Google says meta description has no ranking benefit

[pittbug]

CTR benefit, but it does nothing for rankings... from: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/09/improve-snippets-with-meta-description.html

And it's worth noting that while accurate meta descriptions can improve clickthrough, they won't affect your ranking within search results.

[mvandemar]

Originally Posted by pittbug

CTR benefit, but it does nothing for rankings... from: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/09/improve-snippets-with-meta-description.html

Btw, I proved that wrong. The weight may be so minimal that it's not worth mentioning, but G does in fact recognize words within the meta description.

-Michael

[Wit]

Ok I always take "official" Google comments with a grain of salt, but in this case I believe them

MV please show us they're fibbing.

[mvandemar]

Originally Posted by Wit

Ok I always take "official" Google comments with a grain of salt, but in this case I believe them

MV please show us they're fibbing.

Sure. First, you understand the changes they made to the algo in response to link bombing, correct? How the phrase must first appear somewhere, and be indexable, on the page in order for anchor text to have affect now, right? How you cannot simply drop a couple of links with a given anchor text and get a page to rank for that term, even with 0 competition?

-Michael

[mvandemar]

Actually, dammit, the test is so old, need new links to show what I am talking about.

Link + meta desc:
chonknata

Link + meta keyword:
chookattu

Link alone:
chocktootlebunnies

Remind me once this page is indexed in a couple of days and I'll 'splain.

-Michael

[Wit]

Sure. First, you understand the changes they made to the algo in response to link bombing, correct? How the phrase must first appear somewhere, and be indexable, on the page in order for anchor text to have affect now, right? How you cannot simply drop a couple of links with a given anchor text and get a page to rank for that term, even with 0 competition?

Oh yeah.....

[Sorvoja]

According to an Google engineer I spoke with this is not quite true. Everything on the page can have a negative effect on your ranking, even metatags you create yourself. I was thinking of testing this, but I never got around to doing it.

[Wit]

So a possible ranking penalty - more like?

[mvandemar]

Originally Posted by Sorvoja

Everything on the page can have a negative effect on your ranking

Just so you know, I was referring to a positive affect (one independent of CTR). Hadn't even thought of the other direction, but I can easily see this being the case as well.

-Michael

[SearchEngineNerds]

I am under the impression that CTR has a factor in SERPs, so having a good META description would help your CTR and in effect you would rank higher b/c your site gets more clicks than the one above it.