meta description
Also called: meta description tag, description tag
A meta description is a short HTML tag in a page's head that summarizes the page's content. Google may show it as the snippet beneath the title in search results, so it shapes click-through, but it is not a direct ranking factor.
Where it lives and when Google uses it
The tag sits in the page head:
<meta name="description" content="A short, accurate summary of the page.">Google builds most result snippets automatically from page content and only falls back to your description when it judges that text a better preview of the page. In practice it overrides you often. Portent’s analysis of 30,000 keywords found Google rewrote the description on 71% of mobile results and 68% of desktop ones. So treat the tag as your best offer for the snippet, not a guarantee.
There is no hard character limit. Google truncates by available width, which lands near 150 to 160 characters on desktop and closer to 110 to 120 on mobile. Front-load the useful part so it survives truncation.
Google’s own guidance is plain: write a unique description for each page, describe that specific page accurately, and skip boilerplate or keyword stuffing. A generic line repeated site-wide gives Google no reason to use it. Because the description is what a searcher reads before deciding to click, its real job is click-through, not ranking. Two pages can rank in the same spot, and the one with a sharper snippet wins the visit.
How it affects your traffic
Meta descriptions do not move your position in Google, but they move how many people click the position you already hold. A page ranking third with a flat, auto-generated snippet leaks clicks to sharper results above and below it. Rewriting weak or duplicate descriptions across a site, then watching query-level click-through in Search Console, is standard On-Page SEO work: same rankings, more traffic. If Google keeps overriding your text, that is a signal the page's on-page relevance needs attention, not just the tag.
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