search results question..

#1

hi,

in google search results (and in other engines too, I think), the first
line corresponds to what's in <title> in web page right? the second
line is supposed to be what you have in <meta name="description"..>
tag.. however, sometimes in results for a page on my site instead of
content in <meta name="description"..> tag it show shows content of the
page, from inside <body> tag.. why does it do this, when in fact I have
<meta name="description"..> tag in all my pages..

thank you...

#2

"maya" <maya778899 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote

Quote:

hi,

in google search results (and in other engines too, I think), the first
line corresponds to what's in <title> in web page right? the second line
is supposed to be what you have in <meta name="description"..> tag..
however, sometimes in results for a page on my site instead of content in
meta name="description"..> tag it show shows content of the page, from
inside <body> tag.. why does it do this, when in fact I have <meta
name="description"..> tag in all my pages..

Search engines are free to show you what they want. In the early days it
would have been the url, page title and meta-description and I'm sure many
search engines still use this combination. Of course this becomes a problem
when you consider that not all pages provide a title or meta-description.

I believe that Google will often use text from the page, either when it
thinks (according to who knows what criteria) that the page from the text is
more relevant or when the description is missing or does not appear relevant
to the page.

Personally, I'd still provide my own description for each page (whether
google or others use it or not).

HTH.
--
Brian Cryer
www.cryer.co.uk/brian

#3

Brian Cryer wrote:

Quote:

"maya" <maya778899 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote in message
news:vvidnT912sVzjKbXnZ2dnUVZ_j2dnZ2d (AT) giganews (DOT) com...

hi,

in google search results (and in other engines too, I think), the
first line corresponds to what's in <title> in web page right? the
second line is supposed to be what you have in <meta
name="description"..> tag.. however, sometimes in results for a page
on my site instead of content in <meta name="description"..> tag it
show shows content of the page, from inside <body> tag.. why does it
do this, when in fact I have <meta name="description"..> tag in all my
pages..

Search engines are free to show you what they want. In the early days it
would have been the url, page title and meta-description and I'm sure
many search engines still use this combination. Of course this becomes a
problem when you consider that not all pages provide a title or
meta-description.

I believe that Google will often use text from the page, either when it
thinks (according to who knows what criteria) that the page from the
text is more relevant or when the description is missing or does not
appear relevant to the page.

Personally, I'd still provide my own description for each page (whether
google or others use it or not).

HTH.

hi,

thank you for your response.. this SUCKS, it's not a good system at all
if they use info from body of page if the page has a meta-description
(after all, this is the main PURPOSE of meta-description tags, no??)

it also bugs the hell out of me that there is no way to communicate
directly with google about this, or anything else.. these folks make so
much money doing what they do, the least they could is answer questions
directly from folks who are affected by what they do...

thanks again..

#4

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed maya <maya778899 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com>
writing in news:HMidnWT-EeQMYabXnZ2dnUVZ_rGdnZ2d (AT) giganews (DOT) com:

Quote:

Brian Cryer wrote:
"maya" <maya778899 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote in message
news:vvidnT912sVzjKbXnZ2dnUVZ_j2dnZ2d (AT) giganews (DOT) com...

hi,

in google search results (and in other engines too, I think), the
first line corresponds to what's in <title> in web page right? the
second line is supposed to be what you have in <meta
name="description"..> tag.. however, sometimes in results for a page
on my site instead of content in <meta name="description"..> tag it
show shows content of the page, from inside <body> tag.. why does
it do this, when in fact I have <meta name="description"..> tag in
all my pages..

Search engines are free to show you what they want. In the early days
it would have been the url, page title and meta-description and I'm
sure many search engines still use this combination. Of course this
becomes a problem when you consider that not all pages provide a
title or meta-description.

I believe that Google will often use text from the page, either when
it thinks (according to who knows what criteria) that the page from
the text is more relevant or when the description is missing or does
not appear relevant to the page.

Personally, I'd still provide my own description for each page
(whether google or others use it or not).

HTH.

hi,

thank you for your response.. this SUCKS, it's not a good system at
all if they use info from body of page if the page has a
meta-description (after all, this is the main PURPOSE of
meta-description tags, no??)

it also bugs the hell out of me that there is no way to communicate
directly with google about this, or anything else.. these folks make
so much money doing what they do, the least they could is answer
questions directly from folks who are affected by what they do...

thanks again..

If the meta description is "Maine Coon Cat in Glendale" and the page
content is "My Maine Coon, Rolo, is a beautiful female Maine Coon, with a
tabby coat, and large feet. She is a loving cat, and comes to a whistle.
I taught my cat to come to a whistle by whistling and then offering food
when she came in."

Now, say someone wants to know how to train their cat to come to a
whistle. The word whistle is not in the description, but it is in the
page content. The word whistle would appear in the SERPs, and send that
user to my site. If it were just on description alone, they might not
come.

(By the way, anyone reading this message from a site that uses Usenet
content, that IS the way I taught my cat to come to a whistle.)

--
Adrienne Boswell at Home
Arbpen Web Site Design Services
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share

#5

Adrienne Boswell wrote:

Quote:

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed maya <maya778899 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com
writing in news:HMidnWT-EeQMYabXnZ2dnUVZ_rGdnZ2d (AT) giganews (DOT) com:

Brian Cryer wrote:
"maya" <maya778899 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote in message
news:vvidnT912sVzjKbXnZ2dnUVZ_j2dnZ2d (AT) giganews (DOT) com...
hi,

in google search results (and in other engines too, I think), the
first line corresponds to what's in <title> in web page right? the
second line is supposed to be what you have in <meta
name="description"..> tag.. however, sometimes in results for a page
on my site instead of content in <meta name="description"..> tag it
show shows content of the page, from inside <body> tag.. why does
it do this, when in fact I have <meta name="description"..> tag in
all my pages..
Search engines are free to show you what they want. In the early days
it would have been the url, page title and meta-description and I'm
sure many search engines still use this combination. Of course this
becomes a problem when you consider that not all pages provide a
title or meta-description.

I believe that Google will often use text from the page, either when
it thinks (according to who knows what criteria) that the page from
the text is more relevant or when the description is missing or does
not appear relevant to the page.

Personally, I'd still provide my own description for each page
(whether google or others use it or not).

HTH.
hi,

thank you for your response.. this SUCKS, it's not a good system at
all if they use info from body of page if the page has a
meta-description (after all, this is the main PURPOSE of
meta-description tags, no??)

it also bugs the hell out of me that there is no way to communicate
directly with google about this, or anything else.. these folks make
so much money doing what they do, the least they could is answer
questions directly from folks who are affected by what they do...

thanks again..

If the meta description is "Maine Coon Cat in Glendale" and the page
content is "My Maine Coon, Rolo, is a beautiful female Maine Coon, with a
tabby coat, and large feet. She is a loving cat, and comes to a whistle.
I taught my cat to come to a whistle by whistling and then offering food
when she came in."

Now, say someone wants to know how to train their cat to come to a
whistle. The word whistle is not in the description, but it is in the
page content. The word whistle would appear in the SERPs, and send that
user to my site. If it were just on description alone, they might not
come.

(By the way, anyone reading this message from a site that uses Usenet
content, that IS the way I taught my cat to come to a whistle.)

well, this is the deal.. I have a photo site, in meta-description it
says something like "Photos of India, New York, Australia, Thailand"..
but on the pages themselves, inside <body>, I have lots of numbers,
corresponding to the photos, with the no. for the current photo
highlighted (i.e., a different font-color..) so in the search-results,
for the pages in my photo site, instead of the content in the
meta-description tag I see something like:

1 2 3 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 13 14 15 16 17 18 20 21 22 23 24..

instead of what I put in the meta-description tag...

does this make sense to you????

now the weird thing is, this happens only SOMETIMES, only for some of
the pages (all the pages are coded exactly the same, the code is
generated from back-end programming..)

I think this is really weird...

thank you for your response...

#6

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed maya <maya778899 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com>
writing in news:6oWdnXudPLse5qHXnZ2dnUVZ_rOdnZ2d (AT) giganews (DOT) com:

Quote:

Adrienne Boswell wrote:
Gazing into my crystal ball I observed maya <maya778899 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com
writing in news:HMidnWT-EeQMYabXnZ2dnUVZ_rGdnZ2d (AT) giganews (DOT) com:

Brian Cryer wrote:
"maya" <maya778899 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote in message
news:vvidnT912sVzjKbXnZ2dnUVZ_j2dnZ2d (AT) giganews (DOT) com...
hi,

in google search results (and in other engines too, I think), the
first line corresponds to what's in <title> in web page right?
the second line is supposed to be what you have in <meta
name="description"..> tag.. however, sometimes in results for a
page on my site instead of content in <meta name="description"..
tag it show shows content of the page, from inside <body> tag..
why does it do this, when in fact I have <meta
name="description"..> tag in all my pages..
Search engines are free to show you what they want. In the early
days it would have been the url, page title and meta-description
and I'm sure many search engines still use this combination. Of
course this becomes a problem when you consider that not all pages
provide a title or meta-description.

I believe that Google will often use text from the page, either
when it thinks (according to who knows what criteria) that the page
from the text is more relevant or when the description is missing
or does not appear relevant to the page.

Personally, I'd still provide my own description for each page
(whether google or others use it or not).

HTH.
hi,

thank you for your response.. this SUCKS, it's not a good system at
all if they use info from body of page if the page has a
meta-description (after all, this is the main PURPOSE of
meta-description tags, no??)

it also bugs the hell out of me that there is no way to communicate
directly with google about this, or anything else.. these folks make
so much money doing what they do, the least they could is answer
questions directly from folks who are affected by what they do...

thanks again..

If the meta description is "Maine Coon Cat in Glendale" and the page
content is "My Maine Coon, Rolo, is a beautiful female Maine Coon,
with a tabby coat, and large feet. She is a loving cat, and comes to
a whistle. I taught my cat to come to a whistle by whistling and then
offering food when she came in."

Now, say someone wants to know how to train their cat to come to a
whistle. The word whistle is not in the description, but it is in the
page content. The word whistle would appear in the SERPs, and send
that user to my site. If it were just on description alone, they
might not come.

(By the way, anyone reading this message from a site that uses Usenet
content, that IS the way I taught my cat to come to a whistle.)

well, this is the deal.. I have a photo site, in meta-description it
says something like "Photos of India, New York, Australia, Thailand"..
but on the pages themselves, inside <body>, I have lots of numbers,
corresponding to the photos, with the no. for the current photo
highlighted (i.e., a different font-color..) so in the search-results,
for the pages in my photo site, instead of the content in the
meta-description tag I see something like:

1 2 3 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 13 14 15 16 17 18 20 21 22 23 24..

instead of what I put in the meta-description tag...

does this make sense to you????

now the weird thing is, this happens only SOMETIMES, only for some of
the pages (all the pages are coded exactly the same, the code is
generated from back-end programming..)

I think this is really weird...

thank you for your response...

URL?

--
Adrienne Boswell at Home
Arbpen Web Site Design Services
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share

#7

Adrienne Boswell wrote:

Quote:

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed maya <maya778899 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com
writing in news:6oWdnXudPLse5qHXnZ2dnUVZ_rOdnZ2d (AT) giganews (DOT) com:

Adrienne Boswell wrote:
Gazing into my crystal ball I observed maya <maya778899 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com
writing in news:HMidnWT-EeQMYabXnZ2dnUVZ_rGdnZ2d (AT) giganews (DOT) com:

Brian Cryer wrote:
"maya" <maya778899 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote in message
news:vvidnT912sVzjKbXnZ2dnUVZ_j2dnZ2d (AT) giganews (DOT) com...
hi,

in google search results (and in other engines too, I think), the
first line corresponds to what's in <title> in web page right?
the second line is supposed to be what you have in <meta
name="description"..> tag.. however, sometimes in results for a
page on my site instead of content in <meta name="description"..
tag it show shows content of the page, from inside <body> tag..
why does it do this, when in fact I have <meta
name="description"..> tag in all my pages..
Search engines are free to show you what they want. In the early
days it would have been the url, page title and meta-description
and I'm sure many search engines still use this combination. Of
course this becomes a problem when you consider that not all pages
provide a title or meta-description.

I believe that Google will often use text from the page, either
when it thinks (according to who knows what criteria) that the page
from the text is more relevant or when the description is missing
or does not appear relevant to the page.

Personally, I'd still provide my own description for each page
(whether google or others use it or not).

HTH.
hi,

thank you for your response.. this SUCKS, it's not a good system at
all if they use info from body of page if the page has a
meta-description (after all, this is the main PURPOSE of
meta-description tags, no??)

it also bugs the hell out of me that there is no way to communicate
directly with google about this, or anything else.. these folks make
so much money doing what they do, the least they could is answer
questions directly from folks who are affected by what they do...

thanks again..

If the meta description is "Maine Coon Cat in Glendale" and the page
content is "My Maine Coon, Rolo, is a beautiful female Maine Coon,
with a tabby coat, and large feet. She is a loving cat, and comes to
a whistle. I taught my cat to come to a whistle by whistling and then
offering food when she came in."

Now, say someone wants to know how to train their cat to come to a
whistle. The word whistle is not in the description, but it is in the
page content. The word whistle would appear in the SERPs, and send
that user to my site. If it were just on description alone, they
might not come.

(By the way, anyone reading this message from a site that uses Usenet
content, that IS the way I taught my cat to come to a whistle.)

well, this is the deal.. I have a photo site, in meta-description it
says something like "Photos of India, New York, Australia, Thailand"..
but on the pages themselves, inside <body>, I have lots of numbers,
corresponding to the photos, with the no. for the current photo
highlighted (i.e., a different font-color..) so in the search-results,
for the pages in my photo site, instead of the content in the
meta-description tag I see something like:

1 2 3 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 13 14 15 16 17 18 20 21 22 23 24..

instead of what I put in the meta-description tag...

does this make sense to you????

now the weird thing is, this happens only SOMETIMES, only for some of
the pages (all the pages are coded exactly the same, the code is
generated from back-end programming..)

I think this is really weird...

thank you for your response...

URL?

ok, search for "Frances Del Rio" on google, then click on

"more results from www.francesdelrio.com"

(all urls under francesdelrio.com/photoblog/ are coded exactly the same,
yet under some of them it displays expected results, under other ones it
doesn't... )

(some urls in results are old and I have redirects in them, only ones
that matter are home page, /photoblog/ and /resume/...)

thank you very much...

#8

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed maya <maya778899 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com>
writing in news:icmdna9ovIJ8mKDXnZ2dnUVZ_jOdnZ2d (AT) giganews (DOT) com:

Quote:

Adrienne Boswell wrote:
Gazing into my crystal ball I observed maya <maya778899 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com
writing in news:6oWdnXudPLse5qHXnZ2dnUVZ_rOdnZ2d (AT) giganews (DOT) com:

Adrienne Boswell wrote:
Gazing into my crystal ball I observed maya <maya778899 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com
writing in news:HMidnWT-EeQMYabXnZ2dnUVZ_rGdnZ2d (AT) giganews (DOT) com:

Brian Cryer wrote:
"maya" <maya778899 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote in message
news:vvidnT912sVzjKbXnZ2dnUVZ_j2dnZ2d (AT) giganews (DOT) com...
hi,

in google search results (and in other engines too, I think), the
first line corresponds to what's in <title> in web page right?
the second line is supposed to be what you have in <meta
name="description"..> tag.. however, sometimes in results for a
page on my site instead of content in <meta name="description"..
tag it show shows content of the page, from inside <body> tag..
why does it do this, when in fact I have <meta
name="description"..> tag in all my pages..
Search engines are free to show you what they want. In the early
days it would have been the url, page title and meta-description
and I'm sure many search engines still use this combination. Of
course this becomes a problem when you consider that not all pages
provide a title or meta-description.

I believe that Google will often use text from the page, either
when it thinks (according to who knows what criteria) that the
page
from the text is more relevant or when the description is missing
or does not appear relevant to the page.

Personally, I'd still provide my own description for each page
(whether google or others use it or not).

HTH.
hi,

thank you for your response.. this SUCKS, it's not a good system at
all if they use info from body of page if the page has a
meta-description (after all, this is the main PURPOSE of
meta-description tags, no??)

it also bugs the hell out of me that there is no way to communicate
directly with google about this, or anything else.. these folks
make
so much money doing what they do, the least they could is answer
questions directly from folks who are affected by what they do...

thanks again..

If the meta description is "Maine Coon Cat in Glendale" and the page
content is "My Maine Coon, Rolo, is a beautiful female Maine Coon,
with a tabby coat, and large feet. She is a loving cat, and comes
to
a whistle. I taught my cat to come to a whistle by whistling and
then
offering food when she came in."

Now, say someone wants to know how to train their cat to come to a
whistle. The word whistle is not in the description, but it is in
the
page content. The word whistle would appear in the SERPs, and send
that user to my site. If it were just on description alone, they
might not come.

(By the way, anyone reading this message from a site that uses
Usenet
content, that IS the way I taught my cat to come to a whistle.)

well, this is the deal.. I have a photo site, in meta-description it
says something like "Photos of India, New York, Australia,
Thailand"..
but on the pages themselves, inside <body>, I have lots of numbers,
corresponding to the photos, with the no. for the current photo
highlighted (i.e., a different font-color..) so in the search-
results,
for the pages in my photo site, instead of the content in the
meta-description tag I see something like:

1 2 3 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 13 14 15 16 17 18 20 21 22 23 24..

instead of what I put in the meta-description tag...

does this make sense to you????

now the weird thing is, this happens only SOMETIMES, only for some of
the pages (all the pages are coded exactly the same, the code is
generated from back-end programming..)

I think this is really weird...

thank you for your response...

URL?

ok, search for "Frances Del Rio" on google, then click on

"more results from www.francesdelrio.com"

(all urls under francesdelrio.com/photoblog/ are coded exactly the
same,
yet under some of them it displays expected results, under other ones
it
doesn't... )

(some urls in results are old and I have redirects in them, only ones
that matter are home page, /photoblog/ and /resume/...)

thank you very much...

It seems that javascript is necessary to use your site, and your links
require javascript to work. That's not friendly for people or search
engines.

Look at
[http://www.francesdelrio.com/photoblog/section2/page1/photos.jsp] with
CSS disabled, and you will see why Google is doing what it is doing.

--
Adrienne Boswell at Home
Arbpen Web Site Design Services
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share

#9

Adrienne Boswell wrote:

Quote:

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed maya <maya778899 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com
writing in news:icmdna9ovIJ8mKDXnZ2dnUVZ_jOdnZ2d (AT) giganews (DOT) com:

Adrienne Boswell wrote:
Gazing into my crystal ball I observed maya <maya778899 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com
writing in news:6oWdnXudPLse5qHXnZ2dnUVZ_rOdnZ2d (AT) giganews (DOT) com:

Adrienne Boswell wrote:
Gazing into my crystal ball I observed maya <maya778899 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com
writing in news:HMidnWT-EeQMYabXnZ2dnUVZ_rGdnZ2d (AT) giganews (DOT) com:

Brian Cryer wrote:
"maya" <maya778899 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote in message
news:vvidnT912sVzjKbXnZ2dnUVZ_j2dnZ2d (AT) giganews (DOT) com...
hi,

in google search results (and in other engines too, I think), the
first line corresponds to what's in <title> in web page right?
the second line is supposed to be what you have in <meta
name="description"..> tag.. however, sometimes in results for a
page on my site instead of content in <meta name="description"..
tag it show shows content of the page, from inside <body> tag..
why does it do this, when in fact I have <meta
name="description"..> tag in all my pages..
Search engines are free to show you what they want. In the early
days it would have been the url, page title and meta-description
and I'm sure many search engines still use this combination. Of
course this becomes a problem when you consider that not all pages
provide a title or meta-description.

I believe that Google will often use text from the page, either
when it thinks (according to who knows what criteria) that the
page
from the text is more relevant or when the description is missing
or does not appear relevant to the page.

Personally, I'd still provide my own description for each page
(whether google or others use it or not).

HTH.
hi,

thank you for your response.. this SUCKS, it's not a good system at
all if they use info from body of page if the page has a
meta-description (after all, this is the main PURPOSE of
meta-description tags, no??)

it also bugs the hell out of me that there is no way to communicate
directly with google about this, or anything else.. these folks
make
so much money doing what they do, the least they could is answer
questions directly from folks who are affected by what they do...

thanks again..

If the meta description is "Maine Coon Cat in Glendale" and the page
content is "My Maine Coon, Rolo, is a beautiful female Maine Coon,
with a tabby coat, and large feet. She is a loving cat, and comes
to
a whistle. I taught my cat to come to a whistle by whistling and
then
offering food when she came in."

Now, say someone wants to know how to train their cat to come to a
whistle. The word whistle is not in the description, but it is in
the
page content. The word whistle would appear in the SERPs, and send
that user to my site. If it were just on description alone, they
might not come.

(By the way, anyone reading this message from a site that uses
Usenet
content, that IS the way I taught my cat to come to a whistle.)

well, this is the deal.. I have a photo site, in meta-description it
says something like "Photos of India, New York, Australia,
Thailand"..
but on the pages themselves, inside <body>, I have lots of numbers,
corresponding to the photos, with the no. for the current photo
highlighted (i.e., a different font-color..) so in the search-
results,
for the pages in my photo site, instead of the content in the
meta-description tag I see something like:

1 2 3 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 13 14 15 16 17 18 20 21 22 23 24..

instead of what I put in the meta-description tag...

does this make sense to you????

now the weird thing is, this happens only SOMETIMES, only for some of
the pages (all the pages are coded exactly the same, the code is
generated from back-end programming..)

I think this is really weird...

thank you for your response...

URL?
ok, search for "Frances Del Rio" on google, then click on

"more results from www.francesdelrio.com"

(all urls under francesdelrio.com/photoblog/ are coded exactly the
same,
yet under some of them it displays expected results, under other ones
it
doesn't... )

(some urls in results are old and I have redirects in them, only ones
that matter are home page, /photoblog/ and /resume/...)

thank you very much...

It seems that javascript is necessary to use your site, and your links
require javascript to work. That's not friendly for people or search
engines.

Look at
[http://www.francesdelrio.com/photoblog/section2/page1/photos.jsp] with
CSS disabled, and you will see why Google is doing what it is doing.

ok, do you mean JavaScript or CSS? they are too very different things..
so now you can't use JavaScript or CSS on your sites or else google's
search-engine programs and algorithms go haywire?? sorry, this doesn't
make any sense.. does this apply also to sites like amazon, CNN, The
New York Times, etc?? do you think of any of them have JavaScript or
CSS disabled so indexing on search-engines work for them???

so you're saying that google's search engine only reads meta-description
tags if CSS is disabled?? sorry, I don't get the logic or the rhyme or
reason for this.....

thank you for your response... I do appreciate you taking the time....

#10

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed maya <maya778899 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com>
writing in news:jpOdneQobJ9HqaDXnZ2dnUVZ_oSdnZ2d (AT) giganews (DOT) com:

Quote:

Adrienne Boswell wrote:
Gazing into my crystal ball I observed maya <maya778899 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com
writing in news:icmdna9ovIJ8mKDXnZ2dnUVZ_jOdnZ2d (AT) giganews (DOT) com:

Adrienne Boswell wrote:
Gazing into my crystal ball I observed maya <maya778899 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com
writing in news:6oWdnXudPLse5qHXnZ2dnUVZ_rOdnZ2d (AT) giganews (DOT) com:

Adrienne Boswell wrote:
Gazing into my crystal ball I observed maya
maya778899 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> writing in
news:HMidnWT-EeQMYabXnZ2dnUVZ_rGdnZ2d (AT) giganews (DOT) com:

Brian Cryer wrote:
"maya" <maya778899 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote in message
news:vvidnT912sVzjKbXnZ2dnUVZ_j2dnZ2d (AT) giganews (DOT) com...
hi,

in google search results (and in other engines too, I think),
the first line corresponds to what's in <title> in web page
right? the second line is supposed to be what you have in
meta name="description"..> tag.. however, sometimes in
results for a page on my site instead of content in <meta
name="description"..> tag it show shows content of the page,
from inside <body> tag.. why does it do this, when in fact I
have <meta name="description"..> tag in all my pages..
Search engines are free to show you what they want. In the
early days it would have been the url, page title and
meta-description and I'm sure many search engines still use
this combination. Of course this becomes a problem when you
consider that not all pages provide a title or
meta-description.

I believe that Google will often use text from the page, either
when it thinks (according to who knows what criteria) that the
page
from the text is more relevant or when the description is
missing or does not appear relevant to the page.

Personally, I'd still provide my own description for each page
(whether google or others use it or not).

HTH.
hi,

thank you for your response.. this SUCKS, it's not a good system
at all if they use info from body of page if the page has a
meta-description (after all, this is the main PURPOSE of
meta-description tags, no??)

it also bugs the hell out of me that there is no way to
communicate directly with google about this, or anything else..
these folks
make
so much money doing what they do, the least they could is answer
questions directly from folks who are affected by what they
do...

thanks again..

If the meta description is "Maine Coon Cat in Glendale" and the
page content is "My Maine Coon, Rolo, is a beautiful female Maine
Coon, with a tabby coat, and large feet. She is a loving cat,
and comes
to
a whistle. I taught my cat to come to a whistle by whistling and
then
offering food when she came in."

Now, say someone wants to know how to train their cat to come to
a whistle. The word whistle is not in the description, but it is
in
the
page content. The word whistle would appear in the SERPs, and
send that user to my site. If it were just on description alone,
they might not come.

(By the way, anyone reading this message from a site that uses
Usenet
content, that IS the way I taught my cat to come to a whistle.)

well, this is the deal.. I have a photo site, in meta-description
it says something like "Photos of India, New York, Australia,
Thailand"..
but on the pages themselves, inside <body>, I have lots of
numbers, corresponding to the photos, with the no. for the current
photo highlighted (i.e., a different font-color..) so in the
search-
results,
for the pages in my photo site, instead of the content in the
meta-description tag I see something like:

1 2 3 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 13 14 15 16 17 18 20 21 22 23 24..

instead of what I put in the meta-description tag...

does this make sense to you????

now the weird thing is, this happens only SOMETIMES, only for some
of the pages (all the pages are coded exactly the same, the code
is generated from back-end programming..)

I think this is really weird...

thank you for your response...

URL?
ok, search for "Frances Del Rio" on google, then click on

"more results from www.francesdelrio.com"

(all urls under francesdelrio.com/photoblog/ are coded exactly the
same,
yet under some of them it displays expected results, under other
ones
it
doesn't... )

(some urls in results are old and I have redirects in them, only
ones that matter are home page, /photoblog/ and /resume/...)

thank you very much...

It seems that javascript is necessary to use your site, and your
links require javascript to work. That's not friendly for people or
search engines.

Look at
[http://www.francesdelrio.com/photoblog/section2/page1/photos.jsp]
with CSS disabled, and you will see why Google is doing what it is
doing.

ok, do you mean JavaScript or CSS?

What I want to do is to disable BOTH javascript AND CSS. THAT is what
Google and brethern see.

they are too very different

Quote:

things..
so now you can't use JavaScript or CSS on your sites or else
google's
search-engine programs and algorithms go haywire??

CSS is fine - means nothing to Google. All Google wants is the content,
and doesn't care what it looks like.

Javascript is NOT fine, especially if it is used to construct links.
Google does not have javascript enabled, so it cannot follow onclick
links.

Quote:

sorry, this
doesn't make any sense.. does this apply also to sites like amazon,
CNN, The New York Times, etc??

Amazon, CNN, etc., don't use javascript links. They do things server
side, not client side. If they do something client side, it's something
to enhance the user's experience, and it not something vital, like
navigation.

Quote:

do you think of any of them have
JavaScript or CSS disabled so indexing on search-engines work for
them???

You are getting confused. It is the user who disbles CSS or javascript,
or just does not have it available.

Quote:

so you're saying that google's search engine only reads
meta-description tags if CSS is disabled?? sorry, I don't get the
logic or the rhyme or reason for this.....

CSS has nothing to do with it. If you don't have Opera browser, go and
download it, install it now, fire it up and then come back and read the
rest of thie message.

Go to the page I told you to go to before:
[http://www.francesdelrio.com/photoblog/section2/page1/photos.jsp]

Then click on View->Style->User Style. That disables CSS. See all the
numbers?

Put CSS back, your page is back. Now, for the javascript part.

Click Tools->Quick Preferences and uncheck Enable Javascript. Now,
refresh the page. What do you see? Nothing. That's not a good thing,
and not very user friendly. Visitors with javascript disabled may not
know to disable CSS in order to view your page.

Quote:

thank you for your response... I do appreciate you taking the time....

What I suggest you do is:
1. Make your links accessible
2. Put the picture navigation below the picture
3. Use something like photos.jsp?id=picid and only show one picture plus
the thumbnails. Right now, you are loading ALL the pictures, plus the
thumbnails, and that, my friend, is causing the page to be large and take
a long time to load. Have a look at
[http://mywonderyears.org/gallery.php] to see what I mean. If you look at
[http://mywonderyears.org/general.php?pic=27#pic27] that's a picture of
my son.

--
Adrienne Boswell at Home
Arbpen Web Site Design Services
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
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