Today Google announced that they are rolling out longer meta description snippets for some keyword searches. The new feature will appear in search results for queries that are 3 words or longer and have a very specific intent. So for example, if you are searching for something like “Google Rolls Out Extended Snippets” you’ll see some results that have longer meta description snippets (3 or 4 lines instead of only 2) like this:
I think this is a pretty good move as far as improving search results since it will decrease the chance that a user will click on something that they weren’t looking for. It helps users find what they are looking for easier.
We don’t recommend updating all of your meta description tags to make them longer since these snippets will only show for longer queries which usually bring up deep pages within your site. So if you are an e-commerce site for example, you’re better off leaving all of your product page meta descriptions blank and letting Google use the content on your product page to display to users. They will more than likely display a snippet that is more relevant to the user based on what query they typed.
