Monday, September 29th, 2008 by Andy Beal

19

Google Tests Description Snippet Length

According to Google, you likely fall into one of three distinct categories.

  1. You like the description "snippets" in Google’s results just the way they are.
  2. You’d rather not see any text snippets–you want just the page title.
  3. Like Billy Idol, you want "more, more, more" text in your snippets.

If you don’t conform to any of the above, you likely won’t care for Google’s latest micro-test–where you get to choose just how much description text is shown alongside a result.

(via)


Social Media Monitoring in Just 60-Seconds. Guaranteed!

Similar Stories in: Search | Forward: Email This Post

Share this post

Share on TwitterStumble This!Bookmark on DeliciousShare on FriendFeedDigg This!Share on Facebook

 

 

Similar posts you may like...

19 comments on “Google Tests Description Snippet Length”

  1. Ted Murphy Says:

    September 29th, 2008 at 10:30 am

    This is an excellent idea by Google. They’re encouraging their users to customize search results, and by extension they’re encouraging website operators to customize their listings. Both actions will make Google stickier. Google is heading towards 80% of the US keyword search market, pretty clearly.

  2. Ami Ohayon Says:

    September 29th, 2008 at 10:57 am

    Not only do I want more, more, more … but I want it with a rebel yell.

    When Google can do that for me, then I’ll be impressed.

    Ami Ohayon’s last blog post..From Jerusalem to Boston

  3. Frank Reed Says:

    September 29th, 2008 at 10:59 am

    I think this is a great feature especially since there looks to be a way to make it fit your personal tastes quite easily.

  4. Thoman Says:

    September 29th, 2008 at 11:28 am

    I hope most of web sites can benefit from this idea.

  5. PS3 Says:

    September 29th, 2008 at 1:51 pm

    That is one massive snippet, the only problem is that they will end up with two or three pages per result!

  6. Zurpit Says:

    September 29th, 2008 at 1:52 pm

    It seems like Google is updating every day, this will be a cool new feature and it would make Google customizable so everyone will be happy

  7. sheppy Says:

    September 29th, 2008 at 3:40 pm

    Is this trying to break the hold of reliance on the meta description field? In other words, by not knowing the length of the display description, it’ll be best for the website owner to rely on Google to choose the snippet for the website?

    Just a thought…

    I might have read into it too much though ;)

    sheppy’s last blog post..SEO for your landing pages

  8. Dennis Edell Says:

    September 30th, 2008 at 7:54 am

    More more more would just clutter the hell outa the page.

    Dennis Edell’s last blog post..Important Tip: FREE Will Cost You In The Long Run – Do You Agree?

  9. PS3 Says:

    September 30th, 2008 at 2:41 pm

    @Sheppy – I’ve notice that search results on a couple of my sites display different snippets depending on the search term.

    I have no control over that and the snippet can be taken from anywhere on the site it seems.

    To be fair, the snippets do actually appear to be relevant to the search, so not a bad thing.

  10. Balakrishna Says:

    October 1st, 2008 at 6:50 am

    Yes, Description Snippets plays an key role in SEO.
    This posts needs to be considered when working on SEO.

    Thanks

  11. SEO Forums Says:

    October 1st, 2008 at 10:06 am

    I doubt how many will really read that description??

    SEO Forums’s last blog post..CPM question

  12. Vinyl Strap Says:

    October 1st, 2008 at 10:06 am

    It seems to me that most users would elect to display LESS text for the snippet so their pages wouldn’t be huge (too much to read = waste of time). If this hypothesis is true, then webmasters need to even more carefully edit their description tags and on-page copy for relevance.

  13. Ty Says:

    October 1st, 2008 at 10:16 am

    Trying to figure out what Google is doing?? This example site does not have a meta description tag, so it is pulling off the content….?
    So will the descrip tag become obsolete?

  14. Alan Bleiweiss Says:

    October 2nd, 2008 at 11:55 am

    I think this is brilliant. If some people don’t want to see any description they can view a simpler list. If anyone cares to discern between one page and another, they have choices.

    Frankly, I see a point in time when so many sites are optimized that you could conceivably get ten results back with the same exact titles, or at least similar enough that title alone is not even close to being enough to provide an understanding of which link to go to as per “most relevant”.

    The process of relying on quality meta descriptions helps, yet even then, it’s less than ideal given it’s limits.

    The notion that Google can grab a snippet that’s only a smidgen of information and expect to get the right content is ludicrous.

  15. muskoka Says:

    October 2nd, 2008 at 8:12 pm

    well, by the time the users make the choice small medium large-that extra click could have taken them to the web page! Nope, search has to be boom data bing!If spider daddy finds meta desc tags duplicative then it can default to choosing its own snippets from parags or titles with -guess what-keywords!!!!!! :) )

    Thanks for reading.

  16. brando the Great Says:

    October 6th, 2008 at 3:40 am

    Label me in category 3. I need snippets.

  17. Check Page Rank Says:

    October 11th, 2008 at 8:48 am

    This is a bad idea. It will take up so much space. The current length is good enough.

  18. Peter Coughlin Says:

    November 20th, 2008 at 9:59 am

    That’s interesting – I hadn’t seen this… I think I prefer the smaller snippet, but I’m also wondering whether they will still use any existing meta description, even if it’s short…

    Peter Coughlin’s last blog post..When Do You Stop Working On a Website

  19. Abstract/Meta tag description più lungo nelle pagine dei risultati di Google Says:

    January 22nd, 2009 at 6:45 pm

    [...] seroundtable.com; Google Bucket Tests User-Defined Blurb Length In Search Results, techcrunch.com; Google Tests Description Snippet Length, [...]