Meta description: how long, what to write, and why Google rewrites it

A meta description is the <meta name="description"> tag in a page's head: one or two sentences that summarise the page, which Google often shows as the grey text under your title in search results. Keep it between 70 and 160 characters, write what the visitor gets in the words they searched for, and make it unique per page. It is not a ranking factor, but it is the cheapest click-through lever you have. This guide is part of our map of meta tags for SEO; it covers the length Google actually shows, what to put in it, why Google replaces your text with a sentence of its own, and where to set descriptions for a whole site without writing them one by one.

Quick answer

• 70-160 characters, one or two sentences. Google sets no limit on the tag; it cuts the snippet to fit the device, which in practice is about 150-160 characters on desktop and closer to 120 on a phone.
• Put the searcher's words in it: Google bolds them in the snippet, and a description without them is the one Google replaces.
• Say what the visitor gets, with one specific: a number, a price, a date, a place.
• Unique per page. One site-wide fallback is ignored.
• Google rewrites descriptions that do not fit the query. You cannot switch that off; you can make yours the best match.
• Check any page with the free meta tags checker: it shows the description, its length and whether it is there at all.

What a meta description is and where it shows

The tag sits in the <head>, invisible on the page itself:

<meta name="description" content="Waterproof trekking shoe with a Vibram sole, sizes 36-47. Free delivery over €60, 30-day returns.">

Google's Search Central documentation on snippets says the snippet is generated from the page's content, and that Google uses the meta description when it describes the page better than a passage it would pick itself. So the tag is a strong suggestion, not a setting.

Chat apps and social networks also fall back to it when og:description is missing.

Is the meta description a ranking factor?

No. Google said in 2009, in its post about the keywords tag, that "we still don't use the description meta tag in our ranking", and its current documentation describes the tag only as a way to influence the snippet. What the description changes is the click. Two results at position 3 with the same title get different traffic when one snippet says "Waterproof trekking shoe, sizes 36-47, free delivery over €60" and the other says "Home | Products | About us | Contact | Cookie settings", which is what Google shows when it has to pick text from a page with no description.

How often Google rewrites it, and why

Often. Ahrefs' 2020 study of 20,000 keywords found Google showed a different snippet from the page's meta description about 63% of the time, and a rewrite was more likely on long-tail queries than on high-volume ones. Portent's study the same year put the figure above 70%. Neither number is a reason to skip the tag: for the queries you wrote the page for, a good description is shown far more often than for a stray six-word question it never mentions.

Google writes its own snippet when:

• The description is missing, empty or the same on many pages.
• It does not contain the query's words, typical for long, specific searches.
• It is a keyword list rather than a sentence.
• It no longer matches the page: an old price, an expired offer, a product that changed.

The pattern is the same as for titles, covered in page titles that rank and get clicked: the text Google keeps is the one that describes the page best for that search.

How long should a meta description be?

Google's snippet documentation says there is no limit on how long a meta description can be, but the snippet is truncated as needed, typically to fit the device width. Truncation is by pixel width, so a description of wide letters runs out sooner. In practice:

Under 70 characters the snippet looks thin next to the competitors' two lines, and Google is more likely to replace it with a longer passage. getReport uses the 70-160 window for its length check.

How getReport checks it

The checker reads the first non-empty <meta name="description"> in the HTML the server sends and counts its characters. It warns when the tag is missing and, separately, when the text is under 70 or over 160 characters. The evidence line quotes the description, so you see what the page sends and where Google would cut it. The title has the same pair of checks, and because the two are written together they usually fail together:

Whether Google shows your description for a given query only a search can tell; the checker tells you whether the page gives Google something usable. The meta description fix page has the short version.

Meta description best practices, step by step

1. Find the pages that need a hand-written description

Every page that earns search traffic deserves its own: the home page, every category or service page, every product that sells, and the twenty articles that bring most visits. Search Console → Performance → Pages, sorted by impressions, is the list. Everything else can run on a template (step 5).

2. Write it as the answer, not the introduction

A description is what the visitor gets, in one breath. It is not the first paragraph of the page and not a summary of the company.

Each has one specific, the searcher's words and a reason to click, and none repeats the title. For eleven before-and-after rewrites by page type, see meta description examples.

3. Use the searcher's words, once

Write the description with the same phrase you chose for the title, in its natural form: "trekking shoes for women" if that is the query, not "footwear for the female hiker". Once is bolded; three times reads as spam.

4. Keep it true

For products, put the price range or the shipping promise in the description ("from €129", "ships today"), and keep it current. A description with a price that has since changed is the kind Google treats as inaccurate and replaces, and a searcher who finds €6.90 shipping after reading "free delivery" does not come back. Avoid unescaped double quotation marks inside the text: a stray one ends the HTML attribute early.

5. Set a template for everything else

Most CMSs build a description from a pattern when the page has none. The right fallback is the page's own excerpt or first sentences, never the site tagline, which produces the same description on every page. Duplicate titles and descriptions across a site shows how to find those.

WordPress without an SEO plugin prints no description at all. This small plugin prints one from the post's excerpt (or its first 25 words) on single posts and pages, trimmed to 160 characters:

<?php
// wp-content/mu-plugins/meta-description.php
add_action('wp_head', function () {
    if (!is_singular()) {
        return;
    }
    $post = get_queried_object();
    $text = has_excerpt($post) ? $post->post_excerpt : wp_trim_words(wp_strip_all_tags($post->post_content), 25, '');
    $text = trim(preg_replace('/\s+/', ' ', $text));
    if ($text === '') {
        return;
    }
    if (mb_strlen($text) > 160) {
        $text = rtrim(mb_substr($text, 0, 157)) . '…';
    }
    printf('<meta name="description" content="%s">' . "\n", esc_attr($text));
}, 1);

Priority 1 keeps it near the top of <head>. Remove the file the day you install an SEO plugin, or the page has two descriptions.

Static sites: print the tag from front matter only when description: has a value, so an empty field produces no tag rather than an empty one. Tag archives, paginated pages and thin listings can run on the template; a page so thin that no sentence describes it is a page to noindex, as thin content: when short pages are fine explains.

Platform notes

WordPress

Yoast SEO: per page, the "Meta description" field under the Google preview in the Yoast box, with a bar that turns green in the recommended range. The site-wide template is under Yoast SEO → Settings → Content types → Posts (and Pages), field "Meta description"; it is empty by default, so posts without a hand-written description get no tag. Insert the Excerpt variable there.

Rank Math: per page, the Rank Math icon at the top right of the editor → Edit Snippet → Description. The template is under Rank Math SEO → Titles & Meta → Posts, "Single Post Description", which contains %excerpt% by default. Page-builder pages often have no usable excerpt, so write those by hand. The WordPress checker shows the plugin's own fix steps when it detects Yoast or Rank Math.

In both, purge the page cache after editing; the report reads the cached HTML until you do.

Shopify

Products, collections, pages and blog posts have a "Search engine listing" section at the bottom of the editor with a "Description" field that accepts up to 320 characters; stop at 160. The home page description is under Online Store → Preferences. Themes print it from page_description in theme.liquid; if yours does not, add it inside <head>:

{%- if page_description -%}
  <meta name="description" content="{{ page_description | escape }}">
{%- endif -%}

When the field is empty, page_description falls back to the product's or collection's own description text, so its first sentence doubles as the snippet.

How to check it worked

• Re-run the meta tags checker: "Meta description is present" and "Meta description is N characters; a good length" both pass, and the evidence line shows your text.
• Search Google for the page's main query. If the snippet shows a passage from the page instead, your description lacks the query's words; rewrite it with them.
• Search Console → Performance → Pages: compare click-through rate at the same position over four to six weeks. A description that works shows up as more clicks per impression, not more impressions.

Common mistakes

• The title repeated as the description. The searcher reads the same words twice. Use the description for the specific and the offer.
• One description for the whole site from a tagline fallback. Use the excerpt as the fallback and hand-write the key pages.
• Forgetting the cache. Purge the page cache and the CDN after an edit, then re-run the check.

Questions people ask

How long should a meta description be?

Aim for 70-160 characters. Google cuts snippets by pixel width, which on desktop is about 150-160 characters, and phones often show around 120. Put the specific detail and the reason to click in the first 120 characters so it survives on mobile. Shorter than 70 looks thin next to other results; longer is cut mid-sentence. The meta tags checker counts it for you.

Is the meta description a ranking factor?

No. Google has said since 2009 that it does not use the meta description to rank pages, and that is still true. It influences clicks instead: a snippet that answers the searcher's question with a specific detail gets chosen over the results around it. More clicks at the same position is the payoff, which is why the pages that earn search traffic deserve a hand-written one.

Why does Google change my meta description?

Google writes its own snippet when it thinks a passage from the page answers the specific query better than your description. It happens most for long, specific queries your description does not mention, for descriptions that are missing, duplicated across pages or stuffed with keywords, and for text that no longer matches the page. You cannot switch this off; you can make your description the best match for the page's main queries.

Should every page have a unique meta description?

Yes, for every page that matters in search. The same description on many pages makes results hard to tell apart, and Google is more likely to replace it with text from the page. On large sites, build each description from the page's own data, such as the product name, price and main feature, instead of one template sentence for every page.

Can a meta description be too short?

Yes. A description of a few words, such as the page name, gives searchers nothing to decide on, and Google often replaces it. Aim for 120-160 characters on pages that matter: long enough to say what the page offers and why to click, short enough not to be cut on desktop. Put the key point first, because phones show less.

Should I put keywords in my meta description?

Yes, once and naturally. Google bolds the words that match the search, which makes your result stand out, even though the description does not affect ranking. Write it for the person searching: what they get on the page and why it is worth the click. Stuffing in several keywords reads like spam and makes a rewrite by Google more likely.

How do I write a meta description?

Write one or two sentences that say what the visitor gets on the page, using the words they searched for, with one concrete detail: a price, a number, a place or a date. Do not repeat the title, do not list keywords, and do not promise what the page does not deliver. Keep it within 160 characters, write it per page for anything that earns search traffic, and use a template for the rest.

Is there a meta description character limit?

Not on the tag itself: Google's documentation says a meta description can be any length. The limit is in the result page, where the snippet is cut to fit the screen, usually after about 150-160 characters on desktop and fewer on a phone. Text past that point is simply not shown, so keep the whole message inside 160 characters.