SEO - Meta Description Tags Not Updating Search Result

Question

I updated my meta description tag for my comics website about two months back now, but the search engine is still picking up my footer "Acceptable User Policy" text for some reason.

I'm not even sure why it would pick up this footer text to begin with:

I need this to be updated because I don't want my search result to be about my disclaimer... I want it to be about the content of my site- comics.

How long should it take to update? Do I have the tag incorrect?

EDIT----- Meta Description Tag length:

"Hitting Trees with Sticks is dedicated to sharing high quality original satirical comics with the world."

Words: 16
Characters (no spaces): 89
Characters (with spaces): 104

Thanks!

Answer 1

Google does not necessarily use the meta description in the SERPs. It uses whatever text it thinks is appropriate, which may or may not include (part of) the meta description.

(Google updated its cache of your homepage less than two weeks ago on 28 Dec 2012.)

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EDIT (2013-01-15): Interesting to note that I see today your updated title and description are now showing in Google SERPs. However, Google's cache of your page is still the one from 28 Dec 2012 with the old title and description. So it would seem that what's shown in the SERPs and Google's cache are not necessarily related (or in sync)!?

Answer 2

It is almost certainly down to Google not re indexing your site. A good way to check this is to view Google's cached version of your site (click the double arrow that appears next to your search result when you hover over your link, then click 'cached')

Whilst you're looking at the cached page you can see whether the update meta tags are there, if not, your site hasn't been re-indexed.

A way to speed the process up is to submit your URL to the index tool in Webmaster Tools although this has no guarantee to work!

Answer 3

How fast your site is automatically recrawled depends, among other things, on your Google karma. Which - based upon your public PR - is not too hot at the moment.

However, in GWT there is a "Submit URL to Index"-tool. If you use it Google will usually recrawl the URL submitted within 48 hours (but there are no guarantees, and Google may start to ignore you if you abuse it).

However, I think your main problem vis a vis Google is total lack of content. Your site consists almost entirely of images, which - just by themselves - Google don't consider "content" (hence Google using the AUP, which is about the only text of substance to be found). Since you haven't placed any meaningful "title" and "alt" tags on your site, Google thinks it is with no content, and worse, Google thinks your meta-tag description of your site is just black-hat SEO trickery and refuses to display it.

Take a look of the source code of the http://xkcd.com/ to see how they tag their images to make Google index their site.

Answer 4

Google will choose the description to display based on the ctr of the url. The meta you put into your site is a suggestion for Google. They can create a different title and summary in serps. That's why many people believe no meta description will give them more information into how google sees their site.