How to use the meta description generator
- 1Enter the Main keyword and, under What the page gives the reader, the answer or benefit in plain words.
- 2Choose the Page type and optionally add a Brand or site name, Location and Call to action.
- 3Compare the Suggestions by length and press Use this on the best one.
- 4Edit it under Your description, check the desktop and mobile preview, then press Copy.
Example: article drafts
Main keyword: sourdough starter What the page gives the reader: make a starter with flour and water in 7 days, then learn when to feed it and how to store it Call to action: Read the step-by-step guide Brand: Bread Notes
1. Make a starter with flour and water in 7 days, then learn when to feed it and how to store it. Read the step-by-step guide. (123 chars, ~692 px) 2. Sourdough starter: make a starter with flour and water in 7 days, then learn when to feed it and how to store it. Read the step-by-step guide. (142 chars, ~804 px) 3. A guide to sourdough starter: … Read the step-by-step guide. (153 chars, ~863 px)
All three fit the ~920 px desktop width; the second and third will be cut on mobile, where about 680 px is shown.
What a meta description does and doesn't do
The meta description is a summary you suggest for the snippet under your title. Google may use it when it describes the page better than any passage on it. It isn't a ranking factor: a better description doesn't move you up, but a clear one can make more of the people who see the result click it. Each page should have its own; duplicated descriptions are usually ignored.
Length in pixels and characters
Snippets are cut by width. Most snippet tools use about 920 px for desktop and 680 px for mobile at Google's snippet font size, which is roughly 150–160 and 110–120 characters of ordinary text. The meter estimates width from Arial character widths at 13 px. A description that's "too long" isn't penalized; the end just isn't seen. Very short descriptions give Google little to work with, so it's more likely to pick text from the page instead; the meter marks anything under 70 characters as short.
Writing for the searcher's question
Write the description as the answer to the query you want the page to win. Put the concrete answer or benefit first ("Make a starter with flour and water in 7 days"), then a detail that sets the page apart, then what to do next. Use the keyword once, naturally: Google bolds the words that match the search, which helps the result stand out. If you use double quotes, they must be escaped as " inside the attribute (the generator does this); an unescaped quote ends the description early.
When Google ignores your description
Google picks snippet text per query. It's likely to use your description when the search closely matches the page's main topic, and a passage from the body when the search is about a detail. It also ignores descriptions that are missing, duplicated across pages, a list of keywords or unrelated to the content. Check what's shown for your main queries in Search Console's Performance report.
Examples by page type
| Page type | Example |
|---|---|
| Product | Stone-ground rye flour in 1 kg bags, milled weekly. Free delivery over £30. Order today. |
| Local business | Bread Notes bakes sourdough in Leeds every morning. Collect from 7 am or order for delivery. |
| Article | Make a sourdough starter with flour and water in 7 days. Learn when to feed it and how to store it. |
| Tool | Work out the water you need for any dough hydration. Enter the flour weight and target percentage. |
Is anything I enter stored?
This tool runs entirely in your browser. Your text is not uploaded to our servers.