If you follow SEO and keep up with the news, you’ve probably noticed that Google has changed how it displays descriptive text on the search results pages. There is now room for more text.
Google has started showing a larger portion of text on the results pages, below is an example with 310 characters in the search result. We have not yet issued a recommendation to change the Meta Description, although it now appears to work well with longer descriptions.
Compared to the classic appearance, one can assume that such a significantly larger snippet may lead to a higher click-through rate than one that takes up less space.
So, there are benefits to extending your Meta Descriptions, but there is also a small risk. For a currently optimal page, we would probably say that everything points to having longer descriptions, but Google has rolled back changes like this before. Depending on how many pages you have, and therefore how much text, it can be a lot of work to update all descriptions. Having to change them back is not necessarily very fun.
If you feel you have the time (descriptions have little and a much-debated impact on ranking), I personally think you should update them, but save the old descriptions in case you need to roll back.
Magnus Bråth
Consultant & Adviser
Magnus is one of the world's most prominent search marketing specialists and primarily works with management and strategy at his agency Brath AB.