Google Confirms Retrenched Search Result Snippets Length

Back in December, Google amended the length of meta description search result snippets from 160 to 320 characters, but it has recently whittled down the length.

Danny Sullivan of Google confirmed that “our search snippets are now shorter on average than in recent weeks, though slightly longer than before a change we made last December”.

Officials have reported that Google never decided minimum or maximum limit of meta descriptions. The search result snippets play a crucial role in on-page SEO. When a user browses a keyword, the number of results display on the page depends upon the meta description decided by webmasters as well as the content that could relate to the query of the user.

Google clearly told Search Engine Land that though snippets could be longer, but fundamentals of writing description tags won’t change. The limit of 320 characters didn’t mean that all webmasters had to alter their meta descriptions to expand the word limit as the increased limit was not about to affect snippets. Google may or may not show all characters depending upon what a user is looking for.

“The length of Meta Descriptions may varies based on what our systems deem to be most useful,” said Danny Sullivan. “Google will not fix the maximum length for search results snippets because it’s generated dynamically with the help of AI and Machine Learning features,” he added.

Do You Need to Shorten the Lengthy Description?

Google’s advised webmasters not to bother about that as many of the snippets that Google chooses are dynamic. Now, most of the snippets Google shows have not been pulled from your meta descriptions; instead, they are from the content on your web pages.

Wrap Up

As Danny Sullivan has reported that the length of search results snippets have been whittled down from the last change made in December, it’s clear that there’s no minimum limit for meta description. This all depends upon the query of a user and content.