How to fix meta description too long on WooCommerce
Shorten your meta description to 150–160 characters so Google displays your full message in search results instead of cutting it off with "…".
Steps for WooCommerce
- Install or confirm you have an SEO plugin active — Yoast SEO, Rank Math, or All in One SEO are the most common.
- For Yoast SEO: open the product, page, or post in the WordPress block editor. Scroll to the 'Yoast SEO' panel at the bottom. Click the 'SEO' tab, then edit the 'Meta description' field. The snippet preview and character counter show when you're within the safe range (green bar).
- For Rank Math: open the post/page editor, click the Rank Math icon (top-right toolbar), go to the 'General' tab, and edit the 'Description' field. A live character counter is shown.
- For site-wide defaults (e.g. category archives): in Yoast go to Yoast SEO → Search Appearance → Taxonomies or Content Types and edit the default description template there.
- Click 'Update' or 'Publish' to save changes.
<meta name="description" content="Award-winning Bang & Olufsen headphones, speakers & TVs. Visit our Ho Chi Minh City store at Union Square, 171 Dong Khoi St. Free shipping available.">What is meta description too long?
A meta description is the short summary sentence (or two) that appears beneath your page title in Google search results. It lives in the HTML `<head>` of your page and is invisible on the page itself, but very visible to shoppers scanning results. Google typically displays around 150–160 characters of plain text; anything beyond that gets cut off with an ellipsis. Your current meta description exceeds that limit, meaning the end of your message — often the most compelling part — disappears before the shopper reads it.
A truncated meta description looks unfinished and unprofessional in search results, which reduces the click-through rate (CTR) to your store. Lower CTR means fewer visitors even if you rank well, directly hurting revenue. Google also uses the meta description as a signal when deciding what snippet to show; if yours is too long, Google may rewrite it entirely with text pulled from anywhere on the page — text you didn't choose and that may not be your best sales copy. Keeping it concise and punchy gives you control over your first impression at the exact moment a potential customer is deciding whether to visit your store.
See the complete Meta description too long guide for every platform and the full background.
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