Sitemaps causing mini-profile to show on SERPS?

ebnx · Joined: 01 Nov 2007 Posts: 21

Hello:

I had GYM sitemaps installed a few days ago, and I submitted the new sitemap to Google. I'm encountering a really strange issue with my SERPS now.

When typing a keyword that my website had previously ranked well for, my page appears in the SERP, but the description of the page is the mini-profile of the user who submitted the post! Before, Google showed a preview of the actual post itself in the SERPs.

I feel like this may be hurting my click thru and possibly my rankings. Is there any way to modify Sitemaps to have the post text read before the mini profile?

Thanks for your help.

ebnx · Joined: 01 Nov 2007 Posts: 21

To illustrate the problem I'm facing--in Google search, check out the SERPs for my website:

site:www.beatthegmat.com

vs. a competitor

site:www.gmatclub.com

dcz

There is absolutely no relation between Google sitemaps and search result description snippets.

It's more related to the fact you've recently installed the dynamic meta tag mod. What should soon occur is you'll see the meta description in these snippets for general queries such as the site: or link: one, but Google will still show the most relevant part of the page for real search queries.

Without dynamic meta tags, the snippet is pretty much randomly selected by Google for general queries. As you can see on site:www.gmatclub.com, many description snippets are not really relevant.

And don't worry, you won't loose SERP with the dynamic meta tag mods, actually meta tags are almost only useful to fill the description snippet in the search results.

++

ebnx · Joined: 01 Nov 2007 Posts: 21

Thanks for this feedback, dcz! I guess I'll keep monitoring--appreciate the help!