The meta description debate...

QVA - Emma · Sep 29, 2009

Ok so as not to hijack another thread I'm reposting here a comment that I made on another thread to continue the debate..... my post was...

I'm gonna disagree with the metatags not being used for ranking having got a clients page indexed by having a misspelling in the description tag, agreed it also helps having the correct spelling in the title as it is relevant but never say never.

Now I know there are those of you who have been doing SEO longer than I have and have tried no end of experiments, but what IF there was a way, and what IF Google does use text in the description tag?

The ranking I am talking about was not intended as an experiment, indeed it did not even cross my mind as I had no doubt that the site would not rank for it, but as I have stumbled upon an exception to the rule I think it would be interesting to take it a step further.

As with all things SEO it depends on a number of factors (or in this case it has) so I am conducting another experiment on my own site in a similar way.

The rules are:
1. It HAS to be a related word or a common misspell of a keyword/phrase you are targeting.
2. Not a made up word, as Google has no record of it ever being searched for unless you want to perform 20 searches a day for the next 12 months.
3. There must be no backlinks to the site with this phrase in.
4. The phrase must not be included anywhere else on the site/titles/tags/copy/internal links.
5. The phrase has to have a relatively low competition in the SERPs.
6. You can't use your company name or a misspell of your company name.

Ok so who would like to join me on this experiment? I've set mine up ten minutes ago and will give it a week to see what happens then another week if needed.

I'll also post back with results good or bad.

Regards

Emma

Sep 29, 2009

Well I have always believed that the meta description has a bearing on rankings and always worked bearing that in mind.

I know the children across the pond reckon they have done extensive tests to proove they have no effect and Matt has made statements to that effect.

But my experience is a tad different.

I guess I base it on the fact that google will read all on your site for a purpose.

What that purpose is who knows.:|

But an engine that gives high rankings to keyword rich domains is a faulty engine IMHO.

Earl

FLAUK · Sep 29, 2009

I can't say for sure they are a benefit, but I'm sure they don't do any harm.

With that in mind, why not add them anyway?

Ali-v-8 · Sep 29, 2009

I'm With "god almighty" on this one.

When we wrote meta's titles and tags etc for a cash for property website. we spelt reposesion (to give an idea) different ways in the descriptions.
They come up for the variations.

"stop repossesion pontefract" repo spelt wrong but look at the results and see the content is written correct not the description.

Title is correct too

Meta's 1 - matt cutts 0

matt.chatterley · Sep 30, 2009

sirearl said:
Well I have always believed that the meta description has a bearing on rankings and always worked bearing that in mind.

I know the children across the pond reckon they have done extensive tests to proove they have no effect and Matt has made statements to that effect.

But my experience is a tad different.

I've seen cases where they make a difference, but also cases where they don't - so thats not really any help in clarifying.

That said, many people don't realise for a while that the default position of G is to show the meta description to users in search results - so it can be critical to obtaining that click-thru..

As Earl also said, the meta description is in the page, and the engine is going to chew through pretty much the whole thing at some point...!

directmarketingadvice · Sep 30, 2009

Ali-v-8 said:
When we wrote meta's titles and tags etc for a cash for property website. we spelt reposesion (to give an idea) different ways in the descriptions. They come up for the variations.

"stop repossesion pontefract" repo spelt wrong but look at the results and see the content is written correct not the description.

Title is correct too

Meta's 1 - matt cutts 0

I'm not SEO, but I am a crap typist, and I think you're jumping to conclusions.

Do a google search for "steve gibsno marketing" and you'll get something like this:

http://www.google.co.uk/webhp?hl=en...oq=steve+gibsno+marketing&fp=c9d508f7ca59f7d2

My sites are the top 3 results. They don't contain the word "gibsno" anywhere. Google has bolded the word "gibson".

So, maybe what you're seeing is simply Google's ability to recognise typos and misspellings?

Steve

crossdaz · Sep 30, 2009

SteveGibson said:
So, maybe what you're seeing is simply Google's ability to recognise typos and misspellings?

Perfectly correct - especially with a word like repossession.
Matt Cutts recently said that the keyword tag is ignored because it is spammed to death so what effect is spamming the description tag going to have. Unless, of course, Google haven't thought of that yet?

Ali-v-8 · Sep 30, 2009

crossdaz said:
Perfectly correct - especially with a word like repossession.
Matt Cutts recently said that the keyword tag is ignored because it is spammed to death so what effect is spamming the description tag going to have. Unless, of course, Google haven't thought of that yet?

Ok pal read the description and look at the term GOOGLE has highlighted.

The misspelling is there.
And Been bolded by GOOGLE.

Draw your own conclusion, but in my experience i have seen it work.

But on the other end of the factor how bad would your clients perceive you if you have misspellings all over.

The point of this debate was "does google read the metas"
By the indexing of that perticular description and the fact that the description only contains that misspell and the fact that its number one and....and.....and ... IM RIGHT

Ali-v-8 · Sep 30, 2009

Oh and steve.

As you will be aware with your expertise in adwords, Google looks for the best answer.
So it looked for steve marketing.
and you my dear fellow are the best solution.

awebapart.com · Sep 30, 2009

SteveGibson said:
So, maybe what you're seeing is simply Google's ability to recognise typos and misspellings?

I'm with Steve on this issue. Here's another example search where my client (centreshot) ranks even without any mis-spellings in the meta-description, and without any inlinks from pages using that mis-spelling. Here is another one for UKBF.

Some SEO experiments can be tested without having to set up any new pages or sites, just test the search engine against existing sites.

Algorithms for mis-spellings and typos have been around in the computer industry and especially database technology for years, for example simple ones like Soundex - and any good computer scientist at Google (the 2 founders of Google are computer scientists) would be familiar with this kind of technology. Algorithms like Soundex are very easy to implement, Soundex was included in one of the first PC-DOS databases Ashton Tate's dBase in the early 80's (long before MS Access was born).

It is commendable that you you are taking the scientific logical approach and experimenting for yourself, but sometimes as part of a logical approach, it is worth considering Occam's Razor - if there are 2 theories it is usually the more simple one which is true, and in this case I think the more simple theory is correct. When I say more simple it is only more simple to people who know that implementing mis-spelling and typos algorithms is perfectly feasible and even easy. Unfortunately this more simple theory might seem a more complicated theory to people who are unfamiliar with mis-spelling and typo algorithms.

QVA - Emma said:
3. There must be no backlinks to the site with this phrase in.

For your experiment and for future similar experiments I recommend that this rule is taken a step further so that the word in question is not on the page linking in to the site at all.

Ali-v-8 · Sep 30, 2009

awebapart.com said:
I'm with Steve on this issue. Here's another example search where my client (centreshot) ranks even without any mis-spellings in the meta-description, and without any inlinks from pages using that mis-spelling. Here is another one for UKBF.

Some SEO experiments can be tested without having to set up any new pages or sites, just test the search engine against existing sites.

Algorithms for mis-spellings and typos have been around in the computer industry and especially database technology for years, for example simple ones like Soundex - and any good computer scientist at Google (the 2 founders of Google are computer scientists) would be familiar with this kind of technology. Algorithms like Soundex are very easy to implement, Soundex was included in one of the first PC-DOS databases Ashton Tate's dBase in the early 80's (long before MS Access was born).

It is commendable that you you are taking the scientific logical approach and experimenting for yourself, but sometimes as part of a logical approach, it is worth considering Occam's Razor - if there are 2 theories it is usually the more simple one which is true, and in this case I think the more simple theory is correct. When I say more simple it is only more simple to people who know that implementing mis-spelling and typos algorithms is perfectly feasible and even easy. Unfortunately this more simple theory might seem a more complicated theory to people who are unfamiliar with mis-spelling and typo algorithms.

For your experiment and for future similar experiments I recommend that this rule is taken a step further so that the word in question is not on the page linking in to the site at all.

Look at steves example.

Click on cache for the listing and what do you see?

"steve" and "marketing" are only high lighted.

fisicx · Sep 30, 2009

Ali-v-8 said:
By the indexing of that perticular description and the fact that the description only contains that misspell and the fact that its number one and....and.....and ... IM RIGHT

Disagree.

Just because the mispelled word is emboldened doesn't mean it was a ranking signal. Google has assumed you were looking for repossession and suggested as such. The mispelled word is only emboldened becasue it is an exact match.

The meta description test is easy. Put a made up word into the your meta but not on the page and you will never get ranked for that word. I agree that things can get complicated with various elements interacting but ALL the evidence indicates that Google claim is in fact correct.

Does Google read the meta description? Yes, and uses them in the snippet.
Dose Google use the meta description for ranking? No, as proven over and over again.

Ali-v-8 · Sep 30, 2009

Ok i agree to disagree on this debate.
But as i bow out Ungracefully.

Like a mountaineer that climbs a mountain cos it is there.
I will always fill in the Metas cos they are there.

fisicx said:
Disagree.

Just because the mispelled word is emboldened doesn't mean it was a ranking signal. Google has assumed you were looking for repossession and suggested as such. The mispelled word is only emboldened becasue it is an exact match.

The meta description test is easy. Put a made up word into the your meta but not on the page and you will never get ranked for that word. I agree that things can get complicated with various elements interacting but ALL the evidence indicates that Google claim is in fact correct.

Does Google read the meta description? Yes, and uses them in the snippet.
Dose Google use the meta description for ranking? No, as proven over and over again.

QVA - Emma · Sep 30, 2009

For your experiment and for future similar experiments I recommend that this rule is taken a step further so that the word in question is not on the page linking in to the site at all.

Indeed what I should have added it that in fact it should be nowhere in relation to the site.

I appreciate what you are trying to say with regards to the algos and mis-spells and I don't debate that. What I am looking at is if there is a way of getting a better ranking for a common mis-spell by just using it in the description tag. I know it doesn't help that Google have there "did you mean" spring up which probably stops searches from viewing the results - but if adwords users are using misspells then surely there must be some benefit overall?

I am only using mis-spells as I feel it will reproduce quicker results. There are lots of obvious ways to implement mis-spells I agree, in some cases it may only take an external link or my favourite being adding it to the end of your title tag (after 66 characters) so it does not appear in the SERPs. What I am doing is using something that is common to look at the bigger picture.

Sorry if it doesn't sound very clear

directmarketingadvice · Sep 30, 2009

SteveGibson said:
I'm not SEO, but I am a crap typist

Talking about proving a point.

(I think I meant "I'm no SEO")

Steve

QVA - Emma · Sep 30, 2009

SteveGibson said:
I'm not SEO, but I am a crap typist, and I think you're jumping to conclusions.

Do a google search for "steve gibsno marketing" and you'll get something like this:

http://www.google.co.uk/webhp?hl=en...oq=steve+gibsno+marketing&fp=c9d508f7ca59f7d2

My sites are the top 3 results. They don't contain the word "gibsno" anywhere. Google has bolded the word "gibson".

So, maybe what you're seeing is simply Google's ability to recognise typos and misspellings?

Steve

This is part of a point I am trying to make - Google recognises typos and mis-spells - it wouldn't recognise made up words.

So the question is if we put a mis-spelled word in the description tag will the page rank/rank higher or make no difference? This is what I am testing.

Obviously it will rank higher than it would for the real spelling because there are less results. The page I have chosen doesn't rank at all on the first three pages for this mis-spell.

Regards

Emma

fisicx · Sep 30, 2009

QVA - Emma said:
This is part of a point I am trying to make - Google recognises typos and mis-spells - it wouldn't recognise made up words.

Yes it does - do a search for korziklr.

The results do show a page with the keyword in the meta description but this is where it gets complicated because the actual page has the made up word in the footer. I had another page with the keyword in the description only and it never appears in the SERPs (can't find it myself now).

QVA - Emma · Sep 30, 2009

fisicx said:
Yes it does - do a search for korziklr.

The results do show a page with the keyword in the meta description but this is where it gets complicated because the actual page has the made up word in the footer. I had another page with the keyword in the description only and it never appears in the SERPs (can't find it myself now).

Yes but how many times have you searched for it - or readers of your blog searched for it? After a certain amount of searches I would've said that Google would flag your made up word as being searched for and gone looking for it or recognised it as part of the make-up of your site. Part of the reason I don't think made up words make a very good experiment.

Does that make sense?

Emma

awebapart.com · Sep 30, 2009

Ali-v-8 said:
The misspelling is there.
And Been bolded by GOOGLE.

There are 2 completely separate algorithms at play in a google search:

1. The ranking algorithm, where google determines what pages are most relevant to the search

2. The results presentation algorithm, where google displays the results in a nice user friendly way

It is dangerous to confuse these algorithms, for example thinking that words that are formatted as bold in the results presentation algorithm are in some way heavily factored in to the ranking algorithm, looking at the results formatting and thinking "these are the reasons my site ranked".

Google does sometimes use meta descriptions, but in its results presentation algorithm, not its ranking algorithm.

Ali-v-8 said:
Look at steves example.

Click on cache for the listing and what do you see?

"steve" and "marketing" are only high lighted.

Again the cached page highlighting is a presentation algorithm thing, not a "these are the reasons your site ranked" ranking algorithm thing. As part of presenting highlighted cached versions of pages, Google normally says "These terms only appear in links pointing to this page" for any other search terms that are not present on the page, even though they might be factored in to ranking algorithm as in this SEO famous click here search, where the Adobe page in result 1 has no mention of the search at all and therefore no highlighted words in the cache.

Unfortunately what google says and highlights in the cached page for misspellings, i.e. "These terms only appear in links pointing to this page" and no highlight of the properly spelled word is a bit misleading, a bit unfriendly and an area where its presentation algorithm could be improved. If you run the example mis-spell UKBF search in google and yahoo, and look at the cached pages, you will see that yahoo's results presentation algorithm does a better job. In all fairness to google's results presentation algorithm, whilst it may not highlight the correct spelling of the word in the cache, it does bold it in the results page.

Ali-v-8 · Sep 30, 2009

right here is my final stance on this.

I use the mata's. All of them.
If you say they are useless delete them from your website.
If you have the word meta in your source and you tell people it don't mean a thing then what are you preaching.
Practice what you preach.
Dont quote google.
If you are that confident then remove all traces.

Rant over

awebapart.com · Sep 30, 2009

Ali-v-8 said:
Dont quote google.

I for one will continue to pay attention to and quote both google guidelines and, more so, real google search results, as I find them a good reputable authoritative source of information.

Ali-v-8 said:
If you say they are useless delete them from your website.
If you have the word meta in your source and you tell people it don't mean a thing then what are you preaching.
Practice what you preach.

If you read the posts on this thread carefully, you will find that no one here is saying that google ignores meta descriptions completely...

fisicx said:
Does Google read the meta description? Yes, and uses them in the snippet.
Dose Google use the meta description for ranking? No, as proven over and over again.

awebapart.com said:
Google does sometimes use meta descriptions, but in its results presentation algorithm, not its ranking algorithm.

Ali-v-8 · Oct 1, 2009

Wasn't directed at you.
Still my stance.

justinmarch · Oct 1, 2009

Ali-v-8 said:
If you say they are useless delete them from your website.
If you have the word meta in your source and you tell people it don't mean a thing then what are you preaching.
Practice what you preach.
Dont quote google.
If you are that confident then remove all traces.

It sounds to me that people are practising what they preach, rankings are not the be all and end all click thrus and conversions are. Since the description can aid in achieving better click thrus I for one will stick to my guns and continue to use it for this reason and construct it accordingly.

Ali-v-8 · Oct 1, 2009

Please be aware that there is a difference between ranking and indexing.

if you got told to find the tallest chinese guy in a crowd.
first you would find all the chinese people in the room (this is what the metas are there for). Indexing
Then you would measure them up by comparing them all (this is where content comes into play) Ranking

Hope this clears up any confusion as to why i still regard metas with the respect the deserve.

directmarketingadvice · Oct 1, 2009

Ali-v-8 said:
first you would find all the chinese people in the room (this is what the metas are there for). Indexing

Are you saying that having a word in the meta desc means you're in the big group of pages that have that word?

I thought Fisicx's statement:

"I had another page with the keyword in the description only and it never appears in the SERPs (can't find it myself now)"

(if true,) shows that's not the case.

Or, maybe I misunderstood what you're saying.

Surely the simple test would be to put a word that's on no other page on your site in the meta desc of one of your pages, get the page indexed by google (i.e. in the google index) and then do the search:

donkey site:mydomain.com

If no pages come up, then doesn't that mean having the word in the desc doesn't rank you for that word?

(Or maybe it means nothing. As I keep saying, I'm not an SEO)

Steve

fisicx · Oct 1, 2009

Ali-v-8 said:
first you would find all the chinese people in the room (this is what the metas are there for).

Addendum. The SE uses all the information on the page, the internal links, the inbound links, the anchor text and anything else it discovers during the indexing process. The meta description is just a tiddly tiny part of this process and plays no part in the subsequent ranking calcualtions.

Steve, you is correct. Just putting the words in the description is pointless - the SE matches the description to the page contents and if there is a good corelelation MAY use the description in the snippet:

https://sites.google.com/site/webma...-doing-away-with-use-of-the-meta-description-

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35264

justinmarch · Oct 1, 2009

Ali-v-8 said:
If you say they are useless delete them from your website.

You are implying that descriptions are useless, I'm saying that they are not useless but that they are very useful in the SERPs to enable an author to describe the content of a page to those who are searching. Potentially this encourages people to click thru if the listing seems relevant to their search.

Ali-v-8 said:
Please be aware that there is a difference between ranking and indexing.

Who said there wasn't?

directmarketingadvice · Oct 1, 2009

SteveGibson said:
Surely the simple test would be to put a word that's on no other page on your site in the meta desc of one of your pages

Reading that back, I realise it's poorly worded and may be confusing. Clearer would have been:

"Surely the simple test would be to take a word that's on none of the pages on your site and put in the meta desc of one of the pages"

Steve

fisicx · Oct 1, 2009

I knew what you meant Steve.

Is this how you do your PPC? Make the adverts so confusing that people click just to find out what you were talking about?

I, Brian · Oct 1, 2009

There is no debate - the meta description is important as a way to control the text of your listing in the search results. And because Google tracks its search listings, that means those listings getting more clicks are providing a human user signal Google can positively feedback in its ranking algorithm.

Hence an indirect impact on rankings, by being relevant and enticing.

It's best practice to have relevant and enticing meta descriptions, and they should be treated meta-descriptions as you would an Adwords ad.

(And, yes, Google started listing typo corrections back in April this year, I think it was - shame really, as you could use links to target mis-spellings, but that's no longer so useful a strategy as Google tries to identify and then rank sites based on what the spelling should have been. Also note Steve Gibson's page may not contain a typo on his name, but did anyone check whether any mis-spelled links were pointing there?

)

justinmarch · Oct 1, 2009

I said:
but did anyone check whether any mis-spelled links were pointing there?

That is what was indicated within the cached version but I couldn't find any when I looked but perhaps I'm missing something.

directmarketingadvice · Oct 1, 2009

I said:
Also note Steve Gibson's page may not contain a typo on his name, but did anyone check whether any mis-spelled links were pointing there?

I thought that could have been the reason, so I tried a few different misspellings of "Gibson" and was at the top of p1 with all of them. (e.g. "steve gibsox marketing")

Also, the pages that come up top on the misspellings are from two different domains, so it's pretty unlikely the two domains would have the same typos in external anchor text.

Steve

Ali-v-8 · Oct 1, 2009

justinmarch said:
You are implying that descriptions are useless, I'm saying that they are not useless but that they are very useful in the SERPs to enable an author to describe the content of a page to those who are searching. Potentially this encourages people to click thru if the listing seems relevant to their search.

Who said there wasn't?

I always include all meta's
I have never stated they are useless.
I want people not to exclude them.

justinmarch · Oct 1, 2009

Ali-v-8 said:
I always include all meta's
I have never stated they are useless.
I want people not to exclude them.

Glad to hear it...

shopnbag · Oct 1, 2009

SteveGibson said:
I thought that could have been the reason, so I tried a few different misspellings of "Gibson" and was at the top of p1 with all of them. (e.g. "steve gibsox marketing")

Also, the pages that come up top on the misspellings are from two different domains, so it's pretty unlikely the two domains would have the same typos in external anchor text.

Steve

Google tries its best to be semantic, trust me Steve, Google is taking your outside words : "Steve & Marketing" and then as Brian suggested running a spell check against "Gibsox" it's only 1 letter out from Gibson - hardly testing for a word recognition algorithm.

Google will not rank a site from the description tag alone!

It requires the word(s) be present in the documents title tag, the documents web copy or an inbound link pointing to the document in question.

FunkyBears · Oct 2, 2009

http://www.lastclicknews.com/google...r-relevant-to-search-bing-disputes-10456.html

justinmarch · Oct 2, 2009

shopnbag said:
It requires the word(s) be present in the documents title tag, the documents web copy or an inbound link pointing to the document in question.

I agree with you but I think Steve has been suggesting this from the beginning shopnbag see earlier post here:

SteveGibson said:
I'm not SEO, but I am a crap typist, and I think you're jumping to conclusions.

Do a google search for "steve gibsno marketing" and you'll get something like this:

http://www.google.co.uk/webhp?hl=en...oq=steve+gibsno+marketing&fp=c9d508f7ca59f7d2

My sites are the top 3 results. They don't contain the word "gibsno" anywhere. Google has bolded the word "gibson".

So, maybe what you're seeing is simply Google's ability to recognise typos and misspellings?

Steve

shopnbag · Oct 2, 2009

justinmarch said:
I agree with you but I think Steve has been suggesting this from the beginning shopnbag see earlier post here:

See, that's what happens when I don't read the post correctly.

justinmarch · Oct 2, 2009

shopnbag said:
See, that's what happens when I don't read the post correctly.

No problem, posts can twist and turn like a "twisty turny thing"

The meta description debate...

matt.chatterley

crossdaz

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