Google changed meta description length from 160 to 320 characters

[Harold Mansfield]

In case you haven't heard Google changed the length of the meta description (that little snippet of info that appears in search results below your page title) from 160 to 320 characters. If you're using an SEO plug in, most have already adjusted for the change, but have we?

I've gotten so use to the 160 character limit that they thought if changing my descriptions is kind of exciting but scary. I mean was it broke? Do I need to fix it?

Yoast wrote a good post about the pros and cons of changing your page descriptions. It's worth a read:


For this research project, we picked 100 of the most visited pages on our site. Before we made any changes we did a baseline measurement, by gathering data from our Google Search Console (https://yoast.com/the-beginners-guide-to-the-new-google-search-console/) account. We wanted to know how high these pages ranked before we changed the meta description with Yoast SEO (https://yoast.com/how-to-use-yoast-seo-to-write-an-awesome-meta-description/), in order to compare it to the rankings afterwards.

https://yoast.com/should-i-write-longer-meta-descriptions-our-research-results/

[turboguy]

I read the article yesterday and as I recall when they tested it made no difference in SEO between the shorter and longer versions.

[Harold Mansfield]

I read the article yesterday and as I recall when they tested it made no difference in SEO between the shorter and longer versions.
But do you think the longer descriptions will help users click through more?

[turboguy]

My thoughts are that it would. As I remember the article however they also said that Google often didn't use the site's description but made up their own based on words in the first paragraph of text. I do think they sometimes implement things slowly. When the started to give priority to responsive web sites I didn't notice much difference in my rankings. Now I get nothing from Google unless they search for my product specifically. I have started a total redo on my main web site which will be both responsive and with a security certificate. As much free time as I get I should have it done by the time Google comes out with a dozen more priorities so then I can start over.

[Daniel Jameson]

Thanks for sharing good information. Can you provide more information on On Page SEO and Off Page SEO

[Harold Mansfield]

Can you be more specific? Are you asking what the difference is between the 2? Or asking for a complete run down of how to do each?

[jeffscott]

It is officially announced but it doesn't mean you will change immediately your current description.

[turboguy]

Well don't rush to change to longer descriptions. Google just rolled it back again and now want about 155 character descriptions.

[Harold Mansfield]

Well don't rush to change to longer descriptions. Google just rolled it back again and now want about 155 character descriptions.

Here's a link on that:
Google Reduces Description Length in Desktop & Mobile Search Results (http://www.thesempost.com/google-description-length-desktop-mobile-search-results/)