Google Search Engine Result Description - definition
The description Google uses to display a website in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPS).
Example for a Google Search Engine Result Description
You can identify the Website Description in the search engine result entry below as the text which is colored in black.
How does Google create the Search Engine Result Description?
Google uses the first one of these sources in descending order, depending on whether they’re available or not:
- Dmoz website description
- Meta Description Tag on website
- Text Snippet from your website
So the Dmoz description is the 1st choice for Google, Description Tag 2nd, otherwise a text snippet is used.
How to control Google’s Search Engine Result Description
- In case you don’t want Google to use your Dmoz description, use the NoODP Tag for prevention. “noODP” stands for “no Open Directory Project”.
<meta name="GOOGLEBOT" content="NOODP" />- To stop Google from using your Webpage’s Meta Description as search engine result description, just remove it.
- To stop Google from using Text Snippets from your website as description, use:
<meta content="NOSNIPPET" name="GOOGLEBOT" />However, preventing Google from showing Text Snippets does also remove Google’s cached version of the corresponding webpage (as described at Google Webmaster Help Center).