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.
Duplicate meta descriptions
-
Hi all,
I'm using Yoast's SEO plugin and when I run a On Page report card here on SEOMOZ it says there are 2 descriptions tags
I've been trying to fix this but can't (I'm new!)
Anyone any ideas on this?
Thanks
Elaine
-
No problem, glad I could help - and I agree the Yoast plugin is a good one but if you're a paying member of SEOmoz, follow up using it with the on-page optimiser so you have a variety of angles covered.
-
Hi Martin
That's what I am doing now, going through pages and taking out the description and using Yoast for everything else. Love his Plugin.
Thanks again for all your time and help
elaine
-
Maybe for now then, use the Description you can provide via the theme you're using and use Yoast for the other bits?
-
Hi Martin
You're very kind to help. I checked, theres only one SEC plugin and every single url on the site was showing duplicate meta descriptions according to SEOMOZ tools. This is resolved when I don't use Yoast description.
-
Hmmm. Which URLs is SEOmoz saying are containing the duplicate meta description?
And have a look in Wordpress under 'plugins' and see if there are two 'SEO' plugins, as you might be able to disable one if one has shipped with the theme you're using.
Another experiment might be to temporarily apply a different theme and re-run the SEOmoz tool and see if you still have duplicate META DESCRIPTIONs as that would help you to see if it is the theme causing the problem.
-
Hi Martin
Thanks for coming back to me so quickly! I don't think there are different pages causing the problem. I've looked at it again.
My theme has an SEO description box, as does Yoast's plugin. When I do not use Yoast, and run a page report there, it comes up with a tick on the box, saying that I do not have a 2 meta descriptions.
I am guessing the problem is with my theme (having SEO already in it). God help us all, at the moment I am in the header php having a look at that. I am not a tech person, I'm a psychologist, so that should tell me loud and clear "Get out of the PHP!
I have just emailed the theme support to see if there is a way to disable their SEO, as I want to continue with Yoast.
I should say that it is not showing up in google webmaster tools. It shows no errors or problems with the site
Thanks again for posting
-
Hi there!
What you need to do is note down which two pages are causing the duplicate META DESCRIPTION and then log into Wordpress and go and edit those posts or pages.
At the bottom of the page editor are boxes for title and meta description, so you will need to change one or both of them and then republish the page.
Let me know if you need screenshots as I have a couple of clients who we use Yoast's SEO plugin as a part of managing the on-site SEO.
Thanks,
Martin
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.
Related Questions
-
titles length, URL length and meta descriptions on a subdomain effecting SEO on main domain?
Hi all, I am currently evaluating areas for optimization on my main domain. When doing this, Moz has identified multiple titles and urls that should be shortened and missing meta descriptions on my subdomain (a help center of sorts). As far as I am aware, we have not set up any "no-index" rules for this subdomain. Are these items affecting SEO on my main domain? Thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | annegretwidmer
Kasey0 -
Adding CTAs in Meta Descriptions
Whats peoples opinions about putting Call To Cations CTAs in Meta Descriptions, and does this ever occur a Google penalty, as it can sometimes look a bit clickbait. For example I am looking at a site which currently has this meta description Meta Description: For more information on our sustainable, natural office furniture, click here to get in contact. Is this kind of description ranking unfriendly, Ive seen them used a lot but IM not a big fan of this myself. Any thoughts?
On-Page Optimization | | Donsimong1 -
Duplicate content with tagging and categories
Hello, Moz is showing that a site has duplicate content - which appears to be because of tags and categories. It is a relatively new site, with only a few blog publications so far. This means that the same articles are displayed under a number of different tags and categories... Is this something I should worry about, or just wait until I have more content? The 'tag' and 'category' pages are not really pages I would expect or aim for anyone to find in google results anyway. Would be glad to here any advice / opinions on this Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | wearehappymedia1 -
Page Title (Meta descriptions) length... how strict are you?
I have just had a conversation with a client... the gist was this... Is it more important to stay under the 55-60 characters OR go over a bit and have the page title make sense and include the clients company name. The same argument for meta description. I have a client insisting on 55-60 length but the keywords are long and if we use the primary keyword phrase the length is 44 if we use the keyword phrase and add the company name it becomes 64. This is with us trimming it a bit. Anyone else discussed this before?
On-Page Optimization | | JohnW-UK1 -
Duplicate page titles and hreflang tags
Moz is flagging a lot of pages on our site which have duplicate page titles. 99% of these are international pages which hreflang tags in the sitemap. Do I need to worry about this? I assumed that it wasn't an issue given the use of hreflang. And if that's the case, why is Moz flagging them as an issue? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | ahyde0 -
Schema description wordcount guidelines ?
Hi is there a wordcount guideline for the description field in Ravens schema creator ? according to their page on event schema an excerpt from the page will show up as a short description but then their tool has a field for adding a description! I was just adding some edited copy from the page into this but if it already pulls in an excerpt is there any need ? I take it its a good idea for better control of what's displayed in rich snippet, if so what's suggested wordcount limit ? cheers dan
On-Page Optimization | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Duplicate content penalty
when moz crawls my site they say I have 2x the pages that I really have & they say I am being penalized for duplicate content. I know years ago I had my old domain resolve over to my new domain. Its the only thing that makes sense as to the duplicate content but would search engines really penalize me for that? It is technically only on 1 site. My business took a significant sales hit starting early July 2013, I know google did and algorithm update that did have SEO aspects. I need to resolve the problem so I can stay in business
On-Page Optimization | | cheaptubes0 -
H2's vs Meta description
in some of my serp results the h2's are showing up instead of the meta description. i have read that H2's arent really valid anymore. can someone clarify this for me?
On-Page Optimization | | dhanson240