Multiple meta descriptions
This means that the URL in question contains more than one meta description.
Why is this important?
The meta description is considered important to help users quickly understand what content they can expect to find on the page, when clicking through from the search engine results page. Well written meta descriptions typically achieve a better click-through-rate.
If there are multiple meta descriptions on the page, it may lead to search engines displaying the 'wrong' one, which in turn may lead to lower engagement or CTR from search results.
What does the Hint check?
This Hint will trigger for any internal URL that has multiple meta descriptions.
Examples that trigger this Hint
This Hint will trigger for any URL that has more than one meta description in the <head>:
How do you resolve this issue?
There are two issues to resolve here:
- Determine why multiple meta descriptions are being used
- Determine which of the meta descriptions is 'correct'
To solve #1, you will need to look at the page template and/or what plugins are being used, in order to isolate how more than one meta description is being set. This will need to be adjusted so that only one meta description is set - which may require help from a developer.
Furthermore, when you are removing the superfluous descriptions, you will also want to make sure that you are keeping the 'correct' one - the one that has been specifically written to encourage engagement, and thus fix issue #2.