A meta description is a short snippet of text in your page's HTML that summarises what the page is about. When it's missing, search engines pull their own text from somewhere on the page — often an awkward or irrelevant fragment — to fill the gap under your link.
Why it matters
The description under your link is often the deciding factor in whether someone clicks your result instead of a competitor's. When you leave it blank, you hand that decision to an automated guess that may show a menu label, a cookie notice, or a stray sentence that does nothing to sell the page.
How to fix it
Add a single <meta> tag inside the <head> section of the page. Keep it to roughly 150–160 characters so it isn't truncated.
<meta name="description" content="A clear, specific summary of what this page offers, written for a person deciding whether to click.">
WordPress
Most SEO plugins (Yoast, Rank Math, All in One SEO) add a "Meta description" field below the editor. Fill it in for the page, then save/update. Without a plugin, you can add the tag manually in your theme's header template, but a plugin is safer.
Nginx
Nginx serves files rather than editing HTML, so add the tag to the page's actual HTML source (or your application's template). Nginx itself does not insert meta tags.
Apache
As with Nginx, edit the page's HTML or your site's template directly. Apache does not generate this tag for you.
Cloudflare
Cloudflare sits in front of your site and does not create meta descriptions. Add the tag at the origin — your HTML file, CMS, or application — and Cloudflare will serve it.
How to check it worked
View the page's source (right-click → View Page Source) and confirm the <meta name="description"> tag appears in the <head> with your text.