What are Summary Fields Used For?
Summary Fields help search engines display results to people and it can also impact your page search results ranking. You can use Moz.com’s metadata tool to check and preview your tags.
Generally:
Title tags should be less than 80 characters, with spaces. The first part of the title tag should be the page topic. Title tags should be unique and never duplicate across pages.
- Title tags will be autogenerated for state of Iowa websites.
- Example: Highway Crash Data 2010 - Present | Iowa DOT
What should go in the Summary Field?
Summary/Meta descriptions should be less than 175 characters, with spaces. They should be direct, describing what people will find on the page. Ideally, they’ll help people click into your page from a search engine or social media share.
- Formula: Action + topic introduction + organization name
- Example: Explore Iowa highway crash data and statistics for 2010 to present from the Department of Transportation.
Do not leave meta descriptions blank. They’re required fields (Summary field in Drupal) in the author experience/admin and necessary for user experience and accessibility.
- Appears on Google Search
- Displays in lists
Most old websites automatically copied the first few sentences into the meta description. You will want to create a new, relevant, description/teaser.
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