• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        4. Structured Data + Meta Descriptions

        Moz Q&A is closed.

        After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

        Structured Data + Meta Descriptions

        Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        3
        5
        2479
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • Whebb
          Whebb last edited by

          Hey All,

          Was just looking through some google pages on best practices for meta descriptions and came across this little tidbit.

          "Include clearly tagged facts in the description. The meta description doesn't just have to be in sentence format; it's also a great place to include structured data about the page. For example, news or blog postings can list the author, date of publication, or byline information. This can give potential visitors very relevant information that might not be displayed in the snippet otherwise. Similarly, product pages might have the key bits of information—price, age, manufacturer—scattered throughout a page. A good meta description can bring all this data together. For example, the following meta description provides detailed information about a book.

          "
          
          

          This is the first time I have seen suggested use of structured data in meta descriptions.  Does this totally replace a regular meta description or will it work in conjunction with the regular meta description? If I provide both structured data and text, will the SERP display text and the structured data the way it was previously displayed? Or will the 150 -160 character limit take precedence and just cut off all info after that?

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Everett
            Everett last edited by

            JStrong,

            Just to make sure we're all on the same page: Although Google uses the phrase "Structured Data..." I don't think they mean it in the same was as you would use, for example, Schema markup in the code. The example there is simply a meta description, which you can use for whatever purpose you like. It could be worth testing the Click-Through-Rate on meta descriptions like that (a metric you can see in Google Webmaster Tools) to decide if you want to use it, though for my money I'd bet on a description with a clear value proposition, offer, call to action, emotion, etc... that will also have their keywords bolded if they appear in the description.

            If you do test it out please share what the effect on CTR in the SERPs was from GWT. Just because I'm curious.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • AlexMcKee
              AlexMcKee @Whebb last edited by

              Very interesting! I don't recall seeing that before but I checked the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine entry for that URL and the quoted extract has been there since at least 2013.

              Elsewhere Google has been pretty insistent on structured data being part of the document itself as much as possible so it does seem somewhat contradictory advice. As you say perhaps they've simply forgotten to update that particular entry to reflect current thinking.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Whebb
                Whebb last edited by

                Hi Alex,

                Ah, so something older then? This is where I saw the information. I thought Google was usually pretty good about removing outdated information, but maybe not in this case. I agree, that I have previously only worked with and seen structured data in the body markup, so not sure if this was a more recent development or not.

                Thanks for the input!

                AlexMcKee 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • AlexMcKee
                  AlexMcKee last edited by

                  Once upon a time it was possibly a good use of the meta description to include some salient structured data but today we have a proper way of marking up structured data. The meta description is best used for compelling, relevant copy to attract the user to click through to your site as the meta description is your one best hope of affecting what is shown to the user in the SERPs.

                  Search engines haven't shown any inclination to parse the meta description and I doubt they would do so in future. Structured data belongs in the document itself, marked up accordingly.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                  • 1 / 1
                  • First post
                    Last post

                  Browse Questions

                  Explore more categories

                  • Moz Tools

                    Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                  • SEO Tactics

                    Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                  • Community

                    Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                  • Digital Marketing

                    Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                  • Research & Trends

                    Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                  • Support

                    Connect on product support and feature requests.

                  • See all categories

                  Related Questions

                  • Ashcastle

                    URL structure - Page Path vs No Page Path

                    We are currently re building our URL structure for eccomerce websites. We have seen a lot of site removing the page path on product pages e.g. https://www.theiconic.co.nz/liberty-beach-blossom-shirt-680193.html versus what would normally be https://www.theiconic.co.nz/womens-clothing-tops/liberty-beach-blossom-shirt-680193.html Should we be removing the site page path for a product page to keep the url shorter or should we keep it? I can see that we would loose the hierarchy juice to a product page but not sure what is the right thing to do.

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ashcastle
                    0
                  • McTaggart

                    Website structure - best tools to analyse and plan, visually

                    Hi - I am about to analyse and then re-plan the structure of a website and think it would be best to do it graphically - in the form of a chart. Are there any tools you would recommend to visualise the structure of an existing website (perhaps something that can scan and then represent a websites) - or plan out a new/revised website? Thanks in advance, Luke

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart
                    0
                  • dsbud

                    Site structure: Any issues with 404'd parent folders?

                    Is there any issue with a 404'd parent folder in a URL? There's no links to the parent folder and a parent folder page never existed. For example say I have the following pages w/ content: /famous-dogs/lassie/
                    /famous-dogs/snoopy/
                    /famous-dogs/scooby-doo/ But I never (and maybe never plan to) created a general **/famous-dogs/ **page. Sitemaps.xml does not link to it, nor does any page on my site. Is there any concerns with doing this? Am I missing out on any sort of value that might pass to a parent folder?

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dsbud
                    0
                  • lynetteboss

                    Do I need to add the actual language for meta tags and description for different languages? cited for duplicate content for different language

                    Hi, I am fairly new to SEO and this community so pardon my questions. We recently launched on our drupal site mandarin language  version for the entire site. And when i do the crawl site, i get duplicate content for the pages that are in mandarin. Is this a problem or can i ignore this? Should i make different page titles for the different languages? Also, for the metatag and descriptions, would it better in the native language for google to search for? thanks in advance.

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lynetteboss
                    0
                  • RosemaryB

                    Are ALL CAPS construed as spamming if they are used in a meta description tag call to action?

                    I know this seems like an old school question.  As a long time SEO I would never use ALL CAPS in a title tag (unless a brand name is capitalized).  However I recently came across a Moz video about creating better calls to action in the meta description tags.  Some of the examples had CTAs that were using all caps (i.e. CALL NOW!  or LOWEST QUOTES!) I realize there is a debate about the user experience implications.  However I'm more concerned about search engines penalizing websites that are using ALL CAPS CTAs in their meta description tags. Any feedback/advice would be appreciated. Thanks

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RosemaryB
                    0
                  • 94501

                    Can an "Event" in Structured Data For Google Be A Webinar?

                    I have a client who is has structured data for live business webinars. Google's documentation seems to talk more about music and tickets than this kind of thing. At the same time, we get an error in search console for "Name" and location, which they list as "webinar." Should I removed this failed structured data attempt or is there a way to fix it? Thanks!

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 94501
                    0
                  • jayoliverwright

                    Tools to test meta descriptions?

                    Hey does anyone know of any tools which can test your meta descriptions against competitors meta descriptions for specific keyword terms. I know one tool called SERP Turkey which uses mechanical turk, i was wondering if there is any others on the market? Even a tool which can automatically score your meta description against others on the SERP results page. E..g optimised, keyword, call to action, etc. Cheers, Chris

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jayoliverwright
                    0
                  • WayneRooney

                    Wordpress Blog in 2 languages. How to SEO or structure it?

                    Hi Moz community, I have got a wordpress blog currently in the spanish language. I want to create the same blog content but in english version. (manually translate it to english instead of using translation service such as Google Translate). How should i structure the blog for SEO? How will it work? Any structure markups i should know about? Any examples? Thanks

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WayneRooney
                    0

                  Get started with Moz Pro!

                  Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                  Start my free trial
                  Products
                  • Moz Pro
                  • Moz Local
                  • Moz API
                  • Moz Data
                  • STAT
                  • Product Updates
                  Moz Solutions
                  • SMB Solutions
                  • Agency Solutions
                  • Enterprise Solutions
                  • Digital Marketers
                  Free SEO Tools
                  • Domain Authority Checker
                  • Link Explorer
                  • Keyword Explorer
                  • Competitive Research
                  • Brand Authority Checker
                  • Local Citation Checker
                  • MozBar Extension
                  • MozCast
                  Resources
                  • Blog
                  • SEO Learning Center
                  • Help Hub
                  • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                  • How-to Guides
                  • Moz Academy
                  • API Docs
                  About Moz
                  • About
                  • Team
                  • Careers
                  • Contact
                  Why Moz
                  • Case Studies
                  • Testimonials
                  Get Involved
                  • Become an Affiliate
                  • MozCon
                  • Webinars
                  • Practical Marketer Series
                  • MozPod
                  Connect with us

                  Contact the Help team

                  Join our newsletter
                  Moz logo
                  © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                  • Accessibility
                  • Terms of Use
                  • Privacy

                  Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.