Are meta descriptions really that important?

SEO plays a major part in the success of any site and the 1st thing people usually do is to create or change their meta tags e.g Meta Title, Meta Description, Meta Keywords etc. OK, I'm going to assume most of you already know what meta tags are, for the rest of you, head over to this page to find out more...
http://www.virtuacash.co.uk/2011/09/how-meta-tags-affect-search-rankings.html

In recent years the way Google operates has changed a lot and its becoming more and more apparent that the use of meta tags such as the Keywords tag have become basically useless.

One meta tag that people still claim to be ultra important is the Meta description tag. The meta description tag allows you to describe your page to search engines, letting them properly index your pages and create the visible description for your pages in search results.

The thing is, if we don't use the description meta Google will create the description for us automatically, usually from the first paragraph of our posts. But what most people miss is the fact that by using a Static meta description they could be causing their page to show up in less search results.

If you have no meta description tag Google generates a description for you, and usually they pull the most relevant info from a page to display in searches. OK, I don't think I'm explaining this great, so here's an example...

I do a search for 'why cats like milk', this is one of the results that appears in the search...

Do Cats really Like Milk?
http://ilikecats.kitty/cats
This post talks about why cats do or don't like milk, random but hey hum.
 
Above is an example of a search result where the meta description tag is in use. The author created this static description and this is what will show most times this page appears in searches, but the page is not showing in results for the search 'My Cheshire cat is fat. Is it the milk?' for eg.

Here is an example of a page with no meta description tag but a descriptive opening paragraph...

Do Cats Really Like Milk?
http://ilikecats.kitty/cats
Cats in nature don't usually drink milk after they have grown up, where would they get it from?...
My cat got sick from drinking milk and I'm worried...

As you can see Google has automatically created a description from the opening paragraph and not only that, it has also added relevant text from elsewhere in the page.

The beauty of the results/pages with no description is that Google will create the most relevant, keyword specific description for you, based on the whole page not just a static meta tag. This allows your page to show up in more varied search results.

Say I had a comment about Cheshire cats at the bottom of the page, if I type 'My Cheshire cat is fat. Is it the milk? in Google, you may see a result that looks like this..

Do Cats Really Like Milk?
http://ilikecats.kitty/cats
Cats in nature don't usually drink milk after they have grown up, where would they get it from?...
I have a fat chesire cat? What do i feed it...

Now the page is appearing in searches like 'My Cheshire cat is fat. Is it the milk', 'why do cats like milk', 'My fat Cheshire cat is sick from milk' etc. 

As you can see Google has pulled the first few lines from the post and has also added text that contains the keywords 'Fat Cheshire cat' from the comments on that page (although in some cases Google will do this for pages with tags to). If the page was using a static meta description tag, it may not appear in that search results for 'Fat Cheshire cat' because of the lack of keywords in the meta description.

So, are meta description tags important?

Well in my opinion Yes and no, more no. They seem to be more important to submission sites that use meta tags to auto fill info on forms but not so much in Google. If anything, I have found that by only using a meta description tag on the home page and not on other pages saves you time, minimises duplicate content warnings, and allows your pages to show up in more varied searches based on the pages content and relevant keywords rather than the meta description. (You may have to use 'if' and 'else' statements to achieve this e.g if homepage, show meta description, else show blank.)

I think the thing that drives the popularity of the meta description tag, is the fact that people love to keyword stuff (which Google will penalise you for) and the fact that every next guru tells you that you will fail without it.

What do you think? Am I chatting rubbish? Am I explaining this all wrong and need to write it up a bit better? or do you agree with me? Please let me know.

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What are Meta Tags and Meta Data?

Definition and Usage: 
Meta data is information about data.
The <meta> tag provides meta data about the HTML document. Meta data will not be displayed on the page, but will be machine parsable.

Meta elements are typically used to specify page description, keywords, author of the document, last modified, and other metadata.

The <meta> tag always goes inside the head element.

The meta data can be used by browsers (how to display content or reload page), search engines (keywords), or other web services.

Example Meta Tags:

<head>
<meta name="description" content="Free Web tutorials" />
<meta name="keywords" content="HTML,CSS,XML,JavaScript" />
<meta name="author" content="Andy Banks" />
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" />
</head>

Above is an average set of meta tags which should work on most sites. Including platforms like blogger.

One Problem
This type of meta tag may cause duplicate content. Why? because this meta tag will only set to your home page, and it will be duplicated across the rest of your pages unless you add unique meta tags to every single page.

Duplicate data in your site will seriously effect your google search and page rankings.

How do you fix the duplication issue?
well, you can use dynamic meta tags. Dynamic meta tags will automatically assign individual tags to each of your pages (usually using your title and keywords tags, to create unique description tags). This will stop search engines classing your page as duplicate content.

Sites built using programs like WordPress can use plugins for implementing metatags.

Add Meta Tags to your Blogger blog
If you would like to add Meta Tags to your Blogger blog that wont duplicate data, then follow the link below to the guide...

Blogger: How to add Dynamic Meta Tags to your Blog

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Blogger: How to Add Dynamic Meta tags To Your Blog

Meta Tags are key to the success in search engines for any website or blog. If you have not already, you should add Meta Tags.

This post will show you how to add Meta Tags to your Blogger page which will create unique tags rather than creating duplicate content.

How to Add Dynamic Meta Tags

1. Log in to your blogger account >>Design >> Edit HTML
(Make sure you backup your template before editing)

2. Find this tag by using Ctrl+F

<b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/>

3. Paste below code after the above tag

<b:if cond='data:blog.url == data:blog.homepageUrl'>
<meta content='ADD YOUR WEBSITE DESCRIPTION HERE' name='description'/>
<meta content='ADD YOUR KEYWORDS HERE' name='keywords'/>
</b:if>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;index&quot;'>
<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>
<b:else/>
<title><data:blog.pageName/> ~ <data:blog.title/></title>
</b:if>

4. Replace PUT YOUR WHATEVER HERE with your description and keywords.

5. Click Preview to see if your page loads correctly before committing to changes.

6. Save Template and exit. Done

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How meta tags affect search rankings

One of the most popular myths that just won’t go away is that if you put the right keywords in your meta tags, you’ll achieve a high ranking in search engines. Sorry, but meta tags aren’t the magic bullet you may have been led to believe...

What Are Meta Tags?

Meta tags are hidden pieces of code that sit at the top of your website and provide information about your page. To see them, in your browser menu, go to “View” and then either “Source” (for IE) or “Page Source” (in Firefox). Then, look for any piece of code that starts “meta”.

There are all sorts of meta tags you can add to your page, but when search marketers talk about meta tags, they are usually talking about “keyword” and “description” tags. In the late 90s, meta tags played a much more prominent role. All you had to do was throw good keywords into your meta tags, and there was a good chance you could get a high ranking.

Then people started abusing the system and search engines wised up. Now, meta tags are virtually useless when it comes to achieving a high rank in search engines.

What Good Are Meta Tags?
So, you might be wondering – why bother? Just because search engines don’t use them to rank your website, many of them do use your description tag to display information about your website. Yahoo generally displays a portion of your description tag and MSN will usually display most of it.

That means, you want to make it compelling so that it accurately represents the content on your page and entices people to click on your URL. Remember, on any given page, you’re competing with anywhere from 10-20 other URLs. If what you say is relevant, it will catch searchers’ attention and they’ll click onto your website.

What About Title Tags?
Some marketers lump Title tags into the general category of “meta tags”. I don’t consider them such, but I’ll briefly address them here. Title tags are snippets of code that tell your browser what to display in the little blue bar at the top of your web browser.

Take this article, for instance. The blue bar should say “How Do Meta Tags Affect Your Search Rank? | Search Engine Marketing Tips” I put the title of this article, which has good keywords, in the blue bar as well as the general keyword “search engine marketing tips.”

Your title tags are extremely important and actually can influence your search engine rank. In fact, if you’re looking to appear for a specific keyword in search results, you should include that keyword in your title tags. They are also what is displayed in search results and whenever someone bookmarks your page, so like your “description” tags, they should let readers know what type of content they’ll find on your page.

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