The meta description is a short descriptive text that appears below the page title in Google search results—up to 155–160 characters. While it doesn’t directly influence rankings, it does affect the click-through rate: A well-written meta description explains to the searcher in a single sentence what they can expect on the page and encourages them to click. If it’s missing, Google pulls a text snippet from the page—often an inappropriate one and rarely a good one.