A random sample of 628 Web pages registered with Yahoo! was analyzed for use of META tags and specifically the DESCRIPTION tag; 357 contained META tags and 163 used the DESCRIPTION tag. Some of the descriptions greatly exceeded typical length guidelines of 150 or 200 characters. A minority duplicated exactly phrasing found in the visible text; most repeated some words and phrases. Noun phrases were slightly more common than complete sentences. Content usually related to responsible corporate bodies and their products and services; information about the page or site itself was included in about one-third of descriptions.
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