Where does Google get the text it uses to describe a search result?
July 20, 2011 7:23 PM Subscribe
You know that text that shows up under the link in a Google search result? Where does it come from? Specific example follows, in which the text is nowhere on the website in question.
Do a Google search for this term: 176th Wing. Directly under the link is text that reads:
A motivated flying unit, relevant in peace, indispensable in war, trained and ready to respond any place any time.
Where does this text come from?
* It's not anywhere on the site itself.
* It does appear in an Open Directory Project (DMOZ) page, here.
* It also appears in the cache of the old, discontinued Google Directory page here.
Is Google getting the text from DMOZ.org? Or are they both pulling it from some other place?
Do a Google search for this term: 176th Wing. Directly under the link is text that reads:
A motivated flying unit, relevant in peace, indispensable in war, trained and ready to respond any place any time.
Where does this text come from?
* It's not anywhere on the site itself.
* It does appear in an Open Directory Project (DMOZ) page, here.
* It also appears in the cache of the old, discontinued Google Directory page here.
Is Google getting the text from DMOZ.org? Or are they both pulling it from some other place?
Best answer: Generally, it gets pulled from the meta=description tag in the page. It looks like the page you referenced sends everything through a stylesheet, so you don't see it in the head, but that's the most likely place it's coming from.
posted by Gilbert at 7:30 PM on July 20, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Gilbert at 7:30 PM on July 20, 2011 [1 favorite]
As an aside, the pulling of DMOZ snippets is pretty interesting, but I was wondering:
a) how the heck they decide when existing descriptive meta tags are insufficient
b) how the heck they decide which DMOZ snippet is appropriate
They can't be doing this all by hand, surely?
posted by carter at 8:00 PM on July 20, 2011
a) how the heck they decide when existing descriptive meta tags are insufficient
b) how the heck they decide which DMOZ snippet is appropriate
They can't be doing this all by hand, surely?
posted by carter at 8:00 PM on July 20, 2011
Best answer: @carter:
Only the description meta tag matters for SERP snippets. Google doesn't care about the keywords tag at all, it's far too easy to abuse. I don't know the specifics of how they decide whether to display the site-provided description or the search terms in context on the page.
As far as I know, DMOZ descriptions are for the domain as a whole, rather than specific pages, as meta descriptions are supposed to be. You can direct Google to not use DMOZ descriptions with the following tag:
posted by Condroidulations! at 8:26 PM on July 20, 2011 [1 favorite]
Only the description meta tag matters for SERP snippets. Google doesn't care about the keywords tag at all, it's far too easy to abuse. I don't know the specifics of how they decide whether to display the site-provided description or the search terms in context on the page.
As far as I know, DMOZ descriptions are for the domain as a whole, rather than specific pages, as meta descriptions are supposed to be. You can direct Google to not use DMOZ descriptions with the following tag:
<meta name="robots" content="noodp">
posted by Condroidulations! at 8:26 PM on July 20, 2011 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Very informative. Thank you! - aj
posted by Alaska Jack at 10:58 AM on July 21, 2011
posted by Alaska Jack at 10:58 AM on July 21, 2011
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posted by Condroidulations! at 7:29 PM on July 20, 2011 [1 favorite]