OneTaskBy Tim King · Updated
Meta Description Generator
Draft Meta Descriptions From Your Own Sentences, Trimmed to 120 to 160 Characters
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How the Meta Description Generator works
This meta description generator drafts a description from page text. Paste the text of a page and the tool finds the sentences that best sum it up — the ones that use the page's most frequent terms, mention your focus keyword and stand on their own — and trims each to the length you pick, cutting at a word rather than mid-syllable. You get five candidates with lengths and notes; pick one, edit it, and check it in the SERP preview.
Meta description generator: length and content
A meta description is the two-line pitch under your title in search results. It does not affect ranking, but it decides whether the searcher clicks, and Google replaces it with its own snippet whenever it thinks the description does not match the query. The best defence is a description that is specific to the page, uses the page's own language, and answers the question a searcher would have. Your own text usually already contains that sentence; this tool finds it.
How the candidates are chosen. The text is split into sentences and short fragments, headings and list stubs are dropped. Each remaining sentence is scored by how many of the page's recurring terms it contains, normalised for length so long rambling sentences do not win by volume. A sentence that includes the focus keyword gets a large bonus, the opening sentence a small one, and sentences that start with a pronoun — "It", "This", "They" — are penalised because they do not stand alone once lifted out of context. Sentences under 70 characters are joined with the one that follows them so the candidate fills the space. The top five distinct sentences are returned.
Length. The standard target of 155 characters is the desktop limit for most descriptions in average English; 160 is the ceiling, and 120 is a safe length for mobile-first pages or where a date will be prefixed to the snippet. When a sentence is longer than the target, it is cut at the last whole word before the limit and a trailing comma or dash is removed before the ellipsis is added. Candidates that were trimmed are marked, because a trimmed sentence often reads better after a manual edit than with the ellipsis.
Focus keyword. Type the query you want the page to rank for. Candidates that contain it are promoted, and the notes column flags those that do not. Google bolds query terms in the snippet, so a description that contains the query is visibly more relevant to the searcher than one that does not. If the keyword never appears in the text at all, the stats say so — that is a sign the page copy needs the term, not just the description.
What to do with a candidate. Treat it as a draft. A meta description reads best as a sentence or two written for the searcher: what the page gives them, and why it is worth the click. Sentences lifted from body copy are often in the wrong person or assume context. Copy the one that is closest, fix the tense, add a call to action if the page is transactional, and run it through the title length checker for the pixel width.
Why this is not an AI writer. The tool never invents claims: every candidate is a sentence you wrote. That means it cannot produce a description for a page whose text does not describe itself — a product page that is all specifications, or a gallery — and in those cases you should write the description by hand. It also means nothing leaves your browser.
FAQ
Why are the candidates all from the start of the text?
Because that is where most pages describe themselves: the introduction says what the page is about, and the body goes into detail. The opening sentence gets a small bonus for that reason. If the sentences you want are lower down, add the focus keyword they contain and they will be promoted above the introduction.
The description was cut mid-sentence. Is that OK to publish?
It will work, but a snippet that ends in an ellipsis you wrote looks like one Google truncated. Better to edit it into a shorter complete sentence. The trimmed candidates are flagged in the notes column so you know which ones need that edit.
How many characters should a meta description be?
Between about 120 and 160. Google cuts at a pixel width rather than a character count — roughly 990 pixels on desktop — so 155 characters of average English fits, while 155 characters of capitals and wide letters may not. Check the final text with the title length checker if it is close to the limit.
Does the description need the keyword?
It helps the click-through, not the ranking. Google bolds matching query terms in the snippet, which draws the eye, and a description that plainly contains the searcher's words looks like the right answer. Put it in naturally, once; stuffing it is visible and off-putting.
Can I paste HTML?
Paste plain text for the best result. If you paste HTML, tags are treated as text and will pollute the sentences. Copy the rendered page from the browser rather than the source, or strip the tags with the HTML-to-text converter first.
See also: all SEO tools, Dev Utilities, Formatters & Validators, Data & Encoding, Security & Identifiers, Accessibility, AI.
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