Meta description checker
The meta description is usually the sentence Google shows under your link — and nothing on the page tells you when it is missing, duplicated by a template, or cut off mid-sentence. Enter your domain and we fetch the page, read the <head>, and flag what a full audit flags: no description at all, duplicate tags, overlong copy that gets truncated.
The tag, the problems, the exact fix
Six problems, the same ones the £7.99 audit flags
This checker runs the meta-description portion of our real audit engine — the rule behind the SEO basics findings in every report we sell.
1 · No meta description at all
No <meta name="description"> tag in the page head. Search engines then write their own snippet from whatever page text happens to fit — often the wrong paragraph or a nav menu. Flagged as an error, with the exact tag to add.
2 · The tag exists but is empty
A content="" description is worse than no tag: it signals intent that was never finished, and search engines fall back to auto-snippets anyway. Flagged as an error.
3 · Two or more description tags
Duplicate tags almost always mean a template bug — a tag added in the theme and again by an SEO plugin. Search engines pick unpredictably, or write their own. Flagged as a warning with every tag shown.
4 · Overlong copy (over ~160 characters)
Search results truncate around 155–160 characters on desktop and sooner on mobile, so the tail — usually the call to action — is being cut off mid-sentence. Flagged as a warning with the live character count.
5 · Very short copy (under ~70 characters)
Under ~70 characters you are leaving snippet space unused. Not wrong — but most pages can use 120–155 characters to name the offer and the audience. Flagged as an informational note.
6 · The title tag is checked alongside
The checker also reads <title>, because it sits in the same head and both appear in the search result together. A missing title is flagged as an error; the title tag guide covers the rest.
What a healthy head looks like
Two tags carry the search result: the <title> (the blue headline) and the <meta name="description"> (the sentence under it). That is the whole anatomy.
- Line 2 is the headline. Keyword-led, brand-suffixed, unique per page — that is the title tag's job.
- Lines 3–6 are the snippet sentence. 154 characters: the offer (wood-fired delivery), the proof (5-star), and the hook (open until midnight). Front-loaded so truncation cannot kill the pitch.
- One of each. Exactly one title, one description — duplicates come from template bugs, and each page should describe itself.
Your meta description is one of 260+ checks
The checker above is free and instant. The full £7.99 audit runs all of it: 260+ checks across 21 categories on up to 25 pages, an AI-written plain-English report, delivered by email in ~30 minutes. What it costs · read a real sample report.
The full audit
Everything on this page plus the other 250+ checks, in one ordered fix-list.
- Meta description presence, uniqueness and length — every audited page
- Title tags: presence, length, duplication across pages
- H1 structure and heading hierarchy, page by page
- Thin-content and placeholder-page detection
- The other SEO basics: canonical tags, image alt text, language markers
- Everything else: crawlability, security, accessibility, performance, AI-readiness
— Not ours to claim
What no external tool can do:
- See inside Search Console — crawl stats and indexing requests live behind your Google login; the report names the exact screen to open
- Edit your site for you — the fix is yours to apply (or ours: we do fixes too); the report gives the exact lines
- Promise rankings or AI citations — nobody honestly can; what the report guarantees is that nothing on your site mechanically blocks the machines that read it
Also honest: this checker looks at one slice. A passing slice with failing pages elsewhere is exactly what the full crawl is for.
Fair questions, straight answers
What does a meta description actually do?
It does not directly affect rankings — Google has said so for years — but it is usually the sentence shown under your link in the results, and the sentence is what a searcher reads before choosing you or a competitor. A missing description means Google improvises the snippet from page text; a good one means you control the pitch.
How long should a meta description be?
Aim for 70–160 characters. Google truncates around 155–160 on desktop and sooner on mobile, and anything under ~70 leaves most of the snippet empty. The sweet spot is 120–155 characters: one sentence that names the offer, the audience and the reason to click.
Can I just leave the meta description out?
You can — the engine will generate a snippet from page content, and sometimes its auto-snippet matches a query better than any static line. But leaving it to chance on your homepage and money pages is a wasted pitch: the audit counts a missing description as an error because it surrenders the most-read sentence about your business to a guess.
Why are duplicate meta descriptions a problem?
When several pages carry the same description, search engines either pick one at random or rewrite all of them — and identical snippets make distinct pages look interchangeable in the results. It is almost always a template bug (the tag set in the theme and again by an SEO plugin). One page, one description, written for that page.
The snippet is one line. The other 259 checks are waiting.
Enter your URL and pay securely — your report PDF lands in your inbox in ~30 minutes,
with meta descriptions, titles, crawlability and 250+ other checks run and explained.