So I put my static website up about 2 weeks ago and over a week ago I added in a new meta description for search engines. When I go to site:mysite.com it still shows the original description that google came up with. - How do I get it to re-index my site? I have googled this and they recommended uploading another sitemap. - Did that, no luck. I feel like it has been plenty of time to reindex it. It is also still showing some outdated pages that I deleted when doing site:mysite.com.
Thanks!
See here https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/79812?hl=en
In particular:
Use this tag to provide a short description of the page. In some situations this description is used as a part of the snippet shown in the search results.
(Note: In some cases)
You can re-submit the page for crawl in Search Console.
Then you wait, and it takes as long as it takes.
Try completely removing the sitemap, wait for Google to recommend a sitemap and then…
In addition to the link @Gandalf provided, I suggest you read this page from Google’s guidelines, especially the section on “How snippets are created”:
Dont worry my Friend. I’m provide you Best Solutions. after you follow these steps, you Easily update your meta Description on Google!
You follow some Little bit steps:-
1, open Google webmaster tools
2, then open Url Inspection and find a search box.
3, Select Links and paste url this search box
4, and You find - Request Indexing
5, press this Link and Google get to reindexing request
6, after 1 day to 3 days your Links index and you get new meta Title and Descriptions results.
But only if Google chooses to use your new meta descriptions, as explained in the Google links above.
I think the general problem here is a misunderstanding of Google’s purpose. Site owners try to manipulate Google into showing things the way they want, but Google isn’t in the business of pleasing site owners. Its chief aim is to provide those searching with the best results, and it displays those results in the way it feels will best serve its users.
you are right. google always provide first preference to write unique content.
you write a unique description, Google Easily Index your unique description.
They may index it, but that doesn’t mean they will display it.
Please read the information in the Google guidelines linked above.
Meta description tags: Google sometimes uses
<meta>tag content to generate snippets, if we think they give users a more accurate description than can be taken directly from the page content.
First please check your robot.txt file and again upload the new sitemap. You can re-submit the page for the crawl in google webmaster and then weight 3-4 days Google will crawl and will show the description.
@alexjames: sitemaps and robots.txt have nothing to do with whether or not Google chooses to use the meta description or some other snippet of text from the page.
I suggest you read the Google links given above, which explain the situation clearly.
Ok, looks like google doesn’t want to use my description. But it is still indexing content that hasn’t been there for weeks.
Anyway, thanks so much for the help!
I think it depends on what search terms you use. eg. for a page about round red widgets I may want Google to use my “Top quality widgets” description. But if someone is searching for “round” Google may decide an excerpt about “round” is more helpful to the user. Similar for someone searching for “red”.
In other words, Google displays what it thinks will be the most helpful for the one doing the search not what a site thinks a searcher should see.