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Two lines that have to earn the click
The meta description sits in the head of your page, and visitors never see it on the page itself. In Google it can fill the two lines under your title: the lines that have to explain why someone clicks your result and not the one above it.
Two things are worth knowing before you spend time on it. First, it does not count towards your ranking. Google wrote in 2009, in so many words, that it sometimes uses the description as a snippet but not in ranking. Its only job is the click. Second, Google decides whether to show it. According to Google, the snippet under your title comes mainly from the content of your page, and it takes your meta description when that describes the page better than a passage from it.
There is no length limit: Google cuts at the width of the screen. In practice Google shows about 146 characters on average on desktop and 136 on a phone, as our SERP preview tool measures them. When someone shares your link on LinkedIn or Facebook, they often see another text: og:description, the one-to-two-sentence description from the Open Graph protocol that Facebook created.
A leftover from the first search engines
The description is a leftover from the first search engines. The HTML 4.01 standard of December 1999 already noted that some search engines read a META element with keywords or a short description, giving a three-word description as its example. The keywords tag was abused so badly that Google ignored it for years before 2009. The description survived because it shows the searcher something. Since Google started showing AI answers, a related rule matters too: with nosnippet you keep your text out of the snippet and out of Google's AI answers as well. How visibility in AI answers works is in SEO vs GEO.
The same result, two different lines under it
Certified translation Frankfurt | 3 working days | Your brand
Welcome to our website. We are a dynamic company with years of experience.
title tagmeta description: weak
Certified translation Frankfurt | 3 working days | Your brand
Certified translations in Frankfurt for courts and embassies, in German, English, French and Dutch, delivered in three working days.
title tag
Same position, different line
4,000 impressions a month
- 2.5% click-through rateclicks, weak
- 3.5% click-through rateclicks, stronger
40 more visitors a month, without the page ranking any higher. An example: measure the effect in Search Console.
When Google picks your line, and when it does not
Google picks the snippet per query. The same page can show your description to one searcher and a sentence from your text to the next.
| Situation | What Google usually shows |
|---|---|
| The query is about what your description sums up | Often your description |
| A precise question answered deep in your text | A passage from your page |
| Your page has no meta description | A passage from your page |
| Every page has the same description | Google calls that unhelpful and prefers text from the page |
| Your description is a string of keywords | Google says such a list tells the searcher nothing |
| The page carries nosnippet | No snippet |
So write the description for the query the page should rank for, and make sure the text itself holds good sentences too: Google may choose, but it chooses from what you wrote.
Forty more visitors at the same position
You measure the effect in your click-through rate: clicks divided by impressions, visible per page in Google Search Console. Take a translation agency in Frankfurt whose service page ranks fourth on average for certified translation Frankfurt. The page earns 4,000 impressions a month and 100 clicks, a click-through rate of 2.5 percent. Its description reads: Welcome to our website. It is replaced by a line saying what searchers want to know: which documents, which languages, how fast. If the rate rises to 3.5 percent, that is 140 clicks: 40 more visitors a month at the same position. If one in twenty visitors asks for a quote, that is two extra requests a month.
That is an example, not a promise: how much a better description does varies by query and by competitor. So measure it: note the click-through rate for four weeks before the change and compare it with four weeks after, at a similar position.
| Page type | Weak description | Stronger description |
|---|---|---|
| Service page | Welcome to our website. We are a dynamic company with years of experience. | Certified translations in Frankfurt for courts and embassies, in German, English, French and Dutch, delivered in three working days. |
| Product page | Heat pump, buy heat pump, best heat pump, cheap heat pump. | 8 kW air-to-water heat pump for homes up to 180 m2, delivered across the EU within 48 hours. |
| Question page | Everything about meal vouchers. | Is an employer required to give meal vouchers? No, only when a collective agreement or a written contract grants them. With the exception for construction. |
The last row is real: it is our English rendering of the Dutch description on the site of Business Centrum, a client of ours. It answers the question in Google already, and anyone who wants the exception clicks.
Next to the title: each its own job
The two belong together but do different work. The title tag counts towards where you rank and is the clickable headline; Google cuts it near 600 pixels and rewrites it when it describes the page badly. The meta description does not count towards ranking and only has to persuade. So do not repeat your title in it: the title names the subject, the description gives the reason to click. A page with noindex needs none, since it does not appear in Google.
Five steps to a line that sells
- Start from the queryWrite for the search term the page should rank for, and use those words naturally.
- Give the answer or the benefitA question page answers at once, a service page says who it is for and what they get. No welcome, no company name up front.
- Make it concreteA price, a lead time, a place, a number. Facts your page really delivers, or the visitor clicks and leaves.
- Lead with what mattersOn a phone the end drops off after roughly 120 to 136 characters. Anything after that is a bonus.
- One per page, in the page's languageNo shared description across the site, and a separate one per language version. Test it in the SERP preview and check your click-through rate after four weeks.
Ten minutes a page, free to measure
In money, nothing. On multilingual sites each language needs its own. In WordPress it is a field in your SEO plugin, on a custom site one line per page. Allow five to ten minutes a page, per language. A store with thousands of products may build them from product data, Google says, as long as they read well and differ per product. Our SEO checker shows which pages have no description or a duplicate one, and Search Console is free.
If you want to be at the top straight away with a text you fully control, you pay for an ad; there you write every word. How the two compare is in how Google Ads works for local businesses, and what clicks cost there is in Google Ads cost. To see which pages already earn impressions and deserve a better description first, work through the SEO checklist.
Questions on length, characters and clicks
How long should a meta description be?
Google has no limit but cuts at the screen width: about 146 characters on desktop and 136 on a phone on average. Aim for 120 to 155 characters, with what matters most in the first 120.
Why does Google not show my meta description?
Because for that query Google found a sentence from your page a better fit, or because your description appears on several pages, is vague or is a list of keywords. For another query Google may well show it.
Does a meta description help my ranking?
No. Google does not use the description for ranking, only sometimes as the snippet. It does help your clicks: a better description can bring more visitors at the same position.
Does every page need its own meta description?
Yes, or none. Google calls the same description on every page unhelpful. No description is better than a shared one: Google then picks a passage per page.
What is the difference between a meta description and og:description?
The meta description is for search engines, og:description for social networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook when someone shares your link. They may say the same; for sharing, og:description can be a little more personal.