The meta description is likely to be truncated or is very short
Updated
What this check looks for
The page's meta description is long enough to be cut off in search results, or very short. This is about how much of it is displayed, not about ranking.
In a report, this finding reads as follows, with each ‹…› filled in from what that scan observed:
The description is ‹length› characters. ‹detail› As with the title, this is about how much is displayed, not about ranking.
Why it matters
A description cut off mid-sentence reads as carelessness in the one place a searcher is judging whether your page is worth their click.
When the check passes, your report says: “The description length sits inside the usual display guidance”.
What it costs your score
When this check fails it removes 3 points from your SEO score, before the status, confidence and repeat multipliers are applied. SEO carries a weight of 5 in the overall score.
It shares the seo.meta family ceiling of 20 points: however many findings that family produces, together they cannot remove more than that from SEO. One underlying problem showing up in several places is still one problem.
- Severity
- low
- Default confidence
- high
- Status when triggered
- warn
- Deduction
- 3 points
- Family cap
- seo.meta · 20
- Category
- SEO
- Module
- Seo audit
- Fix owned by
- user
- In the ruleset since
- 2026.09
How to fix it
Make the first sentence of the description stand on its own.
Whatever the truncation point turns out to be, a self-contained first sentence still reads correctly.
Lead with the page's offer or answer in one complete sentence.
Use any following sentence for detail that is a bonus if shown.
Aim for roughly 50 to 160 characters, treating both ends as guidance rather than as limits.
How to confirm it worked
curl -sS ‹url› | grep -i 'name="description"' — confirm the rewritten text
A named slot like ‹domain› — and the braces left in the configuration below — is filled in with your own values when this rule appears on a report.
Technical detail
The description is:
> ‹description›
**A heuristic, labelled as one.** Snippets are truncated at around 160 characters on desktop and less on mobile, and the exact point varies with the query, the device and whether Google has decided to show a longer snippet. There is no published limit and no penalty for exceeding it.
The practical advice is the same as for titles: put the point in the first sentence. A description whose first sentence stands on its own survives any truncation.
A description under about 50 characters is usually a fragment rather than a description, and Google is more likely to replace it with generated text — which is not a failure, but it does mean the effort spent writing it achieved nothing.
Standards and references
Test this on your domain
Run the check that produces this finding, on its own, against any domain.