SiteLint documentation and guidelines

Meta Description of the page is too long or too short

Description

Rule ID: meta-description-too-long-or-too-short

This rule determines if the <meta name="description" content="Example description"> have a recommended description length between 25 and 160 characters.

Purpose

Search engine crawlers only show the first 150-160 characters of the description on the search results page, so if a description is too long, searchers may not see all of the text. If a description is too short, the search engines may add text found elsewhere on the page. Note that search engines may show a different description from the one you have authored if they feel it may be more relevant to a user’s search.

How to fix it

  • Make sure the <meta name="description" content="Example description"> description is between 25 and 160 characters.
  • Bing recommends keeping meta descriptions to a maximum of 160 characters. According to our study, meta descriptions of 160 or more characters are frequently cut off in Bing, and therefore we recommend keeping them to a maximum of 160 characters when optimizing for Bing, particularly.

    Bing cuts the meta description (as of 07.2023) on a mobile viewport to a maximum of 98 characters.

    Bing example SERP on mobile

Standard

SiteLint, SEO, Best Practice