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        4. Does Google ACTUALLY ding you for having long Meta Titles? Or do studies just suggest a lower CTR?

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        Does Google ACTUALLY ding you for having long Meta Titles? Or do studies just suggest a lower CTR?

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        • Bevelwise
          Bevelwise last edited by

          I do SEO in an agency and have many clients. I always get the question, "Will that hurt my SEO?". When it comes to Meta Title and even Meta Description Length, I understand Google will truncate it which may result in a lower CTR, but does it actually hurt your ranking? I see in many cases Google will find keywords within a long meta description and display those and then in other cases it will simply truncate it. Is Google doing whatever they want willy-nilly or is there data behind this?

          Thank you!

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

            I think meta descriptions are important.

            They are your first chance to display a call to action to a customer and to get them to click through to your site.  Hence a poorly written one, truncated etc. is probably not as enticing as one within the 160 characters - that does not truncate.

            We have acted for several clients where we have optimized the MD and improved the CTR by .08% (ie less than 1%) but that has amounted to over 20,000 additional clicks on their site a year.

            Also I loved Rand's WBF which indirectly addresses the issue, but correlates with my view, though probably not as strong that dwell time is a significant factor on ranking.

            https://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/blog/impact-of-queries-and-clicks-on-googles-rankings-whiteboard-friday

            On your questions directly:-

            Will it hurt your SEO? - Yes, two possible reasons

            1/ you keyword stuff it.

            2/ no-one clicks through because you have a bad MD

            On truncation - there are exceptions, but google generally does not if you fit within there pixel/character limit.

            My view - draft and implement your MD's properly...

            Hope that assists.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
            • rjonesx. 0
              rjonesx. 0 last edited by

              Great question, and I certainly heard the "will this hurt my seo" thing all the time as a consultant. A couple of thoughts...

              • To my knowledge, there is no specific algorithmic feature that would lower a page's rank because of too long descriptions
              • Long meta descriptions, however, may be truncated (as you pointed out) or ignored and replaced altogether by Google if they find a more appropriate subsection of text on the page.
              • A succinct, well written meta description may help with CTR which itself may be a ranking factor
              • Google has stated that they want you to write good meta descriptions, for what it is worth.

              What I try and say to clients is "are you prepared to build a top 10 website in your industry". If they are sweating good meta descriptions, they aren't ready to compete in the big leagues.

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