300 Character Summary Change?

1. 82

   Kain 360posted 6 years ago

   I recall  Hubpages only allowing 200 characters on the summaries. Now I see that you can write a longer summary for a hubpage article. Why was this implemented and when? I'm assuming it could help with search engine optimization and traffic?
   
   I wrote several articles  on HP within the past 5 months and I don't recall the 300 character limit. Quite frankly, I am glad the character limit has increased because I would often hit the 200 character limit on a summary.

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2. 99

   Gregory DeVictorposted 6 years ago

   I noticed the change several weeks ago when I was preparing to submit a hub.

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3. 93

   Kenna McHughposted 6 years ago

   That's right. It changed and we were discussing it one or two weeks ago. Someone posted that it works better with Google.

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      EricFarmer8xposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Is it recommend to write summaries with as many words as possible and almost use all 300 characters?

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      Kain 360posted 6 years agoin reply to this

      I figured people were taking about it. I was absent for a while. The change might be good.

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4. STAFF

   Paul Edmondsonposted 6 years ago

   That was a suggestion from Brandon. Meant to post about it. Maybe he will chime in with how to best use it.

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   1. 90

      lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Yup, meta descriptions were around 156 characters or so earlier, but since December 2017, Google has been allowing longer descriptions up to 330 characters. In almost all cases at least 300 characters. This is why I suggested that the team increase this limit and it was implemented within a few days of my suggestion.
      
      A meta description (the summary) serves as an ad to your hub on the search results, so use it wisely. Let the people know exactly what you are offering them in the search results. Try and write it such that the viewers are inclined to click on it once they read it. Also including your main keywords in there (naturally) helps, not with rankings, but the text gets bolded as per the searchers' key terms which makes it stand out a bit.
      
      Read this for more on the new limit: https://moz.com/blog/how-long-should-yo … on-be-2018

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5. 92

   Natalie Frankposted 6 years ago

   Google has consistently gone up over the past few years on how many characters they allowed before cutting it off.  The majority of meta descriptions now are being cut off at between 275 and 350 characters.  It's interesting to note that, Google rewrites numerous meta descriptions because the original description is too short or not descriptive enough.  So if you've got 300 characters use as many of them as possible, providing you aren't just adding empty words.

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      lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, this is perfectly written.
      
      Also, when your competitors were using 300 characters (taking up 4 lines of space on Google) and our hubs were taking up just 2 lines, it did make our results blend in a bit. This new change is very helpful and could significantly increase your CTR if used well.

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6. 95

   jansharesposted 6 years ago

   In my weird way, I will miss getting a summary done in 200 characters. It was like a game of conciseness for me to change, rearrange and edit the words to make it fit. But it will make life a little easier now. Thanks, Brandon.

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      lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Haha, yeah it was hard playing with words to get everything to fit in there.

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7. 88

   revmjmposted 6 years ago

   The increase to 300 characters just increased recently from 200. I had gotten used to condensing my summaries to 200 characters. Now I am glad to have the option to use up to 300 characters if I like.

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8. 98

   Jule Romansposted 6 years ago

   Hello Everyone:
   
   Is it best to write a unique summary, or use a paragraph directly from the article-- provided, of course, that the paragraph meets all the guidelines of a good summary?
   
   I suppose what I am asking is whether repeated text in the summary and article is desirable.
   
   I have tried searching the forums for this information. If there's another place for me to read more about this, please let me know. :-)
   
   Thank you.

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      liesl5858posted 6 years agoin reply to this

      That is good news because sometimes 200 words is not enough to tell our readers what our hub is all about.

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      lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      This is actually a good thing. Go ahead and do it if you can.

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      1. 98

         Jule Romansposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         Excellent. Thank you. I appreciate that you are so willing to share your knowledge. I don't  post much in the forums, but  I read often.

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            lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

            You're welcome

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         gerimcclymposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         I had the same question and just found the answer here. Thank you, lobobrandon.

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            lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

            You're welcome

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9. 96

   CYong74posted 6 years ago

   Google descriptions have increased in length. Thus the change, I guess. The new limit is 320 characters.

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10. 95

    Glenn Stokposted 6 years ago

    Thanks, Brandon, for bringing this to the attention of staff. And thanks to the team for making the change so quick.
    
    Only one problem – Even though HP increased the meta field to 300 characters, it's truncating at 217 characters on our profile listings. Interestingly, it's not truncating in the "spotlight" display.

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       lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

       They would probably see your other thread. Let's see what happens.

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