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ESCWA Web Governance

These are the standards and guidelines for managing and maintaining the ESCWA website. All content entered after 1 May 2016 should follow the guidelines set here and page revisions for existing pages should be made in accordance with the timelines provide

Standards for Summaries/Descriptions

This is not the text on the webpage. This is for search engines and often appears on search engine results pages and social media (see screenshots below).

  • Should inform and interest users if they saw your description in a search result
  • Each page should have a unique description.
  • Do not copy/paste from the summary unless it is truly a good fit.
  • Less than 160 characters (including spaces) is usually recommended or it is cut off.
  • Start with main purpose/topic, for example
    • This publication [main purpose]….
    • This event [main purpose or topic]… (future tense for upcoming events, past tense for concluded events) Note: After the event, Content owners should revise the text to reflect the past, get approval from the Content Approver and provide to the Web Focal Point.

  • Language: English and Arabic

When you enter "summaries" in the ESCWA system, they are coded as what is commonly known as "descriptions" for search engine purposes.

Why are summaries/descriptions important?

Summaries (description) help search engines understad what the page is about and will often put the description in the search results (see screenshot below)

Descriptions help people decide whether the information on the page is what they are looking for when they are scanning search results

Summaries (description) appear in Facebook posts (otherwise, it may pull from other sources or leave blank)

Contact us at: dds@un.org