Head meta description tags have become less important as search engines have become more advanced. However, it now seems that you can make a mistake in your head meta description tags that is so damaging that you would be better off not having them at all.
This mistake is so common that sites with millions of visitors per month are making it. That’s because it only seems to have started having a negative effect in Google recently.
You should know by now that the <title> tag is the most important on page SEO you can do. You should already be varying that on every page as the topic dictates. If you are not already – it’s time to start. But that one was obvious . . .
The <meta name=”description”> tag has been thought for a while to be almost meaningless in Google. However, it now appears that having identical head meta descriptions on your sites web pages could be hazardous to your Google SERPs. It seems that a shared description could put your pages on the fast track for going supplemental.
While we have shown that supplemental results can outrank non supplemental results in Google, wouldn’t you rather not have large portions of your site go supplemental in the first place? In fact, our analysis show that you would be better off removing the description tag entirely than having it the same on multiple pages.
That means it’s time to start caring about those head meta description tags for yourself, and for your clients. While there are some plugins to do this in wordpress, you could just edit your header meta description line to look like this:
<META NAME="Description" CONTENT="YOUR SITE NAME <?php single_cat_title(); ?>: <?php echo category_description(); ?><?php echo htmlentities($excerpt); ?>">
Update: you will need this in the header for it to work:
<?php if(is_single()) :
get_posts(’numberposts=1′);
foreach ($posts as $post) :
$excerpt = $post->post_excerpt;
endforeach;
?>
<?php endif; ?>
This is how SEO Black Hat was setup. However, this setup requires that you diligently:
A) Write Category Descriptions in Manage -> categories -> descriptions and
B) Fill out the “Optional Excerpt” every time you make a post.
We were good about A, but have been rater lax about B. Now the task of making sure every post has a description must begin.
Conclusion:
Make sure your <head> is on straight and make sure you are giving your clients good <head>. Because, as it turns out, <head> is important.
