- Class
- C2 Recommended
- Weight
- 4
- Severity on fail
- major
- Applies to
Test this rule on a live site with the meta description checker. Free, no account needed.
Scope and evidence
Evaluated on page (P). The book marks this requirement DOCUMENTED RECOMMENDATION.
An opportunity, never a failure: Google builds snippets mainly from page content. Never check description length: "There's no limit on how long a meta description can be" (§6).
Fail and opportunity conditions
Each condition has a stable code and a reason template. The evaluator fills the placeholders from observed values only; no sentence in a report is generated. An opportunity condition fires when the documented practice is absent and nothing is broken by its absence; it counts in the score like a fail and is reported as something to add.
absentopportunity{url} has no meta description. Google asks that, at the very least, the critical URLs like the home page and popular pages have a description, and that page-level descriptions be used everywhere else. Snippets are primarily created from the page content itself, so nothing breaks without one.
The documented fix
Write a short description specific to this page that states its most relevant facts; start with the home page and the most visited pages, and never reuse one description across pages.
Sources, quoted
These are the passages the rule rests on, stored once in the knowledge base and emitted exactly as written. A citation marked for specific conditions appears only on findings with those codes.
“If you don't have time to create a description for every single page, try to prioritize your content; at the very least, create a description for the critical URLs like your home page and popular pages.”
[G-SNIPPET] Control your snippets in search results · Create unique descriptions for each page on your site · last updated 2026-04-20
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/snippet“create descriptions that accurately describe the specific page. Use site-level descriptions on the main home page or other aggregation pages, and use page-level descriptions everywhere else.”
[G-SNIPPET] Control your snippets in search results · Create unique descriptions for each page on your site · last updated 2026-04-20
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/snippet“Snippets are primarily created from the page content itself.”
[G-SNIPPET] Control your snippets in search results · How snippets are created · last updated 2026-04-20
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/snippet“A good meta description is short, unique to one particular page, and includes the most relevant points of the page.”
[G-STARTER] Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide · Control your snippets · last updated 2025-12-10
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-starter-guide