Writing meta descriptions Google will never use

Writing meta descriptions Google will never use

"Stuff your target keyword into the meta description so it ranks."

Wrong on two counts.

Meta descriptions are not a ranking factor and haven't been since 2009. But the real mistake is subtler: people write a description that matches one query, then Google ignores it for every other query and auto-generates a snippet from the body — usually badly.

Here's what actually happens: for ~60-70% of queries Google rewrites your description anyway. Your hand-crafted line only survives when it tightly matches the exact query. Optimize for that single head term and you've abandoned the dozen long-tail queries the page also ranks for.

Fix: write a description that reads as a clean standalone summary, not a keyword wrapper. Then make sure your body copy has a strong quotable sentence near each subtopic — that's the snippet Google actually pulls.