-14 screenshot shows the SERP display with the normal meta description we provided.
My questions are:
1. How does Google determine if a site should display in SERPs with an itemized or bulleted list?
2. Is there something else I need to change on myrtlebeach.com/hotels/ to prevent it from displaying in SERPs with 15+ items?
-
-
I wish I had a good answer. When Google takes liberties with snippets, it's not always easy to sort out why. The first stop is usually making sure the query is in the META description and the description isn't too long, and you've got both of those covered. Two long shots, but easy to try:
(1) Add the NOODP Meta Tag (). Sometimes, it prevents not only descriptions from the Open Directory Project, but also Google taking liberties. Sometimes.
(2) Consider pulling your domain name out of the META description. You're saying "Myrtle Beach Hotels" twice in both the title and META descriptions, and it's possible that that looks very slightly spammy to Google. If you can, make the description slightly more natural - the length is about right.
Again, these are in no way guaranteed, but they're easy to try. I don't think tweaking the structure of the page is going to help. It's not Google recognizing the search results that's a problem - it's why they choose to rewrite. Unfortunately, we don't have a good handle on the why, at least in some cases.
-
Thanks Vadim,
I actually mentioned that same article in the beginning of my post. It helped me understand that
- and
-
Dr. Pete in this article should provide some answers, food for thoughts, and hopefully a suggestion:
http://moz.com/blog/how-do-i-get-googles-bulleted-snippets
Hope this helps!
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
-
Why isn't our complete meta title showing up in the Google SERPS? (cut off half way)
We carry a product line, cutless bearings (for use on boats). For instance, we have one, called the Able, that has the following meta title (and searched by View Page Source to confirm): BOOT 1-3/8" x 2-3/8" x 5-1/2" Johnson Cutless Bearing | BOOT Cutlass However, if I search for it on on Google by part number or name (boot cutless bearing, boot cutlass bearing), the meta title comes back with whole first part chopped off, only showing this : "x 5-1/2" Johnson Cutless Bearing | BOOT Cutlass - Citimarine ..." Any idea why? Here's the url if it will hopefully help: https://citimarinestore.com/en/metallic-inches/156-boot-johnson-cutless-bearing-870352103.html All the products in the category are doing the same. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Citimarine0 -
Rich Snippets stopped showing up in SERPS
i had some rich snippets (recipes nad stars) showing on my site, but the last few days they have gone, has anyone had this happen, if so what did you do to get them back? The example URL is as follows http://www.gourmed.gr/syntages/pestrofa-sto-tigani-synodeyomeni-me-sauvignon-2003-karypidis everything seems ok in Google Structured Data Testing Tool. Any thoughts on why?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | canonodigital0 -
Urgent problem - multilingual website title tag and meta description problem
Hello, Our client websites was ranking in high position in Google for a handful of keywords. Targeted keywords were in the title tag but for some reasons Google is not showing thouse keywords in title tag anymore. Instead Google shows same keywords in different language. I think there are some multilingual title tag problem. Any ideas how to solve it? Thanks guys
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | serp-eesti0 -
Pages Titles in SERPs - Wordpress Site
In Google SERPs we have several websites (built in wordpress) who's pages are being displayed without using the page title - is this google ignoring the page title or is there a problem in our code - also if this is google is it still taking notice of the page title to determine what content is on the page?I have read several articles on this but wondered if someone can advise - I can provide the URL if required.Also I wanted to 100% that our robots.txt is behaving its self.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnW-UK0 -
How to get head office address appear on SERPS under brand serps?
Hi all, We have different offices in UK in different cities. Until last month our main office was appearing on Google results but lately i noticed that our other office is appearing on serps when i search with brand name. We have 3 addresses registered with Google Places. Any ideas how we can get head office to appear on serps under our brand name? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Rubix0 -
How long until my correct url is in the serps?
We changed our website including urls. We setup 301 redirects for our pages. Some of the pages show up as the old url and some the new url. When does that change?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EcommerceSite0 -
Why is my site's 'Rich Snippets' information not being displayed in SERPs?
We added hRecipe microformats data to our site in April and then migrated to the Schema.org Recipe format in July, but our content is still not being displayed as Rich Snippets in search engine results. Our pages validate okay in the Google Rich Snippets Testing Tool. Any idea why they are not being displayed in SERP's? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Techboy0 -
Should I completly remove the meta tags keywords in the html page?
So if the metag is not longer used by the search engines should I keep them in my html ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lomastravel0