Meta description in Yoast SEO being ignored by Google

  • Resolved daverado

    (@daverado)


    5 months, 1 week ago

    When you search for site:jackieradophotography.com and scroll down to where it says “https://www.jackieradophotography.com ? family”, the description it displays is:

    “My aim is to offer a range of artwork with the highest standards of image quality and character; from single photographic archival quality prints starting at ￡”

    I have no idea where Google got that text from but the meta-description for that page is and has been for more than a year:

    “My passion is capturing moments that can be treasured forever … a fleeting emotion, a special moment between loved ones, expressions of happiness and joy.”

    Google is also ignoring the meta descriptions, created more than a year ago using Yoast SEO, on almost every other page on the site.

    For example you search for site:jackieradophotography.com and scroll down to where it says “https://www.jackieradophotography.com ? training”, the description it displays is:

    “MENTORING AND COACHING · Tailored 1:1 mentoring sessions where we look in depth at your goals and obstacles and help you to achieve your photographic objectives”

    Which Google seems to have plucked at random from the middle of the page – but the meta-description for that page is and has been for more than a year:

    “I love to teach photography and share my experience; and I delight in helping others to achieve extraordinary results that surpass all expectations.”

    Before we had the site redesigned just over a year ago we used a different plugin to assign the SEO descriptions to the pages – and Google didn’t ignore those descriptions, it displayed them – is you searched for site:jackieradophotography.com, the descriptions it displayed for each page tallied with the SEO descriptions we’d created.

    The only page for which Google is currently displaying more or less the same description as the meta description we created using Yoastg SEO is the Home page – but even then it’s truncating it, even though the meta description is well under 160 characters, which I was advised was the maximum length Google allow. So in the case of the Home page, the description Google displays is:

    “Bringing out the best in others by taking beautiful family and profile portraits and by training & mentoring, sharing my experience and passion for”

    Whereas the meta description is:

    “Bringing out the best in others by taking beautiful family and profile portraits and by training & mentoring, sharing my experience and passion for photography.”

    Any idease?

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
  • Thread Starter daverado

    (@daverado)

    PS – I’ve just realised that there’s one – but only one – webpage for which Google is currently displaying exactly the same description as the meta description we created using Yoast SEO , which is the “Family Gallery” page. The meta description for that page is exactly 160 characters long, so makes no sense that Google is truncating the meta description of the Home page.

    Also my previous post contained several typos, but I can’t see any way to edit it. Is this possible? It’s letting me edit this post but not my original post.

    Dave

    • This reply was modified 5 months, 1 week ago by daverado.
    Plugin Support Maybellyne

    (@maybellyne)

    Hello @daverado,

    Thanks for using the Yoast SEO plugin. I can replicate all you described with correct meta description showing in the page source. So, the issue is not with the Yoast SEO plugin. Have you?added your site to Google Search Console? Then, you could?request indexing?so Google can update their index.

    Thread Starter daverado

    (@daverado)

    Hi @maybellyne

    The site was registered with Google Search Console in 2020 and I get regular emails from them. The site appears to be indexed by Google quite regularly so I’m not clear why requesting indexing now would make any difference. Any idea how I can get to the bottom of why they’re ignoring all but two of the meta descriptions (but aren’t igoring the page titles)?

    Many thanks

    Dave

    • This reply was modified 5 months, 1 week ago by daverado.
    Thread Starter daverado

    (@daverado)

    PS – I’m confused.

    When I clicked on the “Sign up now for Google Search Console” link in the article you linked to, it took me straight to my Google Search Console account page at https://search.google.com/search-console?utm_source=about-page&resource_id=https://jackieradophotography.com/

    And if I then click on Settings and then click on “Ownership verification”, it says “Verification methods used HTML file Successfully verified.”

    But if instead I go to https://search.google.com/search-console/welcome and type the domain name jackieradophotography.com and click Continue, it pops up a dialogue box asking me to “Verify domain ownership via DNS record”.

    It makes no sense that your link lets me log in to my GSC account, which says the domain has been succesfully verified, but that if I try to log in through their welcome page it implies that it hasn’t.

    Any ideas?

    Dave

    • This reply was modified 5 months, 1 week ago by daverado.
    • This reply was modified 5 months, 1 week ago by daverado.
    Thread Starter daverado

    (@daverado)

    Update: I discovered that there were 3 items in the property drop-down on the far top left of the Google Search Console screen, as follows:
    1. https://www.jackieradophotography.com/
    2. https://www.jackieradophotography.com/
    3. jackieradophotography.com
    Domain Property

    For some reason the third one, the domain itself, said it hadn’t been verified although the other two had.

    The reason I didn’t notice it before was that the property https://www.jackieradophotography.com/ was selected initially and it said that had been verified. It was only when I clicked on the dropdown that I discovered it was listing 3 properties, one of which, the domain itself, it said was unverified.

    So I clicked on the link to verify the domain and followed the instructions and veified it by pasting some text it gave me into the hosting company’s DNS page and now it says the domain property has been verified.

    I don’t understand why there are three entries in the property dropdown – one for the domain, one for http url of the home page and one for the https url of the home page. And I don’t understand why it said before that the http and https properties had been verified but not the domain.

    Anyway, after verifying the domain I then pasted the urls of most of the articles on the website into the “Inspect” search box. It said they had all been indexed in early June or late May.

    I then clicked clicked “Request Indexing” for as many articles as it allowed me to before I exceeded my daily limit, and most of the pages have been reindexed today, after I verified the domain.

    But that’s made no difference.

    For instance, https://www.jackieradophotography.com/training/ has been reindexed by Google today, after I verified the domain. But if you search for site:jackieradophotography.com and scroll down to where it says “https://www.jackieradophotography.com ? training”, the description it displays is still:

    “MENTORING AND COACHING · Tailored 1:1 mentoring sessions where we look in depth at your goals and obstacles and help you to achieve your photographic objectives”

    But the meta-description for that page is and has been for more than a year:

    “I love to teach photography and share my experience; and I delight in helping others to achieve extraordinary results that surpass all expectations.”

    So how can I get to the bottom of why Google is indexing the site but ignoring the meta descriptions?

    Dave

    • This reply was modified 5 months ago by daverado.
    • This reply was modified 5 months ago by daverado.
    • This reply was modified 5 months ago by daverado.
    • This reply was modified 5 months ago by daverado.
    Plugin Support Maybellyne

    (@maybellyne)

    It makes no sense that your link lets me log in to my GSC account, which says the domain has been succesfully verified, but that if I try to log in through their welcome page it implies that it hasn’t.

    My response asked if you have added your site with a link to a tutorial on how to do so if you haven’t, not a link that let’s you log in. Clearly, you have added the site so there was no point in attempting to do that again.

    I discovered that there were 3 items in the property drop-down on the far top left of the Google Search Console screen

    Your site loads from the HTTPS/WWW version, so that’s the property to focus on. If possible, you should remove the other properties to avoid confusion.

    I then clicked clicked “Request Indexing” for as many articles… But that’s made no difference.

    Requesting indexing doesn’t mean your changes will be reflected instantly. Since you mentioned adding your site to Google Search Console since 2020, I recommend that you start by re-submitting your XML sitemap index. Take note to submit the correct sitemap to the correct property.

    Thread Starter daverado

    (@daverado)

    | Your site loads from the HTTPS/WWW version, so that’s the property to focus on. If possible, you should remove the other properties to avoid confusion.

    That doesn’t make sense to me because:

    1. When I went to https://search.google.com/search-console/welcome it asked me for the domain name and wouldn’t let me go any further until I had verified the domain, and
    2. When I look in the GSC Overview page, if https://www.jackieradophotography.com/ is selected in the Property drop-down at the top-left of the screen, it says “0 indexed pages”; but if the domain jackieradophotography.com is selected in the property dropdown, it says “30 indexed pages”.
    3. If I try to inspect any url on the website when https://www.jackieradophotography.com/ is selected in the Property drop-down at the top-left of the screen, it says “URL not in property”. But if I try to inspect the same urls when the domain jackieradophotography.com is selected in the property dropdown, it says “URL is on Google” and “Page is indexed”.
    4. So it would surely make more sense to remove the https://www.jackieradophotography.com/ Property as GSC doesn’t seem to be using it – but I can’t see any way to do so.

    | Requesting indexing doesn’t mean your changes will be reflected instantly.

    I wasn’t expecting the changes to be reflected as soon as I requested reindexing.

    I was expecting the changes to be reflected as soon the reindexing had been completed.

    Reindexing was completed on 26 Jun 2024 at 12:38:22.

    In any case, it’s now well over 48 hours since reindexing was completed and if you search for site:jackieradophotography.com, the meta descriptions that are displayed are still mostly unrelated to the meta-descriptions that were set in Yoast but are instead random text that Google has taken from the webpages.

    | I recommend that you start by re-submitting your XML sitemap index.

    GSC is already using the correct sitemap index. If I inspect any page on the site in GSC it says:

    Sitemaps: https://www.jackieradophotography.com/sitemap_index.xml

    Which is the correct url for the sitemap.

    So not clear why I should re-submit the XML sitemap index when it’s already using the right one.

    • This reply was modified 5 months ago by daverado.
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