Hi, for context I am a front end developer new to Webflow, SEO, and Google Search Console, and want to make sure I have set up SEO properly. So far I have…
updated home page’s SEO title, meta description, and OG image URL in the page settings (my site only has 1 page)
republished the site
added property ownership in Google Search Console
put site verif ID into site settings > SEO (copied from TXT DNS record GCS used to verify ownership)
requested reindexing via GSC
reindexing succeeded for default domain but failed for CNAME and http sites, not worried bc I tested and redirects work properly
Now when I search my domain without TLD (no .com ending) in Google, text from my site appears and not the meta description I put in page settings. metatags.io has the desired SEO meta description, so I think things are setup properly and my meta description just needs to be optimized better.
Just looking for some more experienced’s evaluation to confirm that I am setup for SEO correctly and just need a proper optimized meta description.
Hey there, kudos on diving into Webflow, SEO, and Google Search Console! Your setup seems solid: updated page settings, site republished, and Google Search Console ownership sorted. The text showing instead of your meta description might just need some fine-tuning. Seems like you’re on the right track—optimize that meta description, and you should be good to go!
In general, make sure to share your website link or no one can give you any real suggestions on SEO and SERPS.
Most likely whatever is being indexed by Google was there long before you added GSC, either its from a prior site version, a completely different site, or a parking page. It can take weeks or months for Google to actually do the re-indexing, particularly for a new site.
I want to believe that the website has not yet been indexed but when I visit cache:paayj.com (my website), I see the following:
“This is Google’s cache of https://www.paayj.com/. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on Dec 19, 2023 00:13:39 GMT. The current page could have changed in the meantime. Learn more.”
I think that means paayj.com was indexed on the 19th, is that correct? Yet when I type “Paayj” into google, the meta description for the url is an h2 element from my website and not what I explicitly declared in SEO settings > Meta description (which shows up properly on metatags.io)
So back to my original question, is this unoptimized SEO or misconfiguration?
Nice work, you’ve taken the correct research steps.
Current SERP listing is not showing what you expect;
Checking your homepage setting in the designer, your meta description is correct.
Checking Google’s cache indicates it was indexed recently, and if you look at the cached page itself it shows your preferred description text.
Conclusion is, Google sees it, and has indexed it, but is choosing not to use it.
Remember Google’s trying to build useful organic results with informative descriptions. If your description is too marketing-y, Google will likely elect not to use it. Also, that’s what they built Google Ads for.
I added both sitemap and robots.txt URLs manually in Search Console, then used the URL Inspection tool to request indexing on key pages—it sped things up quite a bit.
