Ever since Google dropped the length of the descriptions in the search results last week, many SEOs have been freaking out about the fact they rewrote meta description tags to 300+ characters and now, Google has dropped that back down to about 160 characters in length.
The important thing to note is that Google has never given any specific character or word count for the meta description tags, even when they have increased the length in the past. So it isn’t surprising they are continuing the same.
Also, even though the majority of descriptions have been reduced to ~160 characters, there are still many search results with longer descriptions. These longer descriptions are showing up in many search results pages, with about two longer ones showing per query, especially for non-commercial queries. So pages that earn the longer snippets could possibly end up showing a shorter one, if that was what was specified.
John Mueller reiterated this when he said that the search results are very dynamic, as we can easily see when we spot tests in the search results. And he comments that it is important for Google to keep testing and seeing what works best for their users. With this in mind, it is likely the shorter snippets was tested before being unleashed to everyone.
The search results UI is a very dynamic place, seeing changes there is not unexpected. Like on your own sites, it's also important to us to keep testing, improving, trying out new things to see what works best for users on our pages.
— John ☆.o(≧▽≦)o.☆ (@JohnMu) May 14, 2018
Yeah, I get that. The search results UI is pretty constantly changing though, so IMO it's normal to see these things evolve over time, maybe even reverting or perhaps becoming more variable where it might make sense.
— John ☆.o(≧▽≦)o.☆ (@JohnMu) May 14, 2018
Also the lengths change based on whether it is on mobile or desktop, with mobile being slightly shorter. So even if Google did give a shorter length, it would either be too long for desktop or too short for mobile search results.
Danny Sullivan commented on Twitter that one of the reasons Google does not want to give specific lengths is they don’t want people to focus on the character count, they want site owners to focus on what works for visitors.
Google recommending quality content is not new, and perhaps Google feels that site owners could better spend their SEO time on things such as improving or adding quality content, rather than changing meta description tags to some arbitrary number that could change at any time and that Google may not use anyway.
Snippets are dynamically generated, vary in length, don't always use meta description tag. Giving people a count, in our view, makes them obsess over numbers & not helpful. Our advice is "short, relevant summary of what a particular page is about." We think that's the best guide.
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) May 14, 2018
It's also not speaking to any lowest common denominator. That's our best advice to everyone. Write short, concise meta descriptions that you think best describe your pages. Don't fixate on a count, whether your beginner or pro.
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) May 15, 2018
Not only that, he thinks being too short or too long in a meta description doesn’t matter either.
If we felt being too short or too long in a meta description tag mattered in term of character count, we'd have given it. We don't. That's why we didn't give it.
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) May 15, 2018
But as I noted yesterday, webmasters have received Google Search Console flags for meta descriptions that are too short, but I have not heard of any for descriptions that are too long.
They also said they do not want site owners to be worried about the exact length of the meta description tag when Google may not even use that when displaying the page description in the search results. There are many cases of upset webmasters in the webmaster help forums where they have carefully crafted meta description tags but Google won’t use them.
We haven't held back on giving character counts because of "secrecy" but because, as I've been transparently explaining, the count can vary and isn't helpful in this case to best advise site owners on how to craft meta description tags that might or might not be used for snippets
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) May 14, 2018
Sullivan also says giving SEOs actual numbers isn’t helpful, as it “will get taken out of context, obsessed over, over-emphasized and optimized for in ways that are not helpful.” And to be fair, SEOs to tend to microanalyze any SEO related information that comes from Google directly.
Any specific advice we give will get taken out of context, obsessed over, over-emphasized and optimized for in ways that are not helpful. So I totally get wanting something specific, but we aren't doing that because it's less helpful than it seems.
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) May 14, 2018
Sullivan also pointed out that while Google has never said specific counts, that some SEO publications have, and he calls out Yoast specifically for recommending a character count Google has never recommended.
We want people to focus on what matters. Giving a specific count in this case is not what we feel matters. It causes people like your own company to say we have specific limits, when we do not. And then people worry about limits we don't have: https://t.co/6dAEVTMdRQ pic.twitter.com/kBToF5s05c
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) May 14, 2018
The "predicament" seems to be our snippets got longer & some SEOs like your company decided that meant people should write longer meta descriptions like you did here https://t.co/6dAEVTMdRQ even though we specifically *did not* say to do that nor did we give the count you list
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) May 15, 2018
And in fact, most of the search results for “Google meta description length“, including the featured snippet, still recommend the ~320 character length.
There is also a Google Webmaster Office Hours later today where I suspect this will be a hot topic.
Jennifer Slegg
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