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Meta description length

meta_description.over_155_chars
Priority
Low
Severity
Info

What we look for

These meta descriptions (the summary search engines may show under the title) run past 155 characters. Only pages search engines may list are counted, and text in wide scripts such as Chinese is skipped.

Why it matters

Search results usually cut a summary off around that length, so the end of it may not be seen.

How to fix

Shorten each description to under 155 characters in the CMS or page template, with the most useful words first.

Where you’ll see it

The id is stable, and every surface uses it, so it’s the thing to search for or hand to an agent.

Terminal
When it is one of the five findings under Fix first, raptor crawl prints the id under it.
Check: meta_description.over_155_chars
crawl.json and the CSV
The crawl JSON names the finding by this id, and so do the CSV and raptor_query.
"check_id": "meta_description.over_155_chars"
The HTML report
This link opens the finding in the report, and each finding shows its id.
crawl.html#finding=meta_description.over_155_chars
MCP
raptor_findings with this check_id returns the finding in full, with a fix brief ready to paste into a task. If it didn’t fire, it says why.
raptor_findings {
  "job_id": "...",
  "check_id": "meta_description.over_155_chars"
}