Once you update a meta description in your page's HTML, the change is instant on your server. The delay you experience is Google's crawl and index cycle. For most pages with moderate crawl frequency, expect the new meta description to show in search results within 24 to 72 hours. High-authority pages that Google crawls daily can update within hours. Low-priority or deep pages might take 7–14 days, sometimes longer if your crawl budget is constrained. You can force a faster update by submitting the URL through Google Search Console's URL Inspection tool and requesting indexing. This usually triggers a recrawl within a few hours to a day, though Google doesn't guarantee immediate processing. If you're updating hundreds of pages, prioritize your highest-traffic URLs for manual reindexing. Keep in mind that even after Google recrawls, it may not use your meta description. Google rewrites roughly 60–70% of meta descriptions based on the query, pulling text from the page body instead. If your new meta description still doesn't appear after two weeks, check if it's too short (under 120 characters), too long (over 160 characters), or doesn't match the page content. Google is more likely to respect descriptions that directly answer common query intents. At Ottawa SEO, we monitor meta description updates in Search Console's performance reports rather than obsessively checking SERPs. The Performance report shows impressions data that reflects what Google is actually indexing, usually with a 1–3 day lag. For client migrations or template changes affecting thousands of URLs, we stage updates in batches and track crawl stats to ensure Google isn't throttling our site. If you're seeing no movement after a week and Search Console confirms the page was crawled, the issue is usually caching on your CDN or server, not Google's end. Clear your page cache and verify the HTML source shows the new description before escalating.