How to Customize Blogger Description Meta Tag

A web page's meta tags such as title and description can affect how the page is searched and ranked in search engines. SEO experts often recommend for customizing web page's meta tags in order to improve search engine indexing and ranking for the page. As for Google Blogger, questions are asked such as, how to update blogger post meta data, how to edit Blogger description meta tag, how to edit Blogger's og:description tag, how to add meta tags to Blogger posts, and so forth.

In Google Blogger, when you enter Title and Description for your blog, the texts you entered become the blog site's "og:title" and "og:description" meta tags. You are not able to set the "keyword" meta tag easily in Blogger. You can turn on the feature to customize the "description" meta tag for individual post. Here is how to enable the feature of blogger post description tag.

Go to Blogger Dashboard > > Click on Settings >> Search preferences >> Meta tags >>
Enable search description? Select Yes and Save.

Here the Description box is for you to enter the custom description meta tag for the home page (website).

Once it is enabled, you can see the description box in right side of post edit page, where you can customize the description tag for each post.

However, you must be careful and know what the enabling of the description feature will affect the meta tag setting on your blog. For instance, you should be aware of that what will happen if you enabled search description but leave the description empty.  First, let's see what these meta tags are set when the search description is disabled. Let's use a example blog where the Title and Description are set as:

Title: 'Metaphysical Quest'
Description: 'Mindful Inquiries to Truthfulness and Happiness'

When Search Description is Disabled

By default, the Search Description is disabled in Google Blogger. In this case, the blog home page has the title (og:title) and description (og:description) set as the Title and Description entry:

<meta content='https://www.metaphysicalquest.com/' property='og:url'/>
<meta content='Metaphysical Quest' property='og:title'/>
<meta content='Mindful Inquiries to Truthfulness and Happiness' property='og:description'/>

For an individual blog post, the title is set as the post title, and description is set as the first 140 characters of the post:

<meta content='https://www.metaphysicalquest.com/2016/07/gifts-from-heart.html' property='og:url'/>
<meta content='Gifts From the Heart' property='og:title'/>
<meta content='According to legend, a young man while roaming the desert came across a spring of delicious crystal-clear water. The water was so sweet he f...' property='og:description'/>

When Search Description is Enabled with Empty Box

If you enabled Search Description but did not enter anything in the box (which is for the home page description meta tag), then the og:description is empty:

<meta content='https://www.metaphysicalquest.com/' property='og:url'/>
<meta content='Metaphysical Quest' property='og:title'/>
<meta content='' property='og:description'/>

If you did not set the description for a post, the post page's og:description is empty too:

<meta content='https://www.metaphysicalquest.com/2016/07/gifts-from-heart.html' property='og:url'/>
<meta content='Gifts From the Heart' property='og:title'/>
<meta content='' property='og:description'/>

When Search Description is Enabled with Text Entered for Home Page Description

When you enable the search description and enter some words for the home page description, for example, type in "Practicing metaphysics to discover truth, seek happiness, and manifest prosperity in daily life." then the entered text is set to both description and og:description tags for the home page:

<meta content='Practicing metaphysics to discover truth, seek happiness, and manifest prosperity in daily life.' name='description'/>
<meta content='https://www.metaphysicalquest.com/' property='og:url'/>
<meta content='Metaphysical Quest' property='og:title'/>
<meta content='Practicing metaphysics to discover truth, seek happiness, and manifest prosperity in daily life.' property='og:description'/>

The home page description is also set as the default og:description value for each individual post if no description is entered for the post:

<meta content='https://www.metaphysicalquest.com/2016/07/gifts-from-heart.html' property='og:url'/>
<meta content='Gifts From the Heart' property='og:title'/>
<meta content='Practicing metaphysics to discover truth, seek happiness, and manifest prosperity in daily life.' property='og:description'/>

When Search Description is Enabled with Text Entered for Blog Post Description

When you enter the description for a post, for example, enter 'Heartfelt gifts deserve the return gift of gratitude. Gifts from the heart are really gifts of the heart.' on the post edit page, the entered text will be set as the value for both description and og:description tags:

<meta content='Heartfelt gifts deserve the return gift of gratitude. Gifts from the heart are really gifts of the heart.' name='description'/>
<meta content='https://www.metaphysicalquest.com/2016/07/gifts-from-heart.html' property='og:url'/>
<meta content='Gifts From the Heart' property='og:title'/>
<meta content='Heartfelt gifts deserve the return gift of gratitude. Gifts from the heart are really gifts of the heart.' property='og:description'/>

Note that the custom description value is effective only when the search description is enabled. Disabling this function does not wipe out the custom value. When the function is enabled again, the previously entered description value will be effective again.

If you enable search description, make sure you enter description for every post. Otherwise, all posts will have the same description as that in the home page. That would be bad for SEO. You'd rather let Blogger put the first 140 characters of the post text as the post's description; at least it is unique. The rule for search description function is that, if you don't use  it, don't enable it.