Override automatic meta description

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In the header of my wordpress based estate agency website built buy someone else, where the meta content is, is this snippet:

<meta name="description" content="<?php if (is_category()) { ?><?php single_cat_title(); ?><?php } else { ?><?php the_title(); ?><?php } ?> | Estate Agents" />

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This is automatically pulling content from the home page and using it as a meta description in google search results. The problem is, after changing some seemingly non-associated wording on the home page, it’s changed the the meta description too and is causing damage to our search listings.

Is there any way to override the description its pulling to something else, without undoing the wording on the home page and without disturbing other automatically set descriptions on other pages?

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  1. The description that appears in the Google search results is not necessarily the same as the meta description that appears in the code source. Google automatically customises this description to what the user searches for and often includes on-page content if it is deemed more relevant. So it might very well be plucking out the content you’ve changed on the page – this is normal behaviour.

    When you view-source the page, what does the meta description actually say? If it’s not the same as what Google is showing in the SERPs then it’s not necessarily a problem of the meta description. However, if the meta description more closely reflects what the user has searched for then it is more likely to show in the results.

    Since the description in the SERPs is customised by Google, not everyone will necessarily see the same description that you are seeing, since it is dependent on what they search for.

    You can’t “force” the description that appears in Google search results. The meta description is just a suggestion and should closely reflect the page content. In your case the meta description on the homepage is very short and looks more like a “title” to be honest. However, if you do a bare site:www.brandvaughan.co.uk search then the short meta description does in fact show in the results. However, if you throw a search phrase in then you get a completely different description (more relevant to the search) eg. site:www.brandvaughan.co.uk view properties – which is more useful from a users perspective.

    a simple search for “Brand Vaughan” throws up the content box “Pavilion Point” – what would I need to do to stop it doing that?

    It’s a tricky one! But the description that Google is returning in this instance is the first block of text where that phrase is appearing on the page. Whilst “Brand Vaughan” does appear earlier in the source, it only seems to appear by itself in menus before this. If the meta description was more “descriptive” and also included this phrase then it might be used in the SERPs.

    Just to note that the meta description does not directly affect your ranking position. Google does not use it to index your site. It might be used in the description that appears in the SERPs so can influence click-through rates.