# Missing meta description > No meta description lets Google write its own snippet from page text — usually a worse pitch. Add a 150–160 character summary. _Category: Search visibility · Detector `seo` · Check `meta-description-missing` · Severity: warning_ The meta description is the paragraph under your title in search results — your one chance to pitch the click. Without it, Google scrapes some text off the page and often picks a boilerplate or nav fragment. AI-built pages skip it because it lives in ``, which the generated components never touch. ## Symptoms - Search snippets are auto-generated and off-message - Different queries surface random fragments of your page as the snippet - No control over the sentence that sells the click ## How VibeCheck detects it The `seo` detector flags this live in the browser and reports it to the widget's Problems list — and to your coding agent over MCP. - **Issue string:** `Missing meta description` - **Threshold:** no ## Root causes - The `` is unmanaged, so no description tag is emitted - Descriptions were considered “optional” and skipped - A per-route description was never written ## The fix Write a unique 150–160 character description per page that summarises the content and includes a reason to click. It does not directly affect ranking, but a compelling snippet lifts click-through, which does. ### Steps 1. Write a 150–160 character summary with the page’s value and a keyword 2. Emit it as `` via your head/metadata mechanism 3. Confirm it appears in view-source and is unique per route ```html ``` ## Framework-specific fixes ### React Render `` in the component (React 19 hoists it to ``). ```tsx ``` ### Next.js Set `description` in the route’s metadata object (or `generateMetadata` for dynamic pages). ```tsx export const metadata: Metadata = { title: 'Pricing — Acme', description: 'Simple per-seat pricing with a 14-day free trial. No card required to start.', } ``` [Next.js docs](https://nextjs.org/docs/app/api-reference/functions/generate-metadata) ### Vue Add it to `useHead`’s meta array. ```ts useHead({ meta: [{ name: 'description', content: 'Simple per-seat pricing with a 14-day free trial.' }], }) ``` ### Svelte Place the meta tag inside ``. ```svelte ``` ### Vanilla JS Add the meta tag to each page’s ``. ```html ``` ## FAQ ### Does a meta description affect ranking? Not directly. It affects click-through rate by controlling the snippet, and higher CTR is a positive signal. Treat it as ad copy for the search result. ### How long should it be? About 150–160 characters. Longer gets truncated; much shorter wastes the space. Make each one unique to the page. ### Will Google always use my description? No — Google may rewrite the snippet to match the query. A good description still wins the majority of the time and is worth writing. ## Related problems - [Meta description is too long](https://vibecheck.wcgw.fun/fix/meta-description-too-long.md) — Search visibility - [Missing page title](https://vibecheck.wcgw.fun/fix/missing-page-title.md) — Search visibility - [Missing og:description](https://vibecheck.wcgw.fun/fix/missing-og-description.md) — Search visibility - [Missing social preview image (og:image)](https://vibecheck.wcgw.fun/fix/missing-og-image.md) — Search visibility --- Fix guide from VibeCheck — https://vibecheck.wcgw.fun/fix/missing-meta-description. Full site index for LLMs: https://vibecheck.wcgw.fun/llms.txt