Thinking about Meta Matters

There I was happily writing a blog all about the importance of Meta descriptions when confusion rained down on me.

In all our Wealthy Affiliate training the figure of 150 characters has been the target for writing a great Meta and I accept that.

Well, that was until Partha came on the scene and changed everything. But ignoring the wise words of my knowledgeable friend I went exploring for answers.
( if you don't know Partha he is a dedicated Wealthy Affiliate contributor with his own ideas.)

I have noticed more and more Meta descriptions being followed by ellipses (...) signifying more. Not just ordinary searches but people that should know. WordStream Neil Patel, Blogspot, Monster Insights, these are the top guys so they should have an idea.

Wordstream said;

Google recently expanded the standard length for meta descriptions. Formerly, meta descriptions were recommended to be 160 characters or less.

As of 2017, Google will show up to 275 characters on the SERP. Therefore, you should optimize your meta description tags to be up to 275 characters long

In 2018 Yoast followed on by saying
Snippets can now be up to 320 characters or even longer in some rare cases. We’re researching new best practices. In the meantime, Yoast SEO’s green bullets will work differently. As of today, Yoast SEO will only give you an orange bullet if your meta description length exceeds 320 characters.

However, to this day I use the Yoast SEO Pro version and he still clips me at 150 characters so that must be old news.

Google does what it wants anyway

In many cases, Google will simply ignore your well-structured Meta description and use its own version, so is it worthwhile following the rules anyway?

Making sure you have your Keyword in your Meta description and the first paragraph is also a rule I follow but am I wasting my time?

To prove all this to myself I have simply disobeyed the rules and;

1. Ignored the Meta description altogether. Just like Partha instructed me to.

2. Wrote a long meta and got a red mark by Yoast

The answer will be a while away as I wait for that first-page listing but it will be interesting.

My point of writing this is to show just how confusing this blogging thing can be when the rules are ambiguous, to say the least.

However, WA, Yoast, and AIO should know and they have a limit so I guess I shall follow the tried and true method until proven wrong.

Peter H