Human Vs AI Generated Meta Descriptions

AI generated content is created everyday. While we believe that unique and targeted website content is best created by humans, we decided it was time to investigate the possibility of AI taking a role too. Taking baby steps, we decided to test AI generated meta descriptions first, because we know many of our customers feel that writing these is time consuming, not enjoyable to write or they are unsure what to write about.

Using Google, we identified 9 different free AI meta description generators that required no signing up or trial to join. We used the phrase 'human vs ai generated meta descriptions' as the topic, with the keyword 'AI' when we were asked for one. This article looks at each of the responses the AI generators made, measuring them against each other and the gold standard characteristics a human written and SEO friendly meta description has. We then reveal our results, answering the question, "Can AI generate meta descriptions that meet the accepted characteristics of a meta description?"

Gold Standard for Meta Descriptions 

A meta description is like an advertisement for a page on your website which is displayed on a search engine's result pages.  While Google can choose whether to use your meta descriptions or copy its own from your page content, you need to still put your best foot forward and give Google your preferred short piece of text for it to display.

Ranking AI Meta Description Generators

The AI meta generators we assessed according to the above criteria are:

• Ahrefs
• SEO.AI
• Dashword
• Ryrob
• Optimo
• Quattr
• Originality
• Copy AI
• Growthbar

Ahrefs

• 120-160 characters: 0/1 
• call to action: 1/1
• relevant keywords: 1/1
• informative: 1/1
• readability: 1/1

Total: 4/5

We found Ahrefs easy to use, it gave us a fast response to our request, provided three different meta descriptions. However, only one of those contained between 120 and 160 characters, with two being over 160. We think the descriptions were easy to read and understand, contained a CTA each, used the relevant keywords and explained what the page would be about using the information we gave them.

SEO.AI

• 120-160 characters: 0/1
• call to action: 1/1
• relevant keywords: 1/1
• informative: 0/1
• readability: 0/1

Total: 2/5

SEO.AI provided us with only one meta description and this had less than 120 characters. We feel it could have been more informative in explaining what the page is about and that the end of the sentence seems to be a last thought addition that doesn't really flow.

Dashword

• 120-160 characters: 0/1
• call to action: 1/1
• relevant keywords: 1/1
• informative: 1/1
• readability: 1/1

Total: 4/5

Once again, all of the meta descriptions were longer than 160 characters. We thought they were pretty relevant to the keywords, and reasonably well written.

Ryrob

• 120-160 characters: 1/1
• call to action: 1/1
• relevant keywords: 1/1
• informative: 1/1
• readability: 1/1

Total: 5/5

Ryrob gave us several pretty good meta description options which fitted under the 160 character maximum mark. We thought these read well and sounded more like a human wrote them. The tone is very casual, so a more formal website may need to look elsewhere for this tool.

Optimo

• 120-160 characters: 0/1
• call to action: 1/1
• relevant keywords: 1/1
• informative: 1/1
• readability: 0/1

Total: 4/5

Optimo gave us a very long meta description and then gave what we feel are too many CTAs, too much information and as such, lost some readability which we marked them down for.

Quattr

• 120-160 characters: 1/1
• call to action: 1/1
• relevant keywords: 1/1
• informative: 0/1
• readability: 0/1

Total: 2/5

We thought that Quattr wrote very robot sounding meta descriptions that were far off from what we were expecting based on the information we entered. They also provided very similar wording to other AI meta description generators. That's why we did not give a point to either readability or being informative. 

Originality

• 120-160 characters: 0/1
• call to action: 1/1
• relevant keywords: 0/1
• informative: 0/1
• readability: 1/1

Total: 2/5

Originality wasn't very original. It used phrases found in other AI generated meta descriptions and it did take liberty in announcing something different to appear in its associated article than we gave it scope to. 

Copy AI

• 120-160 characters: 0/1
• call to action: 0/1
• relevant keywords: 0/1
• informative: 0/1
• readability: 0/1

Total: 0/6

We tried the Copy AI meta description generator on two different days and it returned the same submission message both times. We don't have any information to test their generator out on, so its a zero out of five.

Growthbar

• 120-160 characters: 1/1
• call to action: 1/1
• relevant keywords: 1/1
• informative: 0/1
• readability: 0/1

Total: 5/5

Growthbar's result attempted to start with a bang, but actually decreased its readability. It also assumed more of the topic we thought was necessary. Hence no points for readability nor being informative.

Should You Use AI Meta Description Generators?

If we purely look at numbers, it would be fair to say that some AI meta description generators do a good job. Do they do a good enough job to copy and paste them into your website meta tags? Or should you give them the human once over beforehand? Or is the time you take to find the AI generator, enter the text, choose the option you want, edit and copy and paste to your website longer than if you just wrote the description yourself?

Our thoughts are that AI meta description generators can provide adequate options that people with little SEO knowledge or are setting up a new website can use, with some human tweaking. Will AI meta descriptions rank higher in click throughs than human written ones? I think we're going to have to do some testing on this and share our results with you. Will we be using AI to create our meta descriptions? No, not at this stage. We think they provide guidance on what to write and do have a place for some people, but not for us.