Have you been finding that your meta descriptions are not what you expected? If so, they might have been rewritten by Google’s algorithm. But what causes algorithms to edit meta descriptions, and how do we optimise our descriptions for the best SEO benefits? We break down and explain two main reasons why this could be happening below.
Reason 1: The Meta Description is Poorly Written
When it comes to creating meta descriptions, keep SEO best practices in mind and choose your words wisely. Google focuses less on the keywords used and more on what the content is actually saying. This means that content that doesn’t look that helpful or includes Philippines Photo Editor a lot of irrelevant keywords are both likely to be edited.
Other reasons why meta descriptions might be rewritten is because it’s too long (over 160 characters), or that the meta description doesn’t actually exist at all. Your meta description needs to be created with the appropriate HTML codes with the following format:
<meta name=”description” content=”Insert meta description text here.”>
Reason 2: Queries Influence Meta Descriptions
The second reason your meta description might have been edited is because of the search terms people have used to find your site. Depending on the search modifiers (such as adding “NZ” or “Homepage” at the end of a keyword), search queries can have a lot of influence over the wording of meta descriptions.
Queries have this influence because the search algorithm optimises the part of your copy that it thinks is most useful and relevant to the query. That is, if the original meta doesn’t fulfil user’s search intent, or if the page itself isn’t sending relevant content signals to match the meta description, Google will show a different meta description to the one you have set.