Duplicate description

  • Resolved realpower

    (@realpower)


    5 months, 2 weeks ago

    Hi, I have some custom post types where I use the “summary” field to insert part of the content. I noticed that in these post types the meta description is inserted twice: the first is the meta description I insert via Yoast SEO, the second contains the entire content of the “summary” field. How can I remove the second meta description? Is there a way to tell Yoast SEO to ignore the summary?

    I should point out that I’ve only recently noticed this behavior, and it’s probably a bug in one of the latest versions of the plugin.

    Thanks.

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Plugin Support Maybellyne

    (@maybellyne)

    5 months, 2 weeks ago

    Hello @realpower

    Thanks for reaching out. I confirmed the duplicate meta descriptions. Could you please share a full screenshot of the summary field you referred to? That doesn’t sound like a WordPress field; WordPress has the excerpt field. Could the summary field have been added by your theme?

    You can use any image-sharing service like https://pasteboard.co/, https://snag.gy/, https://snipboard.io/, or even upload the screenshot to your own website. Once you upload it to an image-sharing service, please share the link to the image here.

    Thread Starter realpower

    (@realpower)

    5 months, 2 weeks ago

    Hi,

    I checked, and the field is named “excerpt.” (textarea name=””). It looks like the basic WordPress field because you can also see a small description line right below it: “Excerpts are manually created summaries of your content and can be used in your theme. Learn more about manual excerpts.”

    Here’s a link to the screenshot of the field. The various texts on the screen will be displayed in Italian, the site’s language.

    https://farmacistadifamiglia.it/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/campo-riassunto.png

    I add that this bug seems to exist even on regular wordpress posts that don’t have any customization. If I set the summary/excerpt I see a second meta description appear on the page. Here’s an example: https://farmacistadifamiglia.it/quali-sono-le-differenze-tra-un-elettrocardiogramma-ecg-e-un-ecocardiogramma/

    Thank You

    Plugin Support Maybellyne

    (@maybellyne)

    5 months, 2 weeks ago

    I was unable to replicate the issue, so it appears to be specific to your website. I added a meta description and an excerpt but didn’t get duplicate meta descriptions. As such, I am not convinced the field in your screenshot is the native WordPress excerpt field. For instance, if you have the default WordPress content editor, it looks like this. If you edit your post with Elementor, it looks like this.

    Thread Starter realpower

    (@realpower)

    5 months, 2 weeks ago

    Thanks for running the tests.

    As mentioned above, the same behavior occurs on regular website posts, which aren’t customized in any way.

    As for the field display in the admin area, it probably looks different because I installed the “Classic Editor” plugin to get the pre-Gutenberg editor. I tried disabling the “Classic Editor” plugin, but the problem persists.

    What can I do to fix it? Can’t I try adding some custom code to prevent Yoast SEO from automatically generating the description? I would like to show only the ones manually entered via the Yoast SEO panel.

    Thanks

    Plugin Support Maybellyne

    (@maybellyne)

    5 months, 2 weeks ago

    Since you have brought up the Classic Editor, I installed it and tested the default exceprt field and the meta description field in Yoast SEO. The meta description tag in the page source is what I entered in Yoast SEO; I did not get duplicate meta descriptions.

    As I have mentioned before, this is not a bug. This is a specific issue related to your setup and likely a problem with your theme. Your experience is not expected between the native WordPress excerpt field and the Yoast SEO meta description field.

    So, I recommend performing a conflict check: How to check for plugin conflicts. If you feel uncomfortable doing this yourself or if this does not solve your issue, our Yoast SEO Premium plugin comes with one year of (technical) support.

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