11–18 of 18 posts
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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.
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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.
And I still stand by the fact that this is a problem for google to make their search more relevant rather than a problem with twitter's data structure.
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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.
I think so, yes.
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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
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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
Why should google go out of their way to fix shortcommings of anothers website, twitter will be brought extra traffic by those not using twittersearch and google has nothing to gain by replacing twittersearch.
Twitter's goal is not "to make organizing our data easier for Google."
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Why should google go out of their way to fix shortcommings of anothers website, twitter will be brought extra traffic by those not using twittersearch and google has nothing to gain by replacing twittersearch.
Because Google's goal is "to organize the worlds information." Twitter's goal is not "to make organizing our data easier for Google."
This isn't Google's problem; it is Twitter's. Whether or not Twitter cares is a different story entirely.
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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
The META element can be used to identify properties of a document (e.g., author, expiration date, a list of key words, etc.) and assign values to those properties.
No matter where you choose your source, meta elements apply to the document. The document is not the web site. It is an individual page such as a tweet, a user's profile, or the homepage.
Is that authoritative enough?
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Because Google's goal is "to organize the worlds information." Twitter's goal is not "to make organizing our data easier for Google."
Twitter's goal should be "to properly use html tags/properties in a way that does not ruin search results". If Twitter provided no meta description, Google would be forced to create their own description, which you could then blame them for getting wrong. Instead, Twitter uses the tag inappropriately, which Google trusts. This isn't Google's problem; it is Twitter's. Whether or not Twitter cares is a different story…