Google Search Snippet Descriptions Still Use Queries

Google told us the other day that the title change for the search result snippets no longer uses queries to customize the title of the search result snippets. But the search result descriptions, the snippets, still are customized based on user query.

I asked about this after seeing a video published (embedded below) by Google yesterday, which was recorded probably months ago, about how the description of the search results can be controlled by us. I joked about the language around the query and how the video may be out of date even before it was published. But the truth is, snippet descriptions in Google Search, at least as of today, still are customized based on he query the searcher entered.

John Mueller from Google shared these two queries that bring the same result, with the same title but a different description.

[fishing calendar] vs [what’s a good day to go fishing] (click to enlarge):

Here was my joke:

@JohnMu the video you guys released this morning is a week or so out of date 🙂 https://t.co/vlaI7SJY2e

— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) August 26, 2021

updating videos is hard after they are published, unlike help docs pic.twitter.com/zCJeeXfKta

— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) August 26, 2021

John responds:

The snippet still changes, so at least there’s that. These recordings are always so far back that I’m glad we don’t have more collisions :). I think we still have some lined up from when we recorded in the old studio, scary stuff.

— ???? John ???? (@JohnMu) August 26, 2021

So to clarify and John does:

I thought it was just titles. https://t.co/YsIatWS1Ef vs https://t.co/HKJvL78a28 show different snippets, for example.

— ???? John ???? (@JohnMu) August 26, 2021

So the query does not customize the title of the Google search result snippets but they currently do potentially customize the descriptions.

Here is the video:

Forum discussion at Twitter.