ObservationsTitles and meta descriptions
Google showed a tax number as the description of a category page
In short
With no useful description written, Google picked text from the footer.
What I did
I searched Google for a store's category pages. The text under each result showed the postal code, the company registration number and the tax number. These come from the site footer. The category pages had no useful description, so Google used whatever text it could find.
Where
An online store, reviewed in September 2026
What changed
Nothing yet. Recommended fix: write a description for each category and add a short intro so Google has better text to choose from.
What you should do
Search Google for site:yourdomain.com plus a category name. Read the text under each result. If it shows footer details, write a meta description and add a short intro to that page.
How long it took
About an hour for the main categories
A meta description is the short summary you write for a page. Google may show it under your title in the results.
Why it matters
A shopper looking for a product sees a tax number instead of a reason to click. That result will almost never get a click.
Google can rewrite descriptions even when you write one. It often uses text from the page itself. That is why the page needs a short, useful intro as well as a meta description.
How to check your own site
- Search site:yourdomain.com and scroll through the results.
- Note any result where the text underneath is not about the page.
At a glance
3business numbers shown instead of a description
What this changed in how I work
I read the actual search results for a site, not just its code. The results show what customers really see.
End of Lab entry No. 033
- After a one-day overhaul led by new titles and descriptions, a restaurant site’s clicks tripled at the same average positionIt worked27 Oct 2026
- I retitled a page that was seen 39,586 times a year, and four weeks later it still gets almost no clicksMixed result22 Oct 2026
- A hub page that named the same towns as its own sub-pages was competing with themToo early to tell16 Oct 2026
- The homepage title named a neighbouring town, not the town where the restaurant isToo early to tell13 Oct 2026