DMOZ Description Showing in Google
Hi Jill,
I just want to run something by you…
It appears the text Google is now showing [for a particular keyword phrase] is from our DMOZ directory listing. Until very recently (and while our listing position was as good as it is now) Google was showing the first few words of text from the body of our home page.
So now the question is should we leave everything as is and enjoy the good listing position, but put up with the less than ideal text in the search results, or should we insert a good meta description and hope Google uses it in our search results without negatively impacting our position?
Hope all is well with you!
Thanks!
Richard
Jill’s Response
Hi Richard,
The position of your page in the search results for your keyword phrase isn’t affected by that DMOZ description. Your position should be the same regardless of what description is shown in the search results.
I would highly suggest adding the “NoODP” Meta tag to your home page to stop Google from using the DMOZ description since it’s generally not the best one to have showing in the search results.
The syntax for the tag is as follows:
<meta name=”robots” content=”noodp”>
If you have a Yahoo directory listing as well, you may want to also add “NoYDIR” to the Meta tag, which would look like this:
<meta name=”robots” content=”noodp, noydir”>
We have an old forum thread with more info on this here.
You should definitely add a good Meta description tag as well. If you add the keyword phrase to it (the phrase that’s currently triggering the DMOZ description) there’s a good chance this will show up as your new description sometime after the next Google crawl.
As an aside, I’ve been lax with Meta descriptions on our own website’s pages, but they are well worth the few minutes of effort to create. Our SEO associate Jesse noticed the other day that the High Rankings Forum was showing a lousy description when it showed up in the search results for “SEO Forum” and that was because we had never applied a Meta description tag to it. It is also showing its DMOZ description when it shows up for “Search Engine Optimization Forum” because we had never applied the NoODP tag either. So we added a Meta description that utilized the phrase “SEO forum” and will see if it makes a difference in a few days. For now, I didn’t bother to add the NoODP tag because our DMOZ description actually isn’t too bad, but I may go back and fix that when I have some extra time.
Hope this helps!
Best,
Jill
Discuss this article in the Small Business Ideas forum.
CEO and founder of High Rankings®, Jill Whalen has been performing search engine optimization since 1995 and is the host of the free High Rankings Advisor search engine marketing newsletter, author of “The Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines” and founder/administrator of the popular High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum. In 2006, Jill co-founded SEMNE,
a local search engine marketing networking organization for people and companies in New England.
High Rankings is an internationally recognized search engine optimization firm located in Framingham, MA specializing in search engine optimization, SEO consultations, in-house training, site audit reports, search marketing seminars and workshops. High Rankings has a 100% success rate for substantially improving client rankings and targeted traffic.
Jill speaks at national and international conferences and has been writing
about SEO and search marketing since 2000. She’s been quoted in such
publications as The Wall Street Journal, U.S. News & World Report and The
Washington Post. Her articles have appeared in numerous print magazines and
online websites including CIO Magazine, CMS Focus, The Internet Marketing
Report, ClickZ, WorkZ, Inc.com, Entrepreneur, Lycos Small Business,
WebProNews, SiteProNews and others. Jill has also appeared on many online
and offline radio programs such as Entrepreneur Magazine’s E-Biz Radio Show,
SearchEngineRadio and the eMarketing Talkshow.
Well many people have said that Meta Tags are dead. While this may ring true for the SERPs, SEO work is just one of many forms of marketing. No matter how highly you rank you still need to convert an impression into a click through before you can even begin to think about the sale.
The description is a wonderful opportunity to create a call to action. While this may do nothing for rankings it can increase traffic considerably.
I agree Robert, many of the notions from the past are being shattered. For example many people scroll down to the bottom of the page and work their way up when conducting listings as well.
So much for the top term in the top 10 being the best real estate in the golden triangle of attention.
At that point, the person with the most catchy title and compelling offer “gets the click” 9 times out of 10. With the description it’s all about functional, yet blockbuster not lackluster copy the converts.
Matt Cutts created a YouTube video explaining this. Here is the link DMOZ in Google
Dmoz is old news!
Read by small business people, our newsletter delivers a digest of articles from the top search engine marketing experts. You will learn about:
Our newsletter is the perfect way to stay up to date with all of the latest trends, events and techniques in using search engines to grow your business and make more sales. Subscribe here. Your email address will NOT be given to third parties.
FreeFind Site Search Engine – FreeFind adds a “search this site” feature to your website, making your site easier to use. FreeFind also gives you reports showing what your visitors are searching for, enabling you to improve your site. FreeFind’s advanced site search engine and automatic site map technology can be added to your website for free.
Buy UPC Codes
Get your products listed online!
Search marketing information for small business owners.
Fetching the best small business news.
A friendly place to share small business ideas and knowledge.
Small business support through education, resources and community
The directory of the best small business sites and tools.
Copyright © 1998 – 2018 Search Engine Guide All Rights Reserved. Privacy
Research & References of DMOZ Description Showing in Google|A&C Accounting And Tax Services
Source
0 Comments