How to write a meta description that earns the click

A meta description is a one or two sentence summary of a page, placed in the HTML head, that Google may show under your title in search results. To write a meta description, state what the page gives the reader, include the specific detail that sets it apart, match the words people search with, and write a different one for every page. It does not change where you rank. It changes whether people click when you do.

Google also replaces it with text from your page much of the time. So the job is to write a description good enough that Google keeps it, and a page good enough that the replacement still sells the click.

What is a meta description?

A meta description is the content of a meta tag named description, inside the page's <head>. Visitors never see it on the page. Search engines and some link previews read it.

<head>
  <title>Cast iron skillet care: seasoning, cleaning and rust repair</title>
  <meta name="description" content="Season a cast iron skillet in one hour with any neutral oil, clean it without soap damage, and strip rust with steel wool and vinegar.">
</head>

Use one tag per page. Social platforms read og:description first when it exists, which is a separate tag covered in the Open Graph guide.

Is the meta description a ranking factor?

No. A 2009 Search Central post says Google sometimes uses the description tag for snippets but does not use it in ranking (source).

Stuffing keywords into the description will not move a page up. What it can do is change your click-through rate at the position you already hold. A searcher who sees their own words in the snippet knows the page fits. That is the only reason to use the keyword, and once is enough.

The title tag, by contrast, does carry ranking weight. If you have an hour for one page, spend it on the title tag first.

Why Google rewrites your meta description

Google builds snippets from the page content by default and uses your meta description only when it fits better. Its snippet documentation says snippets are "primarily created from the page content itself" and that Google uses the meta description when it "might give users a more accurate description of the page".

The reason is the query. Google designs snippets to preview the part of the page that best relates to each search, so one page can get a different snippet for every query it ranks for. Your description is written for one main intent. A long-tail search about one detail on the page will usually get a sentence pulled from the body instead.

How often does that happen? Google publishes no rate, so assume it happens often, especially on long, specific queries where your description may not match what the searcher typed.

Google's docs also list what makes it skip a description:

• The same or nearly the same description on many pages.
• A string of keywords instead of a sentence.
• A description that doesn't match what the page says.

You can't force Google to use your text. You can block a snippet entirely, or parts of one, with nosnippet, max-snippet and data-nosnippet, which the nosnippet guide covers. For most pages that costs more clicks than it saves.

How to write a meta description in five steps

Write it after the page is done, from what the page actually delivers.

1. Name the outcome. Start with what the reader gets or can do, in their words. "Season a cast iron skillet in one hour" beats "This guide covers cast iron seasoning".
2. Add the specific detail. Google's docs suggest facts such as the author and publication date for articles, or price, age and manufacturer for products. A number, a material, a delivery time, a version. This is the part a competitor's snippet won't have.
3. Use the main query once. Match the phrase searchers type. Don't repeat it.
4. Make it unique to the page. Google calls out identical descriptions across a site as unhelpful. On large catalog sites, its docs encourage generating descriptions from page data, such as "{product} in {material}, {price}, ships in {days} days.", rather than one boilerplate line.
5. Front-load and keep it short. Google sets no length limit and truncates as needed, so put the outcome and the detail in the first half. The exact numbers are in meta description length, and worked before-and-after rewrites are in meta description examples.

Skip empty calls to action like "Click here to learn more". Don't copy the title into the description, because the result then shows the same text twice.

A quick test before you publish. Read the title and description together and ask whether a stranger could tell what is on the page and why it beats the next result. If the description could sit under any competitor's page unchanged, rewrite step 2.

Check your meta description on a live page

Our On-Page SEO Checker fetches a page and reads its title, meta description and H1 to H6 outline from the raw HTML. For the description, it flags a missing tag, one under 70 characters, one wide enough to clip on desktop, more than one description tag, and a description that repeats the title. It also previews how the snippet clips in results. Add a target query and it grades how well the title, H1, URL and body cover it.

It costs 8 credits per run. It does not run JavaScript, so a description injected by a script after load won't be seen. It also can't tell you whether Google shows your description or rewrites it, since that depends on each query. It won't write the description for you either.