In this article, we will cover techniques for detecting and correcting meta description tag errors. As a reminder, for these tags’ definition, as well as their role, do not hesitate to go through this article.
The first step is to locate the meta description tags present on your website. During an audit, a crawler is used to locate all the URLs and their tags.
It’s also possible to use other means:
Using a plugin: we can see the tag when we are on the page
By consulting the page’ source code (right click > display the source code, then look for "<meta name="description"")
However, these 2 solutions have a major drawback: they only allow on-the-fly consultation on a page, and not a complete listing of the whole site.
Case #1: missing tags
Let's analyze the pages that don't contain a meta description tag.
If there is none: so much the better, there is nothing to do
If there are any: locate the number and type of page(s) concerned:
If these are pages to be deindexed (shopping cart, etc.), check that they are deindexed or proceed to deindex them.
If these are low interest pages, like T&Cs or hiring pages, add a meta description to be clearer, even if it won't really impact your SEO.
If these are pages supposed to bring SEO traffic: you must quickly add a meta description tag, optimized according to SEO rules.
Case #2: duplicate tags
Let's move on to the duplicate meta description tags. As a reminder, you should never have 2 duplicate meta description tags on your website, because it’s either a sign of duplicate pages, or a sign of several pages targeting a single keyword, which goes against the page and the site’s SEO.
If there is none: so much the better, there is nothing to do
If there are any: locate the number and type of page(s) concerned:
In the case of product pages with variants (color, size, etc.), we advise you to specify in the meta description the unique variant for this product. If there is no SEO interest in this variant (if no one is looking for such a precise request), we even advise you to delete the page and redirect it to a single product page which lists all the "useless" variants from an SEO point of view. But it all depends on your technical / CMS architecture.
If they are paginated pages: we recommend that you modify the meta description to indicate "page 2" / "page 3". More detail in this article.
If the pages are supposed to be different: then, simply modify the meta description tags to be more precise. If you have "real estate agency + city" pages, specify the city and not just "real estate agency".
If these are duplicate pages, in other words multiple existing URLs that display exactly the same content, then this is probably a technical issue that needs to be fixed. To do so, choose the one that is linked in the website (= receives links in the site), and do a 301 redirect from the wrong URL to the right one + remove all internal links made towards the duplicate URL.
Case #3: tags that are too long
As a reminder, the meta description tag must not exceed 155 characters, otherwise it will be truncated by the engines, which can affect the page’s click rate on the given keyword.
In that case, you can:
Use the tags to shorten them, except in the case of pages that have no SEO value (CGV, hiring, etc.), OR,
Put a complete first sentence that is 155 characters minimum long, followed by a second sentence up to 230 characters. With this last option you can be more flexible if Google chooses to enlarge the snippets on its results pages.
Case 4: tags that are too short
It would be unfortunate to have short meta description tags, since this is the second most decisive on-page tag for click-through, after the title.
We recommend that you update all the meta description tags that are under 70 characters, and enrich them with semantics from the targeted keyword.
Now you know how to analyze and correct your meta description tags! Let's move on to the next point! :)
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