SeoGuard
Noticemeta.description-duplicate

Pages share the same meta description

Why it matters

A meta description is a page's pitch in search results. The same one on every page is a pitch for none of them, and search engines are then more likely to ignore it and lift a sentence from the page instead, which is rarely the sentence you would have chosen. Google's heading for this is "Create unique descriptions for each page on your site", and it is realistic about it: "If you don't have time to create a description for every single page, try to prioritize your content; at the very least, create a description for the critical URLs like your home page and popular pages." For large database-driven sites it encourages generating them from each page's own content.

Source: Control your snippets in search results. It affects how results look, not ranking, and Google allows for sites where one per page isn't practical, which is why this is a notice.

How to fix it

Write a description for each important page that says what that page offers. Where a template fills it in (product pages, blog posts), build it from the page's own content rather than a fixed sentence:

<meta name="description" content="Three-tier wedding cakes from £320, with delivery and set-up across Leeds. See sizes and flavours." />

If a page has nothing of its own to say, leaving the description out is better than repeating another page's.

Examples

These are the rule's own test pages, and what it says about each. They are run on every change to the rule book.

Notice2 pages share the meta description "Hand-made cakes in Leeds.": /, /cakes.

fail-same-everywhere
Example site 
{
    "pages": [
        {
            "url": "/",
            "description": "Hand-made cakes in Leeds."
        },
        {
            "url": "/cakes",
            "description": "Hand-made cakes in Leeds."
        }
    ]
}

PassedEvery indexable page we scanned has a meta description of its own.

pass-distinct
Example site 
{
    "pages": [
        {
            "url": "/",
            "description": "Hand-made cakes in Leeds."
        },
        {
            "url": "/cakes",
            "description": "Wedding cakes from £320."
        },
        {
            "url": "/about"
        }
    ]
}