Google Answers if Meta Description Matters for Rankings - Search Engine Journal

Google's John Mueller answers if the Meta Description tag matters for ranking purposes?

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Google’s John Mueller answered the question about whether a meta description can be used to influence the search rankings.

It’s a good question because Google advises to use unique meta descriptions on web pages. So there is some kind of influence but is that influence related to rankings? John Mueller answers that question.

Meta Element

The meta tag is formally known as a meta element. The meta element is used to describe (represent) document-level information about a web page.

In order to describe different properties of the web page the meta element (like all HTML elements) has attributes which kind of extends the meta element so that it can provide a specific kind of information to a web browser or to a web crawler (like Googlebot).

For example:

• A meta robots tag communicates to crawlers.
• A meta refresh tag communicates to a browser.

There are many other meta tags that communicate directly to search engines and browsers:

• meta name=”viewport”
• meta http-equiv=”refresh”
• meta name=”google-site-verification”
• meta name=”googlebot” content=”notranslate”

Meta element data is information that is not meant for site visitors to directly see (although it can be seen indirectly via the search results).

Meta...

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