The meta description tag provides a brief summary (as text) of the textual content of the web page. It is represented in the form of small text documents (also called “snippets”) that appear in search results (Google, Yahoo, Bing Search) when the user makes a search. Its sole function is to present the content of your web page. It is supposed to tempt the visitor to visit the website. It may not improve positioning in all search engine results. The meta description tag is not necessarily displayed in the search results although it is present and optimized in the HTML page.
The description meta tag is placed in the section of an HTML document between the <head> and </ head> and is generally as follows:
<meta name=”description” content=”Description goes here” />
Here is search engine result of this article how it appears in Google search:
You can see, some words are appearing as bold both in title (blue) and in the meta description. In fact, we did the search with full title of the article. As there are no other article with exactly same title, it is ranking there like the King.
But, what will happen, if multiple article or posts with exactly the same title is found? We did search with some keywords to make one result appear in Google’s first page:
You can see exactly the same titles. In fact, I am the writer of both articles. And yes, I must admit, I did one of those wrong things as every beginner does: copy pasting my own writing to other’s website (never do it). Now, think again, in this era of Google’s scrape hunt adventure, why it is living as second result despite the fact, in SevenForums it was posted earlier?
The meta description and keywords is the key. In real life, with some most used key phrases for the article, it actually comes above SevenForums. If similar condition happen with you and the first post in other’s website hampers your own website’s karma (= SERP): if possible, leave a backlink to your article there, saying “Find the original article along with more tricks by clicking here.” If the webmaster is too hard, does not allow to do so, simply go ahead and delete it.
The above situation emphasizes one more fact: WordPress does have far better SEO by default and it will give you better SERP than a PHBb forum.
There are other factors too, note both URLs. Our one is far more easy for any search engine to understand what is the article is about.
Here is link to the above article, if you are interested, you can read it.
Visitors Read This Post Also Read:
- Why blog is losing traffic : steps to diagnose decrease in visitor count How to prevent loss of traffic and how to prevent loss to hair : this...
- Structuring the outbound links in your site to get maximum SEO benefit Even beginners in SEO know how important inbound links (another site that you quote) are,...
- Tips and tricks to start and continue a professional and successful blog In this article we will give you some tips for a having a successful and...
- Importance of alt attribute in images The ALT attribute in an HTML element As the search engine robots are unable...
- Why your keywords strategy is wrong for SEO In SEO – among others – the choice of keywords is crucial and imperative. The...
- What is bounce rate : learn to keep your visitors reading on Increase visits to your website or blog is a good thing, but retain its visitors...
- 100 tips for success on the Internet! We have compiled this guide from our experience in the Internet, that is our best...
- How to choose a domain name? Your domain name gives a first idea, a taste of the content of your website....
- What is the professional way of use of Twitter? Anyone has heard of Twitter, the microblogging service that allows you to send messages of...
- What are Robots.txt and sitemap Robots.txt For web pages to be indexed, we need programs, robots, scour the net...
- Adding tool tips to Folders This method was first described by Ankur Mittal, MS MVP (WDE); however, I am writing...
- How pirated Windows 7 logo has spread all over the Internet Have you ever paid attention to this logo Windows 7 ? Though the word “TM”...
- PageRank is dead, long live PageRank The positive correlation between PageRank and site positioning in the SERP of Google does not...
- Tips for search functions of Google This is not really a new thing that we are writing today. It is just...
- Blog versus forum : Present versus history Like Coke versus Pepsi, BMW versus Mercedes, another debate arising now: Blog versus forum. We...
About Abhishek
[...] Google, but it adds unnecessary information that interferes with reading. We wrote long ago about meta description tag in WordPress for individual posts; you can read that [...]