Do All Your Posts Look Identical In Google?

Does Google list your WordPress posts with different titles but with identical descriptions?

For example, if you visit Google and search for site:www.example.com, what do the search results show?

If the descriptions all look the same, you can edit your WP Theme's header.php file and remove the line that shows

<meta name="description" content="<?php bloginfo('description'); ?>" />

When you do that, Google will no longer find the META DESC line in your code, and will grab the first X characters of the text in your page and treat that as the page's description.

If you want to better control your post's meta description and keywords, you can try the Another WordPress Meta Plugin. Personally, I find it tiresome to specify a description and set of keywords for every post.

And you might not exactly relish having a default meta description, because it might not motivate searchers to click on your link in the search engine results pages.

By not having a meta description line at all, you can control the description that Google will use by being conscious of what you write in the first sentence of your posts.

Just the same, if you're searching for the ultimate meta plugin, try http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugins/Meta

UPDATE (Feb 22, 2007): Most of the plugins listed in the WordPress Codex involve tags or the meta keywords. For meta descriptions, here's a great plugin to use: WP plugin: Head META Description.

To make it work, edit your theme's header.php file and put the following inside the HEAD section, if your theme does not already have this line:

<?php wp_head(); ?>

To make adjustments, you'll need to edit the head-meta-desc.php file of the plugin. If you leave it as is, it works just fine.

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Manuel Viloria is your multimedia internet publishing coach who helps you make $100 per day online. Whether it's through blogging, podcasting, article marketing, videoblogging, email listbuilding, or even through Web 2.0 or social network marketing, you can increase your website visitors today. For more information, please visit Make Money Online | ManuelViloria.com.

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First Posted: November 10, 2006 | Filed in: SEO, Wordpress

Tags: blog optimization, wordpress plugins, meta plugins

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