Why Does Google Keep Changing My Page Titles?
-
I know Google has been doing this for quite some time but how do you "control" what Google will display as your page name?
Lots of my pages come up with a title like "[searched keyword] - [website name]" in the search results. I usually a huge drop in CTR when this happens.
On the other hand, there are some pages which have kept their title intact in the search results.
So what gives? How come one page's title is changed and the other is not?
-
I changed my page title so it has less than 60 chars: now Google is showing MY page title, not theirs.
-
My website isn't listed on dmoz
-
Sometimes you can get 70 characters to show on the SERP, but sometimes it's less. As far as I know, 60 is still the safest threshold.
-
There are many reasons why Google may decide to change your title tag in the SERPs besides the length, however. As your example shows, Google likes titles that are keyword rich, concise, and branded. The closer your titles match the search query -- and your page -- the less likely they are to be rewritten. You aren't using boilerplate templates for your titles are you (or auto generated ones)?
Would you mind sharing some examples of titles that have remained intact as well as ones that have been changed by Google?
-
The title tags are actually at risk of being truncated (or, in some cases, replaced) when they are too wide now. So a title of around 100 character can in theory show up in the SERPs without being cut off if it uses primarily thin letters. The ideal pixel width, however, is still somewhat of a mystery -- somewhere around 500px.
-
If google is just adding website name it could be because of dmoz info research
-
I shortened the title and see how it goes in a few weeks.
-
Isn't it 70?
One particular title I'm looking at currently has 68 chars.
-
Are you ensuring that your title tags come in under 60 characters? They seem to be rewriting the long ones more often.
-
Yeah but it sucks when the result just above yours is something like:
[keyword] Special Discount 50% Off - [Website Name]
-
You can't control this, I don't think. Google seems to think Keyword - Website Name is better for searchers.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Will including "Contact Me" form degrade Google page ranking?
I have a content-rich page about one of my offerings. Will Google knock down the ranking if I include a contact me reply form on the page vs including a link to a standalone reply page? My concern is that including the form will cause Google to downgrade the page as being "too commercial".
On-Page Optimization | | Lysarden0 -
More Singular KW Targeted Landing Pages vs. Less Multiple KW Targeted Landing Pages
So my question is... I have a adopted a site which currently ranks quite well for some industry competitive keywords with a number of poor quality landing pages which specifically target a singular keyword. I am wondering if its worth merging some of these pages together into one authoritative, better quality landing page targeting multiple keywords (as the intent for some of these keywords are largely the same). What i don't want to do is jeopardise the existing rankings in doing so. The alternative option would just be to improve the content on the existing landing pages without merging. What are peoples thoughts on this? Are there any positive case studies out there where merging has had a positive effect? Any help would be great. Regards,
On-Page Optimization | | NickG-1231 -
Do Google's mobile friendly updates effect visibility on desktop results pages?
Google say that their quest to make websites more mobile friendly impacts mobile search results - https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/03/continuing-to-make-web-more-mobile.html But I am wondering if having a website that is less mobile friendly effects desktop SERPs as well? We require Adobe Flash as a tool for people to upload their images to us but not on the landing pages we're trying to rank. So our landing pages are not as mobile friendly as they could be (which we're looking to improve) but am worried this is effecting desktop search results even though Google do not claim they do.
On-Page Optimization | | KerryK1 -
Renamed a page and created a 301, page lost its rankings.
We changed a page name to fall under the root of our site from domain.com/page1/page301d/ to domain.com/page301d/ and after 2 weeks it still is not back to its #3 position. Now it is on the bottom of page 3. I cant figure out what im doing wrong here. The original .com/page1/ that this page fell under was removed totally and redirected to antoher page that was more relevant. I went ahead and re-enabled this page and its contnent, because the page was linking out to the page we 301d. This page we re-enabled had about 150 links poitning to it and therefore i was thinking that maybe the link juice from this page (or relevancy) via an internal link was helping it rank. This was updated about 6 days ago and the internal link is back Any other ideas why this might not be working. Ive checked all the 301s, content has not changed on the page. We have updated the strcuture for many pages. Instead of having the pages in question fall under anotehr page, they all fall under the root and its sub content is now only 2 levels deep , instead of being 3. hope that makese sense.
On-Page Optimization | | waqid0 -
Duplicate page titles and Content in Woocommerce
Hi Guys, I'm new to Moz and really liking it so far!
On-Page Optimization | | jeeyer
I run a eCommerce site on Wordpress + WooCommerce and ofcourse use Yoast for SEO optimalisation I've got a question about my first Crawl report which showed over 600 issues! 😐 I've read that this is something that happens more often (http://moz.com/blog/setup-wordpress-for-seo-success). Most of them are categorized under:
1. Duplicate Page Titles or;
2. Duplicate Page Content. Duplicate Page Titles:
These are almost only: product category pages and product tags. Is this problem beeing solved by giving them the right SEO SERP? I see that a lot of categories don't have a proper SEO SERP set up in yoast! Do I need to add this to clear this issue, or do I need to change the actual Title? And how about the Product tags? Another point (bit more off-topic) I've read here: http://moz.com/community/q/yoast-seo-plugin-to-index-or-not-to-index-categories that it's advised to noindex/follow Categories and Tags but isn't that a wierd idea to do for a eCommerce site?! Duplicate Page Content:
Same goes here almost only Product Categories and product tags that are displayed as duplicate Page content! When I check the results I can click on a blue button for example "+ 17 duplicates" and that shows me (in this case 17 URLS) but they are not related to the fist in any way so not sure where to start here? Thanks for taking the time to help out!
Joost0 -
Meta titles and description for subcategory pages in CMS websites
I have a CMS based site and for that I am getting duplicate page title and description error message, for my all sub-category pages. What can I do for this because write Meta title and description for each page for CMS based website is not possible.
On-Page Optimization | | 1akal0 -
SERP change that removed commercial sites from the first page?
Suppose that Google made a change and all of a sudden a certain type of keyword phrase doesn't show any commercial sites on the first page of SERPs. Have you ever had this experience? What would you do in this scenario? Would you give up on those keyword phrases and target a different keyword phrase?
On-Page Optimization | | ProjectLabs0 -
Things to put in your page Title
Hello! I have a wordpress based blog/website and I was wondering what were the most important things to put in my title. I'm a wedding photographer. I think the location of the shoot is important and the fact that it's wedding photography, but is it important to try and put my company name (Celynnen Photography) in it too?! It's very hard to keep the titles short! Ioan
On-Page Optimization | | IoanSaid0