How important is the summary text to google rankings?

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   William R. Wilsonposted 14 years ago

   Hi folks, I know that you can add text as a summary to your hubs.  My question is, how does this affect google rankings?  One of my best performing hubs has summary text that is different from the opening lines of the hub.  Another of my best performers has the automatically generated summary which is the same as the opening lines.  This one actually does better than the one that has the custom summary.
   
   Are their any tips for improving hub performance through the summary text?  Or should I just let HP generate the summary automatically and not worry about it?

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      thisisoliposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      You want the summary text to incorporate two main things.
      
      1) it needs to sell your webpage, it is what people see in google, make it attractive.
      
      2) Keyword rich, while it is not a huge factor in determining Google SERPs, Google does use the Meta Description (summary) so you should include your keywords.

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      1. 60

         William R. Wilsonposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         So if I just write a good, keyword rich intro I should be ok to let it be automatically generated?  Or should I try to double up on keywords by putting different, keyword rich text in both the opening lines and the summary?

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         1. 73

            Hauntyposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            Sounds like you're talking, but who knows. Is it a good idea to provide a meta description with keywords different from those found in the body of your article...?

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   lrohnerposted 14 years ago

   The summary text serves two purposes: one has to do with SEO (ie keywords), and the other purpose is to give people a sense of what is in the article.
   
   When you do a Google search for something, you generally see a page title, a short blurb about the page and the page's URL. The summary text is that blurb. Ideally, it should very succinctly tell people what the hub is about in a way designed to draw them in.
   
   I don't necessarily know how important it is in the grand SEO scheme of things, but it's really important from a marketing perspective. Even if you rank #1, there's a world of difference between 30% of the searchers clicking on your hub and, let's say, 50% or 60% of them.

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3. 85

   Pcunixposted 14 years ago

   What Irohner said with the reminder that Google has a page on this very subject: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot. … ption.html

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