Rank increase after adding meta descriptions to all pages?

Hello, before I explain why I'm asking, I'll ask, does anyone know if someone has seen a significant rank increase after adding meta descriptions to all pages on their site? Studies, cases online or perhaps users on BHW?

During my 5 years in SEO, surprisingly, I've fallen for the misbelief that meta descriptions are unimportant and that they aren't a ranking factor. This is obviously incorrect because they do help with rankings indirectly and if something takes up 50% of the SERP, surely, Google considers it important.

Since last week I've worked on adding meta descriptions for the first time in my life to all my 400+ pages on my site. Since 4 years back, my site has been struggling severely with SEO. The high competition pages don't rank at all (not even on page 10), whereas low competition pages rank on first place.

Objectively, my website's on-page SEO beats the competition by big margins (save for meta descriptions). Off-page is not bad either. Yet, I've had this effect.

I wonder now, could the lack of meta descriptions be what's been holding my website back and does anyone know if someone has seen significant rank increases after adding meta descriptions to their site? I've searched like mad, but I've surprisingly found no case studies or even user examples on the internet, even though these tags are a big topic for SEO since almost 30 years back.

meta tags are one of those small things that SEOs should do. Personally, I've not tested the impact of meta tags alone, I've always considered them to be slightly important by default, so I've always added them to my pages despite of the fact that google have started re-writing the meta descriptions lately...

But thanks to your case now I know they work better than I thought

TurboCharge said:

I wonder now, could the lack of meta descriptions be what's been holding my website back

Click to expand...

I mean, based on your results it's definitely possible. But I would still check the increase of your rankings against google's updates, it's possible that one of google's recent updates has given you a nice boost and the adding of meta tags is just a coincidence:
https://status.search.google.com/products/rGHU1u87FJnkP6W2GwMi/history

Lucky you that you've gotten google's love, ride the wave while it lasts

Meta tags are important and yes, it's not a ranking factor but it plays a vital role in rankings. You can read the articles from Search Engine Journal, Moz, and Backlinko for lmore info as they have shared the insights very detailed.