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I don't remember seeing this in the training, so I am asking here! When you go to your list of posts, do you or are you supposed to update the SEO Titile and SEO Description? I
I recommend you leave them blank. If you do then search engines decide what they show.
However, some people prefer to "force" their titles and descriptions by entering content in those fields in the All-in-One SEO panel beneath a page or post.
Here's an example of the difference http://d.pr/i/ay7Y
I've searched for "afternoon tea at the ritz". The first result shows Google deciding what to show from the post and emboldening my search term. The second one has a forced description so it doesn't show my search term.
I believe people are more likely to click on a result that shows their search term than one that doesn't.
It also saves time and effort crafting "perfect" descriptions, especially as Google seems to be ranking higher content that doesn't have such descriptions!
This cannot be so (ranking higher content that doesn't have such descriptions!). There is a video by Matt Cutts who suggests adding meta parameters. He was Google's representative so this was reliable.
There is a very recent statement by Mueller from Google who says that they may change everything but there is no statement that they rank better posts without those parameters.
They simply do not care, they will show what they want.
Take another look at the example http://d.pr/i/ay7Y The post without an SEO description ranks higher. I checked this months ago with some of the leading lights over at WPMUDev and it appears that yes, Google is ranking content that doesn't have forced descriptions higher, probably because it prefers to show the search term, as it no-doubt results in a higher click through rate.
I always take anything Matt Cutts says with Lot's Wife, also do check how old his video is, often you'll find that they are many years out-of-date.
I take everything from Cutts seriously, and you can find his videos in Google, in their various instructions for site owners. So this is all still valid, I also gave yet another example by Mueller from Google.
There are no forced descriptions, they simply ignore it if/when they decide so. You cannot force them to use anything and you cannot possibly know what they show to different people. They show different snippets simultaneously.
You cannot take one particular post which is ranked better than other as a proof for anything. There are hundreds of parameters that determine their ranking.
If you want to follow Matt Cutts, create SEO titles and descriptions, etc. no-one is stopping you, although you seem to be arguing that it's pointless anyway, if as you point out "they simply ignore it if/when they decide to do so". As I said the geniuses over at WPMUDev have been discussing this at length for many months, and their considered opinion is that content without forced SEO titles and descriptions is ranking better than those with. It's possible search engines are now viewing it as a spam metric in some cases. I was simply pointing out that it isn't necessary, I have never done it and it certainly hasn't hurt me any, in fact quite the reverse. :)
Google shows different snippets of your post to different people, and this simultaneously. This means whatever you put in meta description and meta title may be ignored. They show what they find suitable, based on the previous searches of the visitor. They even change URL and add tags there if you have added any.
So you have no control of any kind and you do not know what visitors really see when they have the snippet of your post in the screen. You can possibly test this by using several computers incognito.
Now after all this, I do add meta parameters every time, I know it may be stupid, but I am not a smart person.
Thank you for the info! I read somewhere that adding meta can actually hurt your rankings so I stopped! I don't know how true that is, but I saw it in some of my research!
I do not think it can be of any harm. Have around 300 posts on the top page in Google, all with meta parameters added by myself.
What do you mean by updating them? It's perfectly fine to update a title to show it's still relevant, like changing the year to the current year of course if it was displayed in the title. But for the most part, your titles probably wouldn't change much. I've added "with video" to titles where I've added embedded video, but the main core message of your title is probably going to stay the same since you're not going in and changing all your content.
Keep up the good work with quality on-page SEO as well as off-page SEO and you'll only have to make slight adjustments from time to time.
One thing I wouldn't do when it comes to updating is changing your permalink. I'd leave that completely alone as changing it can cause issues. :) Hope that helps.
So it's not the title. When I go to then all posts and get my list of posts all the way over to the right next to the date, there is "SEO Tite" and SEO Description.
Ohhhhh, you're saying when you published your articles you never set up the SEO title and description. Gotcha.. For the SEO title, If you don't add anything at all it will default to the title of your post anyway, so titles shouldn't be an issue. And with the SEO description, while I always set one, some just leave it blank so that it takes an excerpt of the post for the description. It's really up to you. I personally set them for each post, but ultimately it's up to you :)
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Do you edit seo title and seo description on posts?
I don't remember seeing this in the training, so I am asking here! When you go to your list of posts, do you or are you supposed to update the SEO Titile and SEO Description? I
Hi Abby, this confused me too, but thanks to the discussion below your post I think I now have the answer which is not to populate the SEO title, description and key words fields on wordpress posts.
I recommend you leave them blank. If you do then search engines decide what they show.
However, some people prefer to "force" their titles and descriptions by entering content in those fields in the All-in-One SEO panel beneath a page or post.
Here's an example of the difference http://d.pr/i/ay7Y
I've searched for "afternoon tea at the ritz". The first result shows Google deciding what to show from the post and emboldening my search term. The second one has a forced description so it doesn't show my search term.
I believe people are more likely to click on a result that shows their search term than one that doesn't.
It also saves time and effort crafting "perfect" descriptions, especially as Google seems to be ranking higher content that doesn't have such descriptions!
This cannot be so (ranking higher content that doesn't have such descriptions!). There is a video by Matt Cutts who suggests adding meta parameters. He was Google's representative so this was reliable.
There is a very recent statement by Mueller from Google who says that they may change everything but there is no statement that they rank better posts without those parameters.
They simply do not care, they will show what they want.
Take another look at the example http://d.pr/i/ay7Y The post without an SEO description ranks higher. I checked this months ago with some of the leading lights over at WPMUDev and it appears that yes, Google is ranking content that doesn't have forced descriptions higher, probably because it prefers to show the search term, as it no-doubt results in a higher click through rate.
I always take anything Matt Cutts says with Lot's Wife, also do check how old his video is, often you'll find that they are many years out-of-date.
I take everything from Cutts seriously, and you can find his videos in Google, in their various instructions for site owners. So this is all still valid, I also gave yet another example by Mueller from Google.
There are no forced descriptions, they simply ignore it if/when they decide so. You cannot force them to use anything and you cannot possibly know what they show to different people. They show different snippets simultaneously.
You cannot take one particular post which is ranked better than other as a proof for anything. There are hundreds of parameters that determine their ranking.
If you want to follow Matt Cutts, create SEO titles and descriptions, etc. no-one is stopping you, although you seem to be arguing that it's pointless anyway, if as you point out "they simply ignore it if/when they decide to do so". As I said the geniuses over at WPMUDev have been discussing this at length for many months, and their considered opinion is that content without forced SEO titles and descriptions is ranking better than those with. It's possible search engines are now viewing it as a spam metric in some cases. I was simply pointing out that it isn't necessary, I have never done it and it certainly hasn't hurt me any, in fact quite the reverse. :)
Google shows different snippets of your post to different people, and this simultaneously. This means whatever you put in meta description and meta title may be ignored. They show what they find suitable, based on the previous searches of the visitor. They even change URL and add tags there if you have added any.
So you have no control of any kind and you do not know what visitors really see when they have the snippet of your post in the screen. You can possibly test this by using several computers incognito.
Now after all this, I do add meta parameters every time, I know it may be stupid, but I am not a smart person.
Thank you for the info! I read somewhere that adding meta can actually hurt your rankings so I stopped! I don't know how true that is, but I saw it in some of my research!
I do not think it can be of any harm. Have around 300 posts on the top page in Google, all with meta parameters added by myself.
What do you mean by updating them? It's perfectly fine to update a title to show it's still relevant, like changing the year to the current year of course if it was displayed in the title. But for the most part, your titles probably wouldn't change much. I've added "with video" to titles where I've added embedded video, but the main core message of your title is probably going to stay the same since you're not going in and changing all your content.
Keep up the good work with quality on-page SEO as well as off-page SEO and you'll only have to make slight adjustments from time to time.
One thing I wouldn't do when it comes to updating is changing your permalink. I'd leave that completely alone as changing it can cause issues. :) Hope that helps.
So it's not the title. When I go to then all posts and get my list of posts all the way over to the right next to the date, there is "SEO Tite" and SEO Description.
Ohhhhh, you're saying when you published your articles you never set up the SEO title and description. Gotcha.. For the SEO title, If you don't add anything at all it will default to the title of your post anyway, so titles shouldn't be an issue. And with the SEO description, while I always set one, some just leave it blank so that it takes an excerpt of the post for the description. It's really up to you. I personally set them for each post, but ultimately it's up to you :)
See more comments
Hi Abby, this confused me too, but thanks to the discussion below your post I think I now have the answer which is not to populate the SEO title, description and key words fields on wordpress posts.