Google states in their official blog that the meta description does not effect ranking. Therefore I think it should be taken out or made optional (probably better as optional) in the Website Auditor's calculations for your optimization rate and such.

I know you can do that you're self by making your own report template and leaving it out of the template but I think this should be the the standard for the original template.

Here is the reference and expert from the Google blog:


http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/12/answering-more-popular-picks-meta-tags.html

Hi SEOSean,
It appears that you are correct about description having no effect on ranking, but I still heavily consider this tag as very important. Consider your audience, what they read and relate to, they will choose over 9 other competitors ranked on the same search. Your well written description seals the deal for your site. I think of it like icing on the cake. Do you see it differently?
Scottyg

Hi Scottyg,

Yes, your right I see it like that too, it is important to have a description tag that will grab searchers and pick your site from the SERPs. I didn't mean to under asses it's value. I just meant that it really is not needed to be part of the overall calculation of the WA optimization rate as a default. It still would be good to have that option available but I could see it being a bit misleading to a neo-SEO, unlike someone like me as I have a greater understand of SEO and what's current and what's not.

But thanks Scottyg, your point is valid too.

I really like to see comments from SEO's who disregard a third of all searchers. Those of us who pay attention to such things as 'total available market' appreciate their inattention, and, we find it relatively easy to get top rankings on MSN and Yahoo as a result.

Thanks SEOSEAN!

You're right pontarae, other search engines (such as Yahoo) do pay attention to things like meta tag descriptions. I guess I should have clarified that I wanted to see the meta description not as a default in the template that is generated when WA is analyzing your site in Google (which is the default search engine in the WA software).

Hi seosean,

thanks for pointing this out. We're working to improve the software and we'll see to it in one of the future versions. In the meanwhile, please use the option to edit report templates and exclude the Meta Description section.
Thank you once again!

Thank you Link-Assistant, for making a reasoned response to the OP's quirky request to eliminate Meta Description fields from your reports.

His opinion in re meta descriptions certainly isn't mainstream for SEOs in my area. Moreover his conclusion about meta description being irrelevant to ranking is contradicted daily in my practice.

I was wondering if removing sections for reporting was available, this seems like a good option. It would be nice to turn off certain ranking factors, without publishing the report.

Hey guys, thought i would bring this topic alive again after modifying a template with meta description and meta keyword ranking factors removed. Also note iv'e commented out recommendations, I add my own in my proposals so I had no need for them and to be fair, the recommendations based on what your competitor is doing is pretty poor.

Here you go:

http://www.byflick.com/no-meta-template.txt