Jun
20
MSN & Yahoo Search Descriptions
Filed Under Search Engines
I just checked today’s traffic at MSN for a site, and they are showing the meta keywords as the description snippet. I thought maybe it’s because there are no description metas on most of the pages of that site - but nope, I checked another site that has both and sure enough, there’s the meta keywords.
I’m not so sure all the clustering MSN seems to be doing is so good for users who are used to landing on the exact page for a particular search term. It does look neater on the search page with just the root URL showing, but I’m wondering how it will affect conversion for ecom sites if visitors have to click around to find things.
Another oddity - I checked at Yahoo to see if a new site has been indexed yet, and the index page has - with the page title repeated as the beginning of the description snippet.