Digital marketing

What does Google’s expanded snippet character count mean?

In November Google increased the character limit of the snippets that appear in search results from 160 to 230 characters. So, what does it mean to you?

The increased character limit will show more detail and has been designed to help users make better informed decisions about whether a page is relevant to their search before they click through.

Ultimately, this will both improve the flow of traffic through Google and the users’ experience of using the search engine.

Where it gets interesting is how marketers can take advantage of this increased character limit. Logically Webmasters and Search Engine Optimisers will consider increasing the length of their tailored meta descriptions to take advantage of this new increased limit.

However, Google dynamically generates snippets associated with users’ search queries from all visible content on a web page. Now that the limit has increased it might actually be better to leave it to Google’s algorithm to generate meta copy as it will be more tailored to the individual search.

It’s early days, but our advice at the moment is to check your existing web content and make sure that it is both relevant, clear and concise! If later down the line you’re not happy with the results, then take action and increase the length of your meta descriptions. Easy!

If you’d like any help with Search, or you have a question you’d like us to answer, just drop Ian Reeves a line. Email [email protected] or call 0117 317 7629.

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