What is a description tag ?
The description tag is a piece of html code that’s meant to give a short – you guessed it – description of a web page. The description tag is at the top of the page in thesection of the code. In code, a description tag looks like this:
Not visible on your web page
The description tag of a web page is not visible on the page itself. That’s why a lot of companies don’t pay it much attention.
Google shows the description tag
Google likes the description tag. If a web page has a description tag, Google shows it, provided these 2 conditions are met:
- Semantic similarity between the description tag and the content of the web page
- Significant similarity between the user’s search query and the content of the description tag
Example 1
I looked for ‘title tag’. Google shows the page’s description tag because it contains my query ‘title tag’.
Example 2
I looked for ‘page title’. Because the description tag does not contain my query, Google doesn’t show it. Instead, Google shows a sentence fragment on the page that does contain the query.
What does Google do if you don’t have a description tag?
If a page doesn’t have a description tag, Google usually shows sentence fragments on the page that contain the user’s query.
Does the description tag affect my ranking in Google?
No, it doesn’t. Google ignores the description tag’s content when it comes to ranking. The description tag will not help you to score better in Google.
Does the description tag matter, if Google doesn’t use it for its ranking?
Yes, it absolutely does. Which result people click on in Google is affected by the result’s title and the extra bit of information that appears underneath the title.
Thanks to our 8 tips for the perfect title tag you should have the title pretty much covered. The ‘extra bit of information’ that Google shows about a page can be the description tag.
Good copywriting can convince people to click on your page rather than your competitor’s, even though he is maybe ranked one or two spots higher than you are.
How do you write a good description tag?
Good question. You can find out by reading these 12 tips for the perfect description tag.
Well I think the description tag is intelligently obtained by Google based on your content. So it’s not really important.
The information about description tag provided above is very educative. It is a good resource for people, who want to make the most out of their websites. Thanks for the information.
Thanks! 🙂
If meta descriptions aren’t important, why would the Diagnostics in Google Webmaster Tools show Duplicate Met Descriptions as an issue to address?
@Logan I never said they weren’t important. i only said they don’t affect your ranking. They can most certainly affect CTR. And I’m sure the nice people at Google want you to do well at that too…