In the News: Google Increases Meta Description Length

Heading into the year 2018, Google released an update to its Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) that excited a lot of marketers in the SEO community. One such update was Google’s addition to their allowed length for the editable snippet below the SEO title of a search result on the SERP. This snippet, known as the meta description, used to have a limit of about 156 characters, and has been extended to approximately 230 characters.

Big Deal. So What if the Meta Description is Longer?

This may not seem like a big deal, especially if you know that the meta description has no direct affect on the determinant of rank according to Google. Besides, the increase is only 74 characters.

Well, you’re right. But, those extra 74 characters add almost an entire extra line to your description on the SERP. See for yourself!

Here’s how long the meta description used to be:

Here’s how long it is after Google’s update:

This trend doesn’t appear to be going away. In fact, according to Search Engine Land, RankRanger has been tracking Google’s increase in the length of meta descriptions over time. After Google’s update in early December of 2017, the average meta description length jumped to approximately 230 characters for almost all search queries.

What Does This Mean For Marketers?

A lot of what seems to be happening is that Google is semantically selecting content from your page, and using it in the meta description in place of what you’ve already entered in your snippet. This could just be because Google was testing the waters with this update, since now these meta descriptions are able to be entered manually at up to 230 characters. While Search Engine Land has a different take, here’s what we recommend:

Update your most important pages.

If you’ve got some really important pages that rank high on the SERP, you’ll want to update your meta description, if only slightly, in order to have more say on that particular SERP. Your competitors might already have the extra space to entice viewers to click their content, so get in the ring and update your meta descriptions!

Test, test, and test some more!

Try updating your meta description for say, a period of 30 days. Use Google analytics or whichever analytics platform you use, and see your new clickthrough rates. If your page is performing worse, than before, try to determine why. However, Google’s update is a new opportunity for you to say more to searchers, so use the space to your advantage!

Simply add onto your existing meta descriptions.

You don’t have to go crazy and revamp every meta description on your website. Consider adding another tiny snippet of information that you think might entice a reader to click. You can always go back and change the description if you find that the results aren’t what you’d hoped for.

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