Page META description

The <meta description> tag contains a summary of the content which can be found on the page.

The HTML META tag "description" allows you to influence how your web pages are described and displayed in search results. A good description acts as a potential organic advertisement and encourages the viewer to click through to your site.

Example META description

A page META description should be short. The description in the <meta description> tag should to be between 25 and 160 characters in length. A <meta description> tag which is too long will be displayed truncated and can be seen as spam by search engines. The optimal length is at least 70 characters.

Validation Warning: Page 'example' SHOULD have a relevant META description.

 Blank description validation

Validation Warning: Page 'example' should have a short META descrtion.

Long description validation

To optimize for search engines. it is important that the keywords for a given page in the META description are written in a 'natural' way - complete sentences that are understandable and pleasant for the searchers and would-be site visitors to read. This is especially important since many search engines display the description in their search results. 

It's important that every page has it's own relevant META description. Every page has it's own unique content and therefore must have it's own unique META description. Incorporate a maximum of five keywords in every description for which the page is to be optimized. These keywords must also occur in the text on the page.

Validation Warning: META description should NOT be duplicated.

Duplicate description warning 

Note:-

  • If the page includes an "Article" then the description of the article will be used and thus no warning required.
  • Double quotes should not be included in a description and are automatically replaced with a single quote.

References:-