Download English captions English captions: 0:00:00.310,0:00:03.359 We have a good question from Quentin in Vancouver who asks: 0:00:03.599,0:00:09.520 "In the search results, Google will often display a snippet appropriate to the specific search query - often 0:00:09.520,0:00:15.239 disregarding the meta description. Is Google doing away with meta description's use like they did for meta keywords?" 0:00:15.890,0:00:21.019 Alright, Quentin, let me lay a little bit of schoolin' on you. So, it actually turns out that we used to not use the 0:00:21.019,0:00:27.869 meta description at all. We would only use the snippet appropriate to the specific search query. And only in recent 0:00:27.869,0:00:33.900 years have we added it where if you have a meta description, we will sometimes choose that meta description over a 0:00:33.900,0:00:39.630 little snippet from within the page. So, in fact it's moving the other direction. We started out as only having 0:00:39.630,0:00:44.979 stuff from within the page, and now we're a little more likely to sometimes use the meta description. But we don't use 0:00:44.979,0:00:51.040 it all the time. If we think it's useful for the query, you know, don't make the same meta description on every single 0:00:51.040,0:00:51.430 page 0:00:51.430,0:00:58.170 just as a cookie-cutter because then we sort of think, well that's not a very useful meta description. So, it's not 0:00:58.170,0:01:04.120 that we're doing away with the meta description. We use it more now than we did, say seven or eight years ago. But at 0:01:04.119,0:01:09.019 the same time, we think it has to be useful before we'll use the meta description. So the best thing you can do is 0:01:09.019,0:01:13.790 make a really useful meta description, and then you're more likely to see that instead of the snippet from the page. 0:01:14.389,0:01:19.110 Now, if you don't want to bother, that's completely fine too. We'll just try to do whatever we think is the smartest 0:01:19.109,0:01:22.659 and the best for users, and hopefully users will click through and find your content. |