Hey everyone, I’m pretty new to SEO, but I’ll try my best to explain this issue.
In the screenshot I shared, you can see Google is pulling footer text and some random code to display in the meta description on search result pages (in sitelinks), instead of the meta description I wrote. How do I stop this?
I suggested using the data-nosnippet tag for the footer to my tech team, but now Google seems to be pulling in other bits of code too. I double-checked the meta descriptions for our PLP pages, and while they follow a structure and are somewhat similar, I’m not sure if that’s the reason.
What should I do next? I copied some of the text from the search results to show how the snippet looks:
Google controls what it shows for meta descriptions most of the time, so this isn’t something you can fully fix. You can try improving your content and hope Google picks up better summaries.
DigitalDruid said:
Google controls what it shows for meta descriptions most of the time, so this isn’t something you can fully fix. You can try improving your content and hope Google picks up better summaries.
What I’ve done is place my meta descriptions near the top of the page, and it seems to help. That said, Google often highlights sections with matching keywords instead. I’ve been in SEO for a while, and writing compelling content usually makes a big difference.
DigitalDruid said:
Google controls what it shows for meta descriptions most of the time, so this isn’t something you can fully fix. You can try improving your content and hope Google picks up better summaries.
Thanks for replying! So does that mean the data-nosnippet tag won’t work? The meta descriptions for my PLP pages are kind of similar—could that be the problem?
I had the same problem with a client’s ecommerce site recently—Google kept pulling footer text too.
The fastest solution is adding the “data-nosnippet” class to your footer div. At the same time, you should improve your meta descriptions with useful content (think benefits + important keywords) so Google has something better to display.
If you want, I can share some meta description templates that have worked well for ecommerce pages.