How to Hide Text in a Snippet in Search Results?

John Mueller from Google’s Search Relations team is back to answer questions related to Google Search in this episode of #AskGooglebot. The question for today’s episode comes from Ariadna, who wants to know how to exclude text from search snippets.

What are search snippets?

Search snippets are brief descriptions of a page that are displayed in search results. They are intended to provide users with a brief overview of the page’s content and its relevance to their search query. Google’s systems use various methods to generate these snippets, such as the description meta tag and text from the page.

Hide text in a snippet

In some cases, website owners may not want specific text from their page to be included in the search snippet. This could be dynamic content or something they only want to display in the context of their own page. Google has introduced a new way to exclude such text from snippets, called the “data-no snippet” attribute.

How to use the “data-no snippet” attribute

Website owners can apply the “data-no snippet” attribute to specific HTML elements. Once applied, Google’s systems will exclude that text from the search snippet. It’s important to note that Google will have to recrawl and reprocess the page to reflect this change, and it won’t be immediately updated.

Additional information

Although the snippet shown in search results is not a ranking factor, it can greatly impact user behavior by helping them choose which result to click on. Therefore, website owners are advised to double-check their snippets. There are other meta tags that can be used to control search snippets, and these are explained in Google’s Search Developer’s documentation, which is linked in the description.

Conclusion

In conclusion, website owners can now use the “data-no snippet” attribute to exclude specific text from search snippets. It’s important to keep in mind that Google will need to recrawl and reprocess the page to reflect this change. By controlling the search snippet, website owners can help users make informed decisions about which results to click on.