How unique should meta descriptions be?
-
This is something I've been wondering for a while but can't seem to find any advice on. My website features ~60 different companies, each having their own profile page. When optimizing for SEO, how unique should each page's meta description be? Put another way, can I be penalized if the descriptions are all identical except for the company name I include?
Any thoughts, resources, or best practices are appreciated!
-
Thanks, and I agree with you. The similar descriptions are because I'm not personally setting them each time, so I wanted to provide a template to other users so we at least have something custom for search results pages instead of the default text from the beginning of the post.
-
True.
Also, a good description helps to improve CTR. So, you may not be penalized by using all the same but a word different instead you might not be getting the best CTR possible.Just try to be as much informative as possible and think what would you think as a Google Search User if you see several ranking positions with very, very, very similar descriptions?
Best Luck.
GR. -
It is not a problem that they are all the same
The problem would be if the content inside was exactly the same, there if it would penalize Google
-
I believe the meta description is becoming less and less of a SERP factor (especially since it does not affect rankings directly, and you should write it to improve CTR). You should not be flagged for duplicate content for doing what you described with the meta descriptions in my opinion, just make sure the actual content on each page is unique and not duplicating other pages.
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
-
Can I reuse meta description tag on another site?
Hi....lets say i sell widgets and on my site i have redWidgets, blueWidgets and greenWidgets. Each of these widget page's has a meta description tag that seems to help click through. I now have a different site that would like to do a right up about each widget and will dedicate a independent page to each widget. Can i safely provide them with the original meta descriptions (from my original site) for each widget i have on my site to then use on these "right up" pages (as they seem to work well and are informative of the subject matter). I am not sure if this is a seo issue or not. I would think not but would appreciate any input. thank you
On-Page Optimization | | nomad-2023230 -
Why would a competitor brand appear in our meta? - (i've never seen this before)
Why would competitor sweetwater appear in americanmusical.com meta? For example, Google: site:americanmusical.com ext:pdf rebate You will see this result: PDF]Nord Stage 2 EX $500 Rebate Form - Sweetwater <cite class="_Rm">https://www.americanmusical.com/ItemFiles/Rebate/NordStage2EX_05312017.pdf</cite>Your page is not mobile-friendly.May 31, 2017 - REBATE DETAILS: To receive your $500 rebate, send your completed form with a copy of your invoice or receipt and UPC codes to either the.
On-Page Optimization | | seo20170 -
How often should we refresh or rewrite product descriptions?
is it good practice to rewrite our product descriptions every few months? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | onwardsandupwards0 -
The page is missing meta language information.
Hi, I saw my website have a problem about meta language, I do some search and found that I need to add on the , with 'll' is language code and 'cc' is country code. But I am confused what should I do, because my website is world wide, not launch at specific any language and country. Please give me an advice in this case. Thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | JohnHuynh0 -
Can I use the same text in my meta description as I put in my post excerpt?
Hi, I'm just trying to understand the right way to optimise my blog posts and this is likely a dumb question... but to what extent should the text in my meta description differ from the text in my post excerpts? cheers, Andrew
On-Page Optimization | | seowhiskey0 -
Bogus duplicate meta descriptions in GWT
UPDATE:
On-Page Optimization | | PatioLifeStyle
The same type of error (returning a page structure with no content and no CSS) can be replicated by adding a trailing slash to any valid URL. This leads me to believe that there is a problem on the server. It should be serving the custom 404 page instead of junk. I have fixed the "ezine" directory problem by doing a wildcard 301 on that directory, so you can ignore that issue. We are experiencing issues on one of our sites that we cannot resolve. It is an issue that many sites seem to have, according to discussions within the Google Webmaster Tools forum. We have tried several of the suggestions made in that forum, without success. We need somebody to help us resolve this: who has experience with this issue who knows exactly what is causing it who knows how to fix it Definition of Problem Location:
Google Webmaster Tools | Optimization | HTML Improvements | Duplicate meta descriptions (similar issues also appear in the same area under Duplicate title tags) By drilling down into a listed error, we see two versions of the problem: Multiple instances of the page are displayed, and appended to the URL is another URL of a page that has no relationship to the first. The screenshot also shows a directory (/ezine) that was deleted and renamed. See attached pic
duplicatemetadescriptions1.jpg Also by drilling down in the same way, some of the instances show unique URLs, but the ones listed (other than the correct one), do not exist. See attached pic
duplicatemetadescriptions2.jpg Please offer only KNOWN solution(s). Thank you. 79cNe0 -
Meta name and other data on home page
I am in the process of building a new website with wordpress to replace my static HTML site but cannot find out where to place my meta data such as meta name (google verification etc) on the home page. Using Yoast SEO plugin and all I can find is place for title and meta description. Anyone have any experience with this SEO problem? thanks
On-Page Optimization | | casper4340 -
Meta Keywords
Hello Everyone- Quick question about meta keywords. Most SEO's agree that meta keywords are no longer used as a ranking factor in Google. My question is, if a client comes to me and they already have a bunch of meta keywords on their site what would the smart strategy be? 1. Remove all the meta keyword data from the clients site 2. Scale the meta keywords back by only leaving the top keywords in the code? 3. Do nothing Thanks for all your time! Regards, Bill Parlaman
On-Page Optimization | | wparlaman0