How to write a meta description: length, structure, and when Google ignores it
A meta description does not affect ranking, which is why it's written last and badly. It does affect whether someone clicks your result rather than the one above it, which for most pages is the whole game. This guide gives the limits, a structure, and the honest fact that Google replaces descriptions often — plus what to do about it. The meta tag generator writes the tag; the SERP preview shows it.
What the description is for
The <meta name="description"> tag is a suggestion to search engines for the two lines under the title in a result. It is also what social platforms and chat apps fall back to when a page has no Open Graph description, and what AI search summaries and answer engines frequently quote as the page's own statement of what it is. Its job is to say what the page delivers, specifically enough that the right people click and the wrong people don't — a description that attracts clicks from people the page can't help costs you in bounces.
Length: characters, pixels, devices
Google fits about 920 pixels of description on desktop — roughly 150–160 characters of normal text — and around 120 characters on mobile before truncation. As with titles (How long should a title tag be? Pixels, not characters), the cut is by width, so measure rather than count. Put the essential clause in the first 110 characters; the tail may vanish on phones. Shorter is fine: a crisp 90-character description beats a padded 155.
A structure that earns clicks
- Lead with the answer or the outcome. "Convert HEIC photos to JPG in your browser — no upload, no account" tells the searcher in eight words that this is it.
- Add the differentiator. Free, on-device, batch, no watermark, updated for 2026 — whatever is true and decides between you and the competitor.
- Include the query's words naturally. Google bolds matching terms in the snippet, which draws the eye; stuffing them doesn't.
- Write in sentences, with a verb. A list of keywords reads as spam to humans and machines alike.
- Match the page. A description promising something the page doesn't deliver earns a click and a bounce.
Why Google ignores it, and what to do
Google generates its own snippet for a large share of queries — from the page's text, choosing the passage that best matches what was searched. That happens more when the description is missing, duplicated across pages, too short, or doesn't address the query. Two consequences: write a unique description for every page that matters (a template like "{Page} | {Site}" is treated as nothing), and make the page's first paragraph a good snippet in its own right, because that is what Google reaches for. The readability checker keeps both readable; What structured data is, and what it does for a page covers the markup that decorates the result around the snippet.
Examples
- Weak: "Image compressor, compress images, reduce image size, free online image compression tool." — keywords, no promise.
- Better: "Shrink JPG, PNG and WebP images in your browser with a quality slider and a before/after preview. Nothing is uploaded; batch and ZIP supported." — outcome, differentiators, a verb.
- Weak: "Welcome to our blog about productivity." — says nothing.
- Better: "Why to-do lists fail after week two, and the three-column board that replaces them — with a free personal kanban you can start in a minute." — specific, and it answers the question the searcher asked.
Sources and further reading
The claims in this guide rest on these references, which were checked when the guide was last updated. Spotted an error? The contact page says how to report it.