Is Google doing away with use of the meta description?

[leeanucha]

Look at my home page search result now, i say Google needs to do a better job. What's worst, people will have less control of their page CTR% from now on. It sucks!

[agapitoflores001]

Very wise. I could have not thought of it.

[leeanucha]

@agapitoflores001 that's far from wise, if you asked all the seo experts.

[twinkle990]

It's not the way to to generate meta description Google is generating meta descriptions tags from comments for my site wow they think they can do much better than webmasters

[KevPke81]

Matt - If you do check comments - I interpreted the question to comparing the SEO algorithm benefits of the description to the keyword tag.

Many of us understand the CTR benefits (and you may argue that is a SEO benefit) but I just want to know if keyword/content relevance is still being picked up on this tag for rankings or not.

I heard Google doesn't consider it an on-page factor from a reputable SEO panel, but can't find an official stance from Google.

Thanks, KP

[KevPke81]

Matt - If you do check comments - I interpreted the question to comparing the SEO algorithm benefits of the description to the keyword tag.

Many of us understand the CTR benefits (and you may argue that is a SEO benefit) but I just want to know if keyword/content relevance is still being picked up on this tag for rankings or not. I heard Google doesn't consider it an on-page factor from a reputable SEO pannel, but can't find an official stance from Google.

Thanks, KP

[flashbuilding]

view the source code of this page... keywords and description are used all over YouTube and every other big site. WTF are these people talking about? Did away with keywords? BS

[svivian]

Dude, you totally look like Hitler in the video thumbnail. Not cool. :p

[almightyvegeta87]

So, it wont matter if we don't add meta tags et all

This is good news

[larssonk22]

So google doesn't use the keyword tag??

[mrsearchaus]

How does one go about asking Matt Cutts a question??

[leeanucha]

@mrsearchaus So how can people going to describe their page exactly? Please go see foreign description results, and you see that they are all messed up by this algorithm. Soon, people won't gonna find good results on Google. and then...

[EnhancedOnlineNews]

Very valuable stuff.  Thanks Matt!

[oneeyedgeek]

I am so far behind on all of this! So, Google doesn't follow meta keywords anymore either?

My big summer project this year is to go through all of my old websites and update them for SEO. Where can I find info on the latest trends and more specifically, what Google looks for and ignores?

[fewsilly]

Google has not used keyword tag for a very long time. In this video he says that if have the same description on every page they won't use it.

[oneeyedgeek]

Thank you, but an answer to my question would have been more helpful.

[BIGELLOW]

The honest answer to your question, oneeyedgeek, is that if you want to optimize your website for Google, it is best to simply design the website for the consumer and not be concerned too much about bots and automation. Google is constantly tweaking their bots to mimic how a person might see and understand the website. The exception are images, where it would be best to include ALT TAG information in lieu of the purpose for that image.

[oneeyedgeek]

Thank you for that BIGELLOW.  For the most part, my sites are designed for the customer, but I also used a bunch of meta tags, and I'm not sure which ones are still required for Google, browsers, whatever, and which are now useless. I no longer design sites, but keep an eye on them for my older clients, so I haven't gone over this stuff in a long time.

[BIGELLOW]

The reason Google generally tries not to support the meta tags is because it is too easy of a way for webmasters to game the system. Since the meta information is not visible to the user, it's too easy to lie and fill it with other popular terms that have nothing to do with the site contents. This is why Google hasn't generally supported the meta description and had stopped supporting the meta keywords years ago.

[larssonk22]

use your keywords in your content and your internal link structure