Twitter’s appearance in Google: sort it out
malcolmcoles.co.uk
Twitter’s appearance in Google: sort it out
1–10 of 18 posts
Re: Twitter’s appearance in Google: sort it out
#2Excellent commentary. Twitter staff should read this article, when they're not busy dealing with fail whales.
Re: Twitter’s appearance in Google: sort it out
#3Excellent commentary. Twitter staff should read this article, when they're not busy dealing with fail whales.
I disagree.
It's in the interest of both Google and Twitter to resolve this, but I think the issue should be resolved by Google. Twitter should not use the meta-description tag for anything other than its purpose.
Re: Twitter’s appearance in Google: sort it out
#4Excellent commentary. Twitter staff should read this article, when they're not busy dealing with fail whales.
I disagree. It's in the interest of both Google and Twitter to resolve this, but I think the issue should be resolved by Google. Twitter should not use the meta-description tag for anything other than its purpose.
Why would it be wrong to consider that the meta is the description of the resource being provided?
If the purpose of the meta attribute is to provide a description of the resource being presented, a description of the person behind the messages is much better than a description of the service.
Re: Twitter’s appearance in Google: sort it out
#5Excellent commentary. Twitter staff should read this article, when they're not busy dealing with fail whales.
I disagree. It's in the interest of both Google and Twitter to resolve this, but I think the issue should be resolved by Google. Twitter should not use the meta-description tag for anything other than its purpose.
Isn't the meta description tag's purpose to describe the page? It's not intended to describe the entire website, which is what you are insinuating.
Re: Twitter’s appearance in Google: sort it out
#6Excellent commentary. Twitter staff should read this article, when they're not busy dealing with fail whales.
I disagree. It's in the interest of both Google and Twitter to resolve this, but I think the issue should be resolved by Google. Twitter should not use the meta-description tag for anything other than its purpose.
They're not using it for its purpose. See: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_meta_name.asp
Description: Defines a description of the document
The "document" in this case is a specific tweet which can best be described with its content since it is a self-imposed summary as-is. In short, you're wrong.
Re: Twitter’s appearance in Google: sort it out
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. It's in the interest of both Google and Twitter to resolve this, but I think the issue should be resolved by Google. Twitter should not use the meta-description tag for anything other than its purpose.
They're not using it for its purpose. See: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_meta_name.asp Description: Defines a description of the document The "document" in this case is a specific tweet which can best be described with its content since it is a self-imposed summary as-is. In short, you're wrong.
This is one of the things that I feel is most misunderstood in HTML, the page's information should be specific to that page where possible.
It's tempting to have a description that describes all your pages simply for easiness (hell W3S goes ahead and does it wrong in that example) but it should define what the page is about, an abstract of a document if you will.
Re: Twitter’s appearance in Google: sort it out
#8The meta description tag should be used to describe the page. Twitter is using it on every tweet to describe its (ie Twitter's) site.
So the description ought to really be the full tweet as that would exactly describe it.
Re: Twitter’s appearance in Google: sort it out
#9Excellent commentary. Twitter staff should read this article, when they're not busy dealing with fail whales.
I disagree. It's in the interest of both Google and Twitter to resolve this, but I think the issue should be resolved by Google. Twitter should not use the meta-description tag for anything other than its purpose.
Should Google be parsing Twitter's HTML to find people's bios? The meta description tag's purpose appears to be to describe the page. Even if it is not, Twitter should provide the info in another meta tag so Google can use it properly.
Re: Twitter’s appearance in Google: sort it out
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. It's in the interest of both Google and Twitter to resolve this, but I think the issue should be resolved by Google. Twitter should not use the meta-description tag for anything other than its purpose.
They're not using it for its purpose. See: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_meta_name.asp Description: Defines a description of the document The "document" in this case is a specific tweet which can best be described with its content since it is a self-imposed summary as-is. In short, you're wrong.
w3schools is not an authority and has no affiliation with the w3c.
With that said though, I see your point. I still stand by the fact that Google should be the one to parse this information and Twitter shouldn't be preparing it specifically for Google. Similar to how some YahooSearchMonkey developers are doing it with yahoo:
http://csarven.ca/temp/ysm_serp-07.png http://identi.ca/notice/2691626
