Check meta description character length.
Meta descriptions are truncated on pixel width rather than a hard character count, but roughly 155 characters on desktop and 120 on mobile are reliable working limits. Two things are commonly missed. Many content systems append a brand suffix automatically, which eats into the visible budget without appearing in the field you are editing. And a description well under the limit wastes snippet space that competitors are using. Including the target keyword matters for a display reason rather than a ranking one: matched terms are bolded in results, which measurably improves click-through even though the description itself is not a ranking factor.
Total length
Total = description characters + automatically appended brand suffix
Truncated share
Truncated % = (total - display limit) / total x 100
Not directly — search engines have stated it is not a ranking factor. It affects click-through rate, which does influence performance indirectly. Write it as ad copy for the result, not as a place to repeat keywords.
Because they only rewrite when yours is missing, too short, or a poor match for the specific query. A well-written description matching common queries for the page is used most of the time, and it is the only control you have over how the result reads.