The meta description is defined in the <head> of an HTML page: <meta name="description" content="...">. It is not a direct ranking factor, but it is one of the most important elements for click-through rate (CTR) in search results. A compelling, relevant description can significantly increase the proportion of searchers who click your result over a competitor's.
Recommended length: 70–160 characters. Descriptions shorter than 70 characters often trigger Google to auto-generate a snippet from page content. Descriptions longer than 160 characters are truncated in most search result layouts.
What SearchVitals checks: The On-page SEO audit checks every crawled page for a missing, duplicate, too-short, or too-long meta description. Missing descriptions on multiple pages are flagged as a warning; duplicates across pages are flagged as a warning or critical depending on volume.