Meta tag displayed in google search results?

[Steven1976a]

I always presumed the description tag is what appears under the link to a website when you do a search on google.

I just did a search for "Rattan Thailand" for one of our sites.
The results displayed for our home page are not from our description meta tag. The results displayed are from the company address which is at the bottom of our home page.

Is it usually the description Meta Tag which shows under the results?

[Tim_Myth]

Did you get listed in DMOZ? http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=42848.

[Tim_Myth]

By the way, your stat counter is broken. It is stating "Invalid Project ID".

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by Steven1976a

Is it usually the description Meta Tag which shows under the results?

No it can be:

1. A snippet of text from the page itself.
2. Your DMOZ description if you are in there.
3. Or the part of the description tag.

[Milo]

I agree with incredihelp, my site www.dizzidezine.com.au ranks well in various keywords for my industry, but the descriptions change continuously when the bots do a new crawl.I have also found its always one of these:

To quote incredihelp

1. A snippet of text from the page itself.
2. Your DMOZ description if you are in there.
3. Or the part of the description tag.

Generally the description is quite relative, so I'm happy with the changes. In my experience, I try and keep all the info on my site (tags, text, new submissions, etc) relative to how I want the results shown, keep the site informative for the browser (not necessarily the SE's) and most of the time the reults and descriptions are great. I have found the SE's have a good result on average.

[dburdon]

If the description meta tag bears little relevance to the search query than an alternative block of text will be grabbed. Usually off of the page in question.

[jt007superman]

Most of the search engines no longer rely on meta tags for much of anything, except for keywords.

It has been common practice for years for the search engines to display the information from a page that is relevant to their user's query.

The only place you will see a description, or otherwise, meta tag in a serch results page is on a directory or lower classed engine.

[Kingsley]

The only place you will see a description, or otherwise, meta tag in a serch results page is on a directory or lower classed engine

Not true.

Search for Snazaroo on google

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=snazaroo&meta=

We are Number 5, and the text is straight from our Description Tag. In fact I use this one to put different things up in the results, eg offers or aqt the moment FAST DELIVERY

Cheers

K

[weslinda]

I'd like to second the last posts response. Almost every site I do, the description tags are used in the search engines. The key is that you have unique descriptions for every page, and that the description is on target with the page content.

I can point to tons of pages on one of our sites, www.promarktech.com that all use their descriptions in the search results.

The key is not duplicating the same page description, and making sure you have the tags closed off properly and so forth.

Also, on the "keywords" only side of the fence. The actual "keywords" meta tag, in my opinion has actually been reduced in overall value. On target unique "descriptions" have been raised in value.

Dburdon says it most eloquently.

[The Doc]

Well said weslinda you are absolutely right. I don't know where 007superman heard or learned that crap he is talking.

[crush123]

it is normal for search engines to display some text on the webpage as the description in search results.
it happens usually when the search query term is not found in the description meta tag but in some part of the webpage.

[mantawebsolutions]

weslinda is right, the keyword tag does not carry the wight it used to while descriptions are still very important.

I find exactly what incrediblehelp said:
1. A snippet of text from the page itself.
2. Your DMOZ description if you are in there.
3. Or the part of the description tag.

I would say Google preferes the DMOZ description first before it looks for anything else. If you're not listed in DMOZ, then it finds the description tag in your site and if it fails to find that, then it looks for the first available text in your page content that relates to the search string...