We have a good question from Quinton in Vancouver who asks in the search results, Google will often display a snippet appropriate to the specific search query, often disregarding the metadescription.
Is Google doing away with meta descriptions?
Use like they did for meta keywords?
All right, Quinton, let me lay a little bit of schooling on you.
So it actually turns out that we used to not use the metadescription at all.
We would only use the snippet appropriate to the specific search query, and only in recent years have we added it where if you have a meta description, we will sometimes choose that meta description over a little snippet from within the page. So in fact, it's moving the other direction.
We started out as only having stuff from within the page, and now we're a little more likely to sometimes use the meta description, but we don't use it all the time.
If we think it's useful for the query, don't make the same meta description on every single page just as a cookie cutter, because then we sort of think, well, that's not a very useful metadescription. It's not 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 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 make a really useful meta description, and then you're more likely to see that instead of the snippet from the page.
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 and the best for users.
And hopefully users will click through and find your content.