I’m starting to see a lot more META descriptions and Open Directory (www.dmoz.org) descriptions appearing in Google search results, where in the past you could expect to see a snippet of text content from the listed page.
In some cases, I’m sure this is a good thing, but it can also lead to some really terrible results. Check out the Google search result for “SEO Consulting.”
If you’re seeing the same SERP I am (it’s possible…) you’ll find my site (www.seoresearchlabs.com) at #7, with the ODP description displayed underneath our link. Unfortunately, since the ODP editor couldn’t spell very well, Google is not doing me any favors by showing that description… in fact, the description is misleading because we don’t offer website design. (For reference, the ODP listing reads “Offers search engine marketing, keyword research reportes, website design, marketing training and consutlting.”)
Just above at #6 I see another website (www.increaseranking.com) with their META description displayed in place of a snippet. Which is great news for them, because it’s basically ad copy.
Increase Ranking is not listed in the Open Directory. My site was just recently added, and didn’t have a META description until a few minutes ago.
I’ll follow up in a few days to let everyone know whether the META description takes precedence over the ODP description. If the ODP description takes priority over the site’s content, I will no longer be able to recommend submitting sites to the Open Directory.
As readers of SEO Fast Start and the SitePoint SEM Kit probably know, I’ve questioned the value of a Yahoo directory listing for much the same reason. In the case of Yahoo at least, you can get someone to correct a spelling error.
September 5th, 2005 at 10:06 pm
Same here. I’d rather them use the ugliest part of my page as snippets instead of an old DMOZ description. I didn’t use to believe so much in META description even when people say it’s a must because I believe in good content, but lately I make sure all my pages have META descriptions just to counter possible DMOZ description appearing.
September 6th, 2005 at 3:57 am
I found the same out after adding META descriptions to my site. Google lapped it up.
September 6th, 2005 at 7:59 am
Both google and yahoo have always used the meta description in my SERPs.
September 7th, 2005 at 2:02 pm
During the 1998 to 2002 web development , SEO’s are using extensive META TAGING techniques, which is honoured by all the search engines including Google. Where the greater share of META TAGS goes to the hand of ALTAVISTA.com. But the scenario changes from then when google comes with its “NO META TAG ” and replacing with the
Page Ranking Algorithm. From that time onwards , slowly and slowly most of the SE’s followed the same concept. With the inception of W3C Standards, the web developers and the web community started migrating from the old school of SEO to the new one. Now as of this article, if the things comming with the Boomerang ….we hope to see this changeover a positive one.
Comments are invited !!!!
September 7th, 2005 at 11:35 pm
I have my site in the Open Directory and it shows my meta information (which sucks by the way). See ya!
September 9th, 2005 at 11:49 am
Dan,
For the record, you listing on ODP is not the same as you claimed Google had.
September 9th, 2005 at 1:03 pm
Sure enough, someone has edited our DMOZ listing in the past day. That’s good news, it’s just too bad they don’t have a few thousand more editors like that.
For those waiting to see if Google would pick up and use our META description, they have. Over at Threadwatch, I offered to use my META description to send a personal greeting to Danny Sullivan, but I think I’ll leave it alone.
This will also give us an opportunity to measure how long it takes for Google to update their DMOZ data. Just for fun…
September 11th, 2005 at 3:37 pm
Meta Description Tags Showing Up in Google SERPs
Have you noticed how META Tag and Open Directory Project or DMOZ descriptions have begun taking the place of site body text in search engine result pages on Google?
This trend is clearly apparent in the Marketing Defined Blog’s search engine results,…
January 15th, 2006 at 11:33 pm
[…] How Important is Meta Description Tags? Today Aaron has a post about meta description tags. He mentions an article by Dan Thies about Google dropping site snippets. It is a very good article going over what Google picks up and questioning what might happen if there is no meta description tag on your website. Impact of No Meta Description Tag What would be the impact of this with your website? If Google no longer takes snippets of your website and relies on meta description tags, DMOZ descriptions or Yahoo descriptions? If you don’t have a meta description tag what choices will be left? What if they drop taking descriptions from DMOZ and rely only on the meta description tag? Would your websites be prepared for that? […]
May 23rd, 2006 at 7:57 am
I think this is potentially the worst thing for companies looking to market their websites in se’s. Dmoz has such ideals in regards to the descriptions they allow and publishing them on google results doesnt seem fair.
My description has changed from a 2 line punchy funky description to a 6 word boring overview.
Has anyone worked out a way to overwrite the dmoz descriptions? - i have meta descriptions in place already and they’re being ignored
June 10th, 2006 at 10:39 am
dmoz took over my website’s meta tag description which was horrible since it was full of poor spelling and grammar and was totally inaccurate. when i asked dmoz to remove me from their database, they refused. ridiculous…those bastards. there is no way to overwrite the dmoz description, at least in google. there is a huge discussion about this on Digital Point Forums…type in “dmoz replaces meta tag description…” see ya, and go screw google…
June 10th, 2006 at 10:40 am
dmoz took over my website’s meta tag description which was horrible since it was full of poor spelling and grammar and was totally inaccurate. when i asked dmoz to remove me from their database, they refused. ridiculous… there is no way to overwrite the dmoz description, at least in google. there is a huge discussion about this on Digital Point Forums…type in “dmoz replaces meta tag description…” see ya…