Digital marketing glossary

What is a meta description?

Written and reviewed by L.K. Monu Borkala · Updated 7 November 2026

Definition

A meta description is a short summary of a web page, written in the page's HTML, that Google may show as the text snippet under your search result. It does not directly affect rankings, but a clear and specific description can persuade more searchers to click your result instead of the ones around it.

How it works

The description sits in the head section of the page as a meta tag named 'description'. Most website builders and WordPress SEO plugins give you a simple field to fill in. Google decides which snippet to show for each search. It often uses your meta description when it matches the query well, but it may pull a different passage from the page instead. There is no fixed length limit, but long text gets cut off to fit the screen, so put the most important point in roughly the first 150 characters. Every page should have its own description that summarises that page.

Example

Say a dental clinic in Thane has the same description on every page: 'Welcome to our website'. It rewrites the root canal page's description to: 'Single-sitting root canal treatment in Thane West from ₹6,500. Digital X-rays, weekend slots and EMI options. Book on WhatsApp.' Its ranking does not change because of this, but searchers now see the price, the location and a reason to choose it, so more of the people who see the result are likely to click.

An illustration: the business and the rupee figures are made up to show how the idea works.

Common mistake

Copying one description across every page, or leaving it empty. Duplicate descriptions give Google nothing useful to show and make your results look the same. Another mistake is stuffing it with keywords. Write it like a short ad for that specific page: what it offers, who it is for, and one reason to click.