When searching with Google, is it possible to see more of the text snippet/blurb for a search result(s)? Where are the text snippets/blurbs being stored (and pulled from)?
What's odd is that sometimes there are snippets/blurbs for results while not having a cached version of the page. There's neither a drop-down arrow for "Cache", nor does searching with "cache:site.com/page.htm" show any cached version available.
I'm trying to see if it's possible to somehow expand the blurb/snippet for a site, like if there's some kind of secondary cache or place where the blurbs are stored. Is it possible to find an expanded form of a snippet?
Best Answer
Google uses lots of sources for "blurbs".
One such place is the Open Directory Project, although that has been de-emphasized in recent years. They're also not the only website index.
Let's not forget about Google's own properties: Zagat has tons of human-written descriptions of places.
There's also the text from the website itself.
<meta name="description" content"This is an awesome website!" />Meta tags are used sometimes, if they're not too spammy. (There's plenty of SEO advice out there about using meta tags.) I also imagine that Googlebot looks specifically for pages called "about" or "about us". "Blurbs" may come from there.But, really, this is all part of Google's "secret sauce". There's going to be no definitive answer for you. The best you can probably hope for is Google's own advice to webmasters.