Elemental Posted January 7, 2010 Share Posted January 7, 2010 Hey Folks,I was under the understanding that the description tag information was what you saw next to e search query to give a quick description of the page or site?Of course I could be wrong, not the first time and counting.. Anyway, I was trying to explain this to a friend, kind of like the blind leading the blind thing, and so I did a google search and since I like theradio.com website my search query was specific; the radio.The first on the list was theRADIO.com and as I had explained to her, the short description below the websites name was the same as the source meta description tag. However, although the next website was Channels - theRADIO.com the description used for this page was not the same as the source meta description tagI did a text search on the page and the description information used was taken from a couple of different sections within the page so my question…How was this done?Is this part of the whole SEO thing?Peace,Elemental Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justsomeguy Posted January 7, 2010 Share Posted January 7, 2010 Google will typically look for things like <h1> elements or other things to show as the title or description. Anyone can put anything in the meta tags and that doesn't mean the site has anything to do with that, so part of the search index algorithm is to analyze the content of the page to determine what it's actually about. Using the heading tags helps with that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elemental Posted January 7, 2010 Author Share Posted January 7, 2010 Google will typically look for things like <h1> elements or other things to show as the title or description. Anyone can put anything in the meta tags and that doesn't mean the site has anything to do with that, so part of the search index algorithm is to analyze the content of the page to determine what it's actually about. Using the heading tags helps with that.justsomeguy, Thank you for the quick reply, it's much appreciate.Yeah, search index algorithm, I'll get around to those... I know about the abuse of the meta tags even though they're still somewhat in use...However the only heading tag in this page is an <h3> ???Peace,Elemental Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synook Posted January 7, 2010 Share Posted January 7, 2010 Google doesn't have to use the description, if the algorithm somehow can distil a segment of text it determines more appropriate than the contents of the description meta, it will use that instead. How? Better ask the people at Google :)It is best if you use the heading tags hierarchically, starting with H1. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elemental Posted January 8, 2010 Author Share Posted January 8, 2010 Google doesn't have to use the description, if the algorithm somehow can distil a segment of text it determines more appropriate than the contents of the description meta, it will use that instead. How? Better ask the people at Google :)It is best if you use the heading tags hierarchically, starting with H1.Synook, Thank you for your input, much appreciated.So basically focus more on using the heading tags text as the description target? So I guess, following the same line of thought, the keyword search would target the body text or content of the webpage as well as the heading tags?Peace,Elemental Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synook Posted January 8, 2010 Share Posted January 8, 2010 There is some contention as to whether the keywords meta is used at all by search engines any more, and their algorithms are generally advanced enough that they will be able to determine keywords from the body text anyway.SEs may use the headings as part of the description; they may also use body text. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elemental Posted January 8, 2010 Author Share Posted January 8, 2010 There is some contention as to whether the keywords meta is used at all by search engines any more, and their algorithms are generally advanced enough that they will be able to determine keywords from the body text anyway.SEs may use the headings as part of the description; they may also use body text.Synook, That makes for very creative writing when you consider all the sites the SE’s have to go through to return a search query, your page has to be leanPeace,Elemental Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synook Posted January 8, 2010 Share Posted January 8, 2010 That's right! If you sign up for a Google Webmaster Tools account, you will be able to see the keywords Google attributes to your site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elemental Posted January 8, 2010 Author Share Posted January 8, 2010 That's right! If you sign up for a Google Webmaster Tools account, you will be able to see the keywords Google attributes to your site.Synook,Thanks I'll look into that.Peace,Elemental Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProblemHelpPlease Posted January 9, 2010 Share Posted January 9, 2010 Trying to get google to display what you want it to in the description section of a search result is like trying to nail jelly to a wall. I have run several test pages in the past to see what google determines as the best information to use in the description, with no clear results. A page containing all the correct meta data and only pictures in the page results in data fetched from the dmoz database. Maybe its time for a "I want my description to say this" tag. Trying to explain to clients why the search results conatins a load of complete waffle is always a joy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elemental Posted January 26, 2010 Author Share Posted January 26, 2010 Trying to get google to display what you want it to in the description section of a search result is like trying to nail jelly to a wall. I have run several test pages in the past to see what google determines as the best information to use in the description, with no clear results. A page containing all the correct meta data and only pictures in the page results in data fetched from the dmoz database. Maybe its time for a "I want my description to say this" tag. Trying to explain to clients why the search results conatins a load of complete waffle is always a joy ProblemHelpPlease, Just read your post. My apologies for not responding sooner to your post but thank you for your input, much appreciated.I recently received a print out, from a friend, on SEO practices the thing's a textbook. I'm still in the beginning stages of who, what, where and why; once I've digested it I'll venture explaining it to others with my final word being "Google it"Peace,Elemental Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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