Help:Description

The contents of MediaWiki:Description will be placed inside the content of the  tag of the main page of a wiki. That description should be shown on search engines when the main page appears in the results.

Background
When main pages show up in Google results, they sometimes have odd text showing as the description. Keywords for the topic of the wiki sometimes appear in boxes and templates on the main page, rather than plain text, so what Google shows can be somewhat random.

MediaWiki:Description is a way for wikis to customize what Google uses as the description for the main page. Right now, it's set to a default: " is a database that anyone can edit."

Administrators can edit that page to expand the description, up to 150 characters. It would be great if the description included search terms that you'd expect people to use when they're looking for your site.

Here's a few examples:
 * Doctor Who Wiki is a database that anyone can edit, covering Doctor Who episodes, characters and monsters, including the Daleks and Cybermen.
 * Muppet Wiki is a database about Jim Henson's work that anyone can edit, including episode and character guides to The Muppet Show and Sesame Street.
 * Dofus Wiki is a database that anyone can edit, with articles on quests, guilds, and everything Dofus!

In action

 * MediaWiki:Description - MediaWiki code on WoWWiki
 * http://www.google.com/search?q=wowwiki - WoWWiki on Google search results.