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.
Does Google ACTUALLY ding you for having long Meta Titles? Or do studies just suggest a lower CTR?
-
I do SEO in an agency and have many clients. I always get the question, "Will that hurt my SEO?". When it comes to Meta Title and even Meta Description Length, I understand Google will truncate it which may result in a lower CTR, but does it actually hurt your ranking? I see in many cases Google will find keywords within a long meta description and display those and then in other cases it will simply truncate it. Is Google doing whatever they want willy-nilly or is there data behind this?
Thank you!
-
I think meta descriptions are important.
They are your first chance to display a call to action to a customer and to get them to click through to your site. Hence a poorly written one, truncated etc. is probably not as enticing as one within the 160 characters - that does not truncate.
We have acted for several clients where we have optimized the MD and improved the CTR by .08% (ie less than 1%) but that has amounted to over 20,000 additional clicks on their site a year.
Also I loved Rand's WBF which indirectly addresses the issue, but correlates with my view, though probably not as strong that dwell time is a significant factor on ranking.
https://moz.com/blog/impact-of-queries-and-clicks-on-googles-rankings-whiteboard-friday
On your questions directly:-
Will it hurt your SEO? - Yes, two possible reasons
1/ you keyword stuff it.
2/ no-one clicks through because you have a bad MD
On truncation - there are exceptions, but google generally does not if you fit within there pixel/character limit.
My view - draft and implement your MD's properly...
Hope that assists.
-
Great question, and I certainly heard the "will this hurt my seo" thing all the time as a consultant. A couple of thoughts...
- To my knowledge, there is no specific algorithmic feature that would lower a page's rank because of too long descriptions
- Long meta descriptions, however, may be truncated (as you pointed out) or ignored and replaced altogether by Google if they find a more appropriate subsection of text on the page.
- A succinct, well written meta description may help with CTR which itself may be a ranking factor
- Google has stated that they want you to write good meta descriptions, for what it is worth.
What I try and say to clients is "are you prepared to build a top 10 website in your industry". If they are sweating good meta descriptions, they aren't ready to compete in the big leagues.
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
-
Are Meta-descriptions important for blogs?
I am tasked with optimizing an existing sites SEO. I have added meta's to all the menu pages, however they have blog section with over 700 posts. How important are meta descriptions when it comes to a websites blog? Do I need to take the time to go through 700+ blog posts and create unique meta descriptions for each one?
Algorithm Updates | | rburnett0 -
How can I discover the Google ranking number for a keyword in Brazil?
Hello, how can I discover the Google ranking number for a keyword in Brazil location. I need to know what is the position in Brazil location for the keyword "ligação internacional" in the Google search engine for the webpage www.solaristelecom.com/ligacao-internacional. I tried to use the Moz tools to discover it but only shows that I am not in the top 50, then I want to know where I am, and if I am listed or not. I tried to search it in my browser and didn't show the name of my website. Thank you.
Algorithm Updates | | lmoraes1 -
Best and easiest Google Depersonalization method
Hello, Moz hasn't written anything about depersonalization for years. This article has methods, but I don't know if they are valid anymore. What's an easy, effective way to depersonalize Google search these days? I would just log out of Google, but that shows different ranking results than Moz's rank tracker for one of our main keywords, so I don't know if that method is correct. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | BobGW0 -
US domain pages showing up in Google UK SERP
Hi, Our website which was predominantly for UK market was setup with a .com extension and only two years ago other domains were added - US (.us) , IE (.ie), EU (.eu) & AU (.com.au) Last year in July, we noticed that few .us domain urls were showing up in UK SERPs and we realized the sitemap for .us site was incorrectly referring to UK (.com) so we corrected that and the .us domain urls stopped appearing in the SERP. Not sure if this actually fixed the issue or was such coincidental. However in last couple of weeks more than 3 .us domain urls are showing for each brand search made on Google UK and sometimes it replaces the .com results all together. I have double checked the PA for US pages, they are far below the UK ones. Has anyone noticed similar behaviour &/or could anyone please help me troubleshoot this issue? Thanks in advance, R
Algorithm Updates | | RaksG0 -
Is it possible that Google may have erroneous indexing dates?
I am consulting someone for a problem related to copied content. Both sites in question are WordPress (self hosted) sites. The "good" site publishes a post. The "bad" site copies the post (without even removing all internal links to the "good" site) a few days after. On both websites it is obvious the publishing date of the posts, and it is clear that the "bad" site publishes the posts days later. The content thief doesn't even bother to fake the publishing date. The owner of the "good" site wants to have all the proofs needed before acting against the content thief. So I suggested him to also check in Google the dates the various pages were indexed using Search Tools -> Custom Range in order to have the indexing date displayed next to the search results. For all of the copied pages the indexing dates also prove the "bad" site published the content days after the "good" site, but there are 2 exceptions for the very 2 first posts copied. First post:
Algorithm Updates | | SorinaDascalu
On the "good" website it was published on 30 January 2013
On the "bad" website it was published on 26 February 2013
In Google search both show up indexed on 30 January 2013! Second post:
On the "good" website it was published on 20 March 2013
On the "bad" website it was published on 10 May 2013
In Google search both show up indexed on 20 March 2013! Is it possible to be an error in the date shown in Google search results? I also asked for help on Google Webmaster forums but there the discussion shifted to "who copied the content" and "file a DMCA complain". So I want to be sure my question is better understood here.
It is not about who published the content first or how to take down the copied content, I am just asking if anybody else noticed this strange thing with Google indexing dates. How is it possible for Google search results to display an indexing date previous to the date the article copy was published and exactly the same date that the original article was published and indexed?0 -
Proper Way To Submit A Reconsideration Request To Google
Hello, In previous posts, I was speaking about how we were penalized by Google for unnatural links. Basically 50,000 our of our 58,000 links were coming from 4-5 sites with the same exact anchor text and img alt tags. This obviously was causing our issues. Needless to say, I wen through the complete link profile to determine that all of the links besides this were of natrural origins. My question here is what is the accepted protocol of submitting a reinclusion request; For example, how long should it be? Should I disclose that I was in fact using paid links, and now that I removed (or at least nofollowed) them? I want to make sure that the request as good as it should so I can get our rankings up in a timely manner. Also, how long until the request is typically aknowledged? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | BestOdds0 -
Title tag consistency. Is it worth it?
I operate a stain removal website and was wondering how consistent it was worth being from title tag to title tag. To give you an example, here is a group of keyword phrases that I might wish to target: "getting out pet stains with vinegar" "how do I remove water stains from wood" "removing chocolate stains" Does the benefit to be gained (whatever that might be) from making these consistently of the form "how to remove X from Y, " or "how to remove X" outweigh simply giving articles titles based on the exact phrases above? I heard from someone that Google is getting more proficient at spotting "clumsy" title tags, although I'm not sure if any of the above examples would fall into that category, and was thinking that I should then probably proceed on the basis of directly titling articles based on the exact keywords I am uncovering... Any advice much appreciated.
Algorithm Updates | | ZakGottlieb710 -
Why doesn't everyone just purchase a .org tld?
Hi, I am new-ish to SEO, and something just dawned on me today. I have read in many places that .org domains rank higher (even if slightly) than .coms. Then why doesn't everyone just purchase .org TLDs? For example, in my industry, most good .com domain names are taken, but .orgs are almost all free. Why not purchase a .org and capitalize on exact match search results? seomoz is .org and it's far from being a non-profit 🙂
Algorithm Updates | | Eladla0