Google is not honoring my descriptions
-
I finally got our title tags honored and now Google is just making the descriptions whatever it wants. This is happening on pretty much every one of our pages. An example: http://www.sqlsentry.com/products/plan-explorer/sql-server-query-view
SERPS = SQL Server MVP Aaron Bertrand shares a demo kit for Plan Explorer to give you better insight into the advantages of the tool, and to help you share its virtues ...
Description tag = SQL Sentry Plan Explorer is a free query plan analysis tool that will allow you to find the most expensive operators by CPU, I/O, or both.
I can see the description tag when I view source so I know that it is pulling it from the table correctly. What can I do to fix this?
-
They had switched the title months back but once I shortened the pixel width it righted itself. Thanks for the answers it is much appreciated!
-
-
I have a few keywords in there. What led me down this path was an insane drop off rate that I noticed for that page. We have an 89.2% drop off from that page as a landing page when I'm looking at our behavior flow report. I decided to check the SERP's to see if anything stood out, to me, the description that google has used when you search "SQL Sentry Plan Explorer" seems misleading. It looks like you are going to get to a blog post from one of our MVP's and you would in fact be going to a product sales page. I was wondering if that could account for the drop off.
-
Generally, if someone queries a keyword and if that kw is not in the meta description and the page is relevant, Google may return a snippet or two of a site's content that contains that kw. They believe it to be more useful to the user. So you could try to optimize phrases that contain that keyword to increase clicks.
-
I do not believe it is pulling it from a rich snippet. I do however see a different result depending on how I search for the keywords for that page. That is really strange. Doesn't seem like there is much I can do about this one.
-
Google will show what they believe will help the searcher the most. So based on the query, the meta description may or may not show.
-
Some times google just does this, but there are techniques you can use to try to force them to accept your description (keyword "try"). A number of them are listed in an older Moz post, here. It has some good info on schema and snippets which might help you, and some more references that can guide you in that direction.
Good luck,
Ruben
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
-
Google User Click Data and Metrics
Assuming that Google is using click data from users to calculate rankings (bounce rate, time on site, task completion, etc.) where does Google get the data, especially from browsers that aren't Chrome?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AMHC0 -
Organic Listings showing Google Tag Manager + Google Page Title...?
I'm a bit stumped with this. I optimise all my titles etc for Australia - and now the organic liatings are showing something strange. For example ( we sell health supplements ) Meta title = "My Product , Buy Online Australia" If I type "My Product" - the title in the organic listings says "My Product - My Company Limited" - and the only place I can see it getting that from is a combination of Meta Data used in Google Tag Manager + the Name on my Google places page. This is much more obvious for categories.. but it's a pain in the butt. If I type "My Product Australia" Then the original "My Product , Buy Online Australia" comes up. Any ideas on policy etc? I have taken the "Limited" off the Google business page - so hopefully this will change over time - but I can't find any information on why google would do something like this. If you had shed any light on this - would be much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | s_EOgi_Bear0 -
Google indexing wrong pages
We have a variety of issues at the moment, and need some advice. First off, we have a HUGE indexing issue across our entire website. Website in question: http://www.localsearch.com.au/ Firstly
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | localdirectories
In Google.com.au, if you search for 'plumbers gosford' (https://www.google.com.au/#q=plumbers+gosford), the wrong page appears - in this instance, the page ranking should be http://www.localsearch.com.au/Gosford,NSW/Plumbers I can see this across the board, across multiple locations. Secondly
Recently I've seen Google reporting in 'Crawl Errors' in webmaster tools URLs such as:
http://www.localsearch.com.au/Saunders-Beach,QLD/Electronic-Equipment-Sales-Repairs&Sa=U&Ei=xs-XVJzAA9T_YQSMgIHQCw&Ved=0CIMBEBYwEg&Usg=AFQjCNHXPrZZg0JU3O4yTGjWbijon1Q8OA This is an invalid URL, and more specifically, those query strings seem to be referrer queries from Google themselves: &Sa=U&Ei=xs-XVJzAA9T_YQSMgIHQCw&Ved=0CIMBEBYwEg&Usg=AFQjCNHXPrZZg0JU3O4yTGjWbijon1Q8OA Here's the above example indexed in Google: https://www.google.com.au/#q="AFQjCNHXPrZZg0JU3O4yTGjWbijon1Q8OA" Does anyone have any advice on those 2 errors?0 -
Google de-indexed a page on my site
I have a site which is around 9 months old. For most search terms we rank fine (including top 3 rankings for competitive terms). Recently one of our pages has been fluctuating wildly in the rankings and has now disappeared altogether from the rankings for over 1 week. As a test I added a similar page to one of my other sites and it ranks fine. I've checked webmaster tools and there is nothing of note there. I'm not really sure what to do at this stage. Any advice would me much appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | deelo5550 -
Is WordPress a Blog in the eyes of Google?
Hi, My online Shop is based on WordPress with the WooCommerce plugin. Now, I have met a SEO guy who told me that's bad in the eyes of Google: Because Google apparently sees my website as a blog and not as a E-Commerce site. Wow, this statement really confused my, since I am working so hard on content and good rankings. Any opinions on this would be appreciated. Best, Robin
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | soralsokal0 -
Google Fetch Issue
I'm having some problems with what google is fetching and what it isn't, and I'd like to know why. For example, google IS fetching a non-existent page but listing it as an error: http://www.gaport.com/carports but the actual url is http://www.gaport.com/carports.htm. Google is NOT able to fetch http://www.gaport.com/aluminum/storage-buildings-10x12.htm. It says the page doesn't exist (even though it does) and when I click on the not found link in Google fetch it adds %E@%80%8E to the url causing the problem. One theory we have is that this may be some sort of server/hosting problem, but that's only really because we can't figure out what we could have done to cause it. Any insights would be greatly appreciated. Thanks and Happy Holidays! Ruben
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Does google have trigger words it does not like?
If we mention words such as supplement or lesser word cosmetic are they a trigger to anything Google side such as a more through look at the website or such as I can see sex ect being one. I am not selling the above but we do sell the stickers for them (not the sex ones) so just airing on caution on weather to have a page talking about them on the site.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
Sitemaps recommend by google
Google in it guideline recommends to create a sitemap. Do they means a /sitemap.xml or does it need to be sitemap directly on the website ? Does it make any difference ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0