Change Article Meta Description character limit

[theigloo22]

Hi

In Joomla 4 the Meta Description character limit is set at 160

How can I change this? I want 300

Looked all around the back and but could not find any setting

thanks

[ceford]

Meta descriptions can technically be any length, but Google generally truncates snippets to ~155-160 characters. It's best to keep meta descriptions long enough that they're sufficiently descriptive, so we recommend descriptions between 50 and 160 characters.

I think you may be wasting your time with 300 characters! Google for opinions.

[theigloo22]

I had a feeling I would get a response like that

Yes, Google limits the length of text it displays in search results, but it's not so simple.

Sometimes google displays text from the page itself, ignoring the meta description completely.

Sometimes only the meta desc is displayed.

sometimes its a mix of both

Longer than 160 descriptions can be rearranged and reconstructed with only relevant snippets visible

It all depends on the users' input

Providing an accurate content-rich meta description is the best option, which can be well over 160. Longer descriptions give Google more text to play with.

I never count chars when I write mata desc, I just concentrate on being accurate.


So back to my question, is it possible to alter the limit in the article edit mata input ?

https://developers.google.com/search/do ... ce/snippet

A bit more reading https://developers.google.com/search/do ... scriptions

"Best practices for creating quality meta descriptions
Google will sometimes use the <meta name="description"> tag from a page to generate a snippet in search results, if we think it gives users a more accurate description than would be possible purely from the on-page content. A meta description tag generally informs and interests users with a short, relevant summary of what a particular page is about. They are like a pitch that convince the user that the page is exactly what they're looking for.

There's no limit on how long a meta description can be, but the snippet is truncated in Google Search results as needed, typically to fit the device width."

Thanks

[theigloo22]

https://issues.joomla.org/tracker/joomla-cms/36939

[theigloo22]

Ok I think I solved this

I found a file administrator/components/com_content/forms/article.xml

on line 212, I changed - charcounter="false"

<field
name="metadesc"
type="textarea"
label="JFIELD_META_DESCRIPTION_LABEL"
rows="3"
cols="30"
maxlength="160"
charcounter="false"
/>

Seems to work ok however, I'm not a coder, so can anyone see a problem with doing this?

I suppose it will get overwritten on update

thanks