Missing meta description

Why it matters

Google builds snippets mainly from the page's own content, and sometimes uses the meta description when it describes the page more accurately than text taken from the page. A description is your suggestion for that text, not a guarantee that Google will show it.

What to do

1. Open the page's meta description or SEO-description field and write one or two sentences that say what this page offers.
2. Save and publish. If the field is filled but the page still has no description, ask your developer to check that the template writes it into the page's HTML.
3. If many pages lack one, start with the pages where you most want to suggest snippet wording.

When to leave it as it is: if Google already shows good snippets for the page from its own text, a description is optional; add one where you want to suggest the wording. A page that asks for its snippet to be hidden is not reported.

What we read

We read the HTML each page returned, without running JavaScript, and look for the first <meta name="description">. It counts as missing when there is no such tag or its content is empty; a second, filled tag later in the page does not replace an empty first one, and other tags such as og:description are not read.

We check pages that answered 200 with HTML, carry no noindex and either declare no canonical or name themselves as canonical. Pages that ask for no snippet, with nosnippet or max-snippet:0 in a robots or googlebot meta tag or in the X-Robots-Tag header, are skipped. Pages that are only a frame for scripts, with almost no text of their own, are skipped; pages where scripts add part of the content are still checked from the HTML we read.

Example & evidence

Illustrative example — one page, not a live audit.

Address: https://bakery.example/opening-hours/

The page answers 200, is indexable and carries no snippet directive. The head we read:

<head>
  <title>Opening hours | Example Bakery</title>
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
</head>

There is no meta description, so the page is reported as advice. Homepage or sitemap membership does not increase the severity of this check.

A possible correction:

<meta name="description" content="Our Main Street bakery opens 7:00–18:00, Monday to Saturday. Check holiday hours here.">

Once a fresh read finds this description in the HTML, the page no longer meets the condition.

Confirm & check again

Check for yourself: view the page source and search for name="description". If the first match is missing or has empty content, the page has no usable description; a description that appears only in your editor does not count until it is in the HTML.

Check again: Full audit — Recheck this address. The finding closes when a sufficient check of the same page finds a usable description in its HTML. A page that becomes noindex, asks for no snippet or names another canonical is outside this check; that change alone does not confirm a fix. A page that cannot be read sufficiently, or is only a shell for scripts, remains unconfirmed.

Limits & sources

The check tests only whether a description is present, not its quality or length, and it reads the HTML without running JavaScript. It does not know which snippet Google shows for the page.

Confidence: High when the page's HTML was read in full; on a page with signs that scripts build part of it, the finding is marked with medium confidence.

Sources

• Google, Control your snippets in search results — explains that snippets come mainly from page content and that Google sometimes uses the meta description when it describes the page more accurately. Checked 25 September 2026.

Editorial review: 1 November 2026

Related

• Your page is missing a title — the same absence test for the page title, reported as an issue.
• Snippet controls that may be unintentional — a page asks for no snippet; such pages are skipped here.
• Different pages share a description — a description exists but is the same on several pages.