Hd: The Meta Description Tag
The meta description tag, one of the oldest supported HTML elements, allows you to suggest how you’d like your pages to be described in search listings. If the HTML title is the equivalent to a book title, the meta description is like the blurb on the back describing the book.
SEO purists will argue that the meta description tag isn’t a “ranking factor” and that it doesn’t actually help your pages rank higher. Rather, it’s a “display factor,” something that helps how you look if you appear in the top results due to other factors.
Technically, that’s correct. And it’s one of the reasons we decided to call these “success” factors instead of ranking factor.
Because a meta description that contains the keywords searched for (in bold) may catch the user’s eye. A well crafted meta description may help ‘sell’ that result to the user. Both can result in additional clicks to your site. As such, it makes sense for the meta description tag to be counted as a success factor.
Be forewarned, having a meta description tag doesn’t guarantee that your description will actually get used. Search engines may create different descriptions based on what they believe is most relevant for a particular query. But having one increases the odds that what you prefer will appear. And it’s easy to do. So do it.
Below are Search Engine Land articles that take a closer look at the meta description tag:
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