Can Changing Meta Descriptions Negatively Impact SERP's?
-
I have just had a page start ranking well in key SERP's and I would like to change the meta description and add a price as we are extremely competative in that line.
Could changing the meta description now a page is ranking negatively impact the SERP placing?
Does anyone have any experience with this?
-
Hey Robert,
I was wondering what your experiences where with the changing meta descriptions?
My team was looking to do something similar with one of our sites and we are worried about changing meta descriptions and whether that would affect us negatively.
Thanks
-
Good point Lewis.
How do so what code do I use? (£
I don't have much experience with this.
-
The general line is that we should design for the user and not the search engine so if a meta description is compelling and attracts users then that would be exactly what you are doing.
If you believe that putting the price will increase the click through then I would go for it.
Had some advice from Will Critchlow when I asked about the use of the £ symbol in meta descriptions and he said that we should "use HTML encoding (£ rather than £). We tend to advise going for ASCII only as character encoding opens you up to a world of pain, but HTML entities should generally be fine"
-
I have added a price to the Meta Description.. as I believe we are selling this product @ the cheapest price in the country..
I agree it could bring forward any change in any case.
What do you think googles attitude is towards promotional Meta descriptions?
Hopefully a good meta tag that gets a click through would be taken into account ahead of a promotional meta description that mentions price.
What do you think?
-
I can see what you're getting at, but I agree with Lewis-SEO. Given that meta description is not visible on the page any changes (other than perhaps old school spammy) are just noted and displayed. If you were to change something on-page at the same time it may well get re-assessed, but that's not what we were discussing.
Even if it were to trigger a re-assessment all it would be doing is reviewing that page and putting it in it's "correct" place in the SERPs. Had you not done anything to it, it would still have dropped as soon as it was re-crawled regardless, all initiating a crawl would do is bring forward the inevitable.
Of course if we go on the theory that Google has started using user data; if the meta description changed how the page converted or how people reacted to the page (and you could check your analytics) it could effect your rankings.
Basically if users are now leaving your page in droves because of a misleading meta description that may have a knock on effect.
-
I guess what I mean is...
I know it is not supposed to influence SERP's but
Logically if a meta description changes radically I would imagine there would be some mechanisim thats is triggered for at least reviewing the SERP's placement for that page.
So the content of the meta description is irrelevant but the fact it may have changed would flag up somewhere in the Algo?
Its just a thought...
-
The meta description tag doesn't influence SERP's.
As you know search engines often use it as the description for your page in search results.As such a relevant, unique, compelling meta description can have a positive influence on how many clicks you get on your search listing.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Reducing Negative Impact of Webpage Login Form
Our real estate website (www.metro-manhattan.com) now requires visitors to login in if they want to search our listing database. The result is that. 9 out of 10 visitors leave without searching; they simply refuse to set up an account. I have attached images of the search bar and login form. Is there a way to increase the percentage of visitors that login? We have tried to make it as simple as possible, allowing visitors to login by Facebook, Google or by providing their email address. We do not send any verification email. We are forced to. keep this login unfortunately. But is there anything we can do to reduce the visitor bounce rate? Thanks,
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Kingalan1
Alan TF0tlVe i79OEg5 i79OEg52 -
We've a client that wants to repurpose some of the content on there site but not lose rankings. However its changing the content to an alternative to ....
The Current URL Example would be test.co.uk/prodcut-catogory/product-1 . This side of the business is being sold however they have products elsewhere in the range that can be used as alternatives to the product range that will be moved, so they want to amend these pages with an " alternative " slant. Example idea would be to change to the following : test.co.uk/prodcut-catogory/alternative-to-product-1, trying not to change the URL to much, keeping the majority of the content the same but adding new copy stating the benefits of using the alternative product. So it becomes a comparison between the two. I appreciate I will have to amend the URLs, titles, meta, H1s, add new copy & preform a 301's. Option 2 Simply write a second page which is all brand new content talking about it being an alternative to the products and doing a 301 from the original page but not amending that. Be great to get peoples feedback on this approach and if there is anything else that I could do to minimise the drop in rankings once I complete the changes. Thank you D
Conversion Rate Optimization | | SDOwner0 -
Individual statistics (not aggregated) for 'local pack' and 'organic search results' when both on the same page
Hi, For a particular keyword combination we show up on the local pack but also on the organic search results on the 1st page. I have never been able to find out what the CTR, #clicks, conversions for this two different kinds of positions are individually. The aggregate figures I can find out in Google Search Console / Analytics, but I would like to know on an individual level as I am testing out different things. With the statistics on Google My Business I can't get along actually...no CTR as far as i know. Any hint? Cheers, Cesare
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Cesare.Marchetti1 -
What is the Impact of Content Personalization on SEO?
I am using Optimizely to serve personalized experiences to our website users. Is there an impact on SEO ranking? The personalized content is dynamically changed on our website and the URL does not change. Thank you
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Dilgul0 -
Please can anyone recommend any GOOD 'TRAFFIC BUYING COMPANIES ?
Hi Guys I really need some help here I am looking for some good traffic buying companies where we can buy traffic from that can will help us to generate leads from our own website. We want to 'buy traffic' that is targeted and generate leads from our website. We are running Google ad words but it is now becoming more and more expensive to run! Please can anyone recommend any good companies ? Thanks Gareth
Conversion Rate Optimization | | GAZ090 -
What's the most effective web marketing tactic you've seen or used that very few people know about?
I wanted to start a thread to share some of the really cool marketing tactics I've seen on the web that I think few folks are using, AND ask the community here what you've seen, too! Some of my favorite undiscovered or less-used tactics include: Making smart use of bios for conferences, events, interviews, etc. where folks ask you or your team members for a "bio" and you get to control the links, link targets, and anchor text. This is super powerful in my experience, so long as you have a moderately strong profile or regular participation in this type of stuff. Price anchoring on conversion pages, e.g. http://www.trackur.com/options - note how they start with the highest price to help "anchor" the audience to bigger numbers. A great principle of psychology in action. Using re-marketing to draw people to content rather than just purchase/conversion pages. The effectiveness of these is, I've heard, dramatically higher than the usual re-marketing campaigns that take you to a squeeze or purchase page. I can't share the example I'm thinking of, unfortunately, but I'd urge you to try it! Get more social shares and clicks by SHARING MORE THAN ONCE! A lot of folks feel like they are burdening their audience on Twitter/Facebook/G+ or frustrating them if they post multiple times, when in fact, very, very few of your followers are online at any given time. I've tested this myself and I get almost no negative feedback but can triple or more the number of shares/+1s/likes/visits/etc I get just by sharing 2-3X! The key is not to be too repetitive or annoying, and to acknowledge past shares (at least for me). e.g. I'll say "my blog post from last night on XYZ" and get a ton more clicks. What are your favorites? Please share!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | randfish16 -
Can trackingcodes in your url be seen as duplicate content or break other rules?
I recently gave ReachLocal control to manage my Adwords campagne. I didnt want "Reverse Proxy" on so I decided to go with the Remote Conversion Tracking. So they track my website in every stap of the way. Therefor I had to place a Javascript on each page. But what worries me are these kind of URL's I see appearing in my Analytics account: /webpaginaname.html?scid+29903&cid=12343&tc+13012316371028544&rl_key=32850e0a2d4499e02a711d0b969044d2&kw+8307565&pub_cr_id=16701148613&dynamic_proxy=1&primary_serv=www.website.com&rl_track_landing_pages=1 Could this be seen as duplicate content by Google? Or could it break any other rule you know of? Should I be worried? Thanks a lot!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | wellnesswooz0 -
Can I track user journeys from a particular source?
We want to track users from a particular campaign to see what they do when they get to the site. The site generates revenue from clicks out so we want to be able to see whether visitors from a particular source click on multiple deals. i.e. enters from the source and then clicks on 3 different deals that take the user to other sites. Using GA, can I track this by implementing UTM on both the campaign links and outgoing links? Can I see exactly how many deals the average user is clicking on? As far as I know I can: Track visitors from the campaign Track overall clicks on deals Divide click outs by visitors But I can't track how many deals the visitors from campaign A clicked on... or can I?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Red_Mud_Rookie0