Meta descriptions longer than 160 characters get truncated in search results. Google cuts them off with an ellipsis, potentially hiding your most important selling points or call to action. Overly long descriptions also suggest a lack of focus - if you cannot summarize a page in 160 characters, the page itself may lack a clear purpose.

This guide shows you how to find every page with a long meta description using the crawler.sh CLI.

Step 1: Install crawler.sh CLI

Install the CLI with a single command:

curl -fsSL https://install.crawler.sh | sh

This downloads the correct binary for your operating system and architecture, places it in ~/.crawler/bin/, and adds it to your PATH. Restart your terminal or run source ~/.bashrc (or ~/.zshrc) to pick up the new PATH entry.

Verify the installation:

crawler --version

Step 2: Crawl the target website

Run a full crawl of the website you want to audit:

crawler crawl https://example.com

The crawler records each page’s meta description. Results are saved as an NDJSON file (.crawl) in the current directory. For larger sites:

crawler crawl https://example.com --max-pages 5000

Step 3: Run SEO audit

Run the SEO analysis on your crawl data:

crawler seo example-com.crawl

The long descriptions check flags any page where the meta description exceeds 160 characters.

Step 4: Identify long descriptions

Look for the Long Descriptions section in the SEO report. Common causes of long descriptions:

CMS plugins that auto-generate descriptions from the first paragraph of content
Descriptions that try to list every feature or keyword
Templates that concatenate multiple fields into the description
Descriptions copied from page body text without editing

Step 5: Fix and re-crawl

Trim each long description to 160 characters or fewer. Focus on:

Leading with the most important information
Cutting redundant phrases and filler words
Including one clear call to action or value proposition
Ensuring the description reads naturally when cut at 155 characters

After fixing, re-crawl to verify:

crawler crawl https://example.com
crawler seo example-com.crawl

Why long descriptions matter for SEO

When a description gets truncated, the meaning can change or become unclear. A cut-off call to action like “Sign up today to get-” is worse than no description at all. Keeping descriptions within 160 characters ensures users see your complete message, leading to higher click-through rates and better user expectations when they land on your page.