Search snippet

Where does the snippet text come from?

Google creates snippets primarily from the page content. It sometimes uses the meta description instead, when that text describes the page more accurately than an excerpt would. Because the choice depends on the query, one URL can show different snippets for different searches. Someone searching for a detail tends to see the passage that covers it.

There is no fixed character limit. Google truncates snippets as needed to fit the device width. The common 150–160 character guidance for meta descriptions comes from SEO tools and is only a rough target.

People sometimes call the whole result (title, URL, and description) a snippet. Google separates these parts and calls the title the “title link.” Results with stars, prices, or recipe details are “rich results”; Google dropped the older terms “rich snippets” and “rich cards” in its documentation in December 2017. A featured snippet is a special box that reverses the usual format and shows the descriptive text first.

Example

A page about canonical tags has this meta description:

<meta name="description" content="How the canonical tag tells search engines the preferred URL for duplicate content, with syntax and common errors.">

For the query “canonical tag,” Google may show this description. For “canonical tag relative url,” it is more likely to pull a paragraph from the page that deals with relative URLs.

How to control snippets

Google supports three controls:

• <meta name="robots" content="nosnippet"> prevents a text snippet for the whole page.
• max-snippet:[number] limits the snippet length in characters. 0 equals nosnippet, -1 lets Google choose.
• The data-nosnippet attribute on span, div, or section elements excludes specific parts of a page.

According to Google, nosnippet and max-snippet also apply to AI Overviews and AI Mode, where they limit how much content may be used as direct input.

FAQ

What does snippet mean in search? The text excerpt below the title link that describes the page. In everyday English, a snippet is any small piece taken from something larger.

Why doesn’t Google show my meta description? Google picks the snippet per query. If a section of the page matches the search more closely than the meta description, Google shows that section.

How do I get a good snippet? Write a meta description that describes the page precisely and briefly, and structure the text so that individual paragraphs make sense on their own. Google does not guarantee that it will use your wording.

Last updated: October 8, 2026