Meta descriptions too long
Each page can carry a short written summary of itself, which search engines show beneath its link in their results. Silktide reports summaries long enough that search engines are likely to cut them off.
A is set with an invisible tag in the page's header:
<!-- Too long: search engines will truncate this mid-sentence -->
<meta name="description" content="Welcome to Example Corporation, a leading global provider of enterprise solutions, professional services, consulting, training, support, and much more, serving customers in over forty countries since 1987.">
<!-- Concise and complete -->
<meta name="description" content="Enterprise software, consulting, and training from Example Corporation, serving 40+ countries.">
Why this matters
Search engines display only a limited amount of a description - typically around 155 to 160 characters - and truncate the rest with an ellipsis. If your call to action or key detail sits past the cutoff, searchers never see it, and a sentence chopped mid-thought reads worse than a short one.
The description is your pitch in search results, so the visible part needs to carry the whole message.
How to fix it
- Rewrite the description to fit within 160 characters, leading with the most compelling information.
- Cut boilerplate - company slogans and legal names appended to every description are the usual culprits.
- Not every page needs this attention. Prioritize landing pages and pages that rank in search; for unimportant pages you can the finding.
How Silktide tests this
- Read each
<meta name="description">tag on the page. - Count the characters of its content.
- Flag the description when it is longer than 160 characters.
Search engines actually truncate by pixel width rather than character count, so the exact display limit varies; 160 characters is a practical approximation.