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What happens if I don’t write a meta description? Why is it important?

If there’s no meta description set for a page, search engines such as Google or Bing will typically generate one from the page content. This can sometimes happen anyway, so be aware that your meta description is not always what displays beneath the search result if Google, Bing, or whoever has decided that some content on the page would be a better fit. This is not something that you can control (so you can’t force Google or Bing to display your meta description as opposed to their own)

However, the better your meta description and the more suited it is to the types of queries that might lead a searcher to that page, the more likely it is that your own text will display. And if you don’t have a meta description set, sometimes totally inappropriate text can get pulled in – like a cookie consent pop-up (I’ve seen it happen). Which means it’s far better to have one than to not.

So, that’s the theory on how to write a good meta description – but what does it look like in practice? Here are 33 examples of well-written meta descriptions from a variety of brands and companies, with some analysis as to why they’re effective.