Why Google won’t display the right page title?

[soralsokal]

I'm using a WordPress site with the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast.

Why Google won’t display the right page title for my CATEGORY pages?

This is s example category page I'm having a problem with: http://bit.ly/1DReQPP 
In the source code of this category page you can see the title is:
<title>Yoga Übungen - Mit visuellen Guides, Videos & viel Inspiration</title>

Now when I check the title in the SERPS it only gives me the the category name 'Yoga Übungen'. See screenshot here: http://awesomescreenshot.com/05942buz60 
This happens with ALL the category pages on my site. Google uses the category name instead of the title provided in the source code.

I found an article from Yoast dealing with this issue: https://yoast.com/google-page-title/ It's correct, that Google sometimes chooses a different page title, but this article doesn't address the exclusive category problem.

For 'normal' pages or posts, Google always shows the title which I've setup in Yoast (and which is in the source code). I don't understand what goes wrong for category pages? Do any of you have a similar problem or experience with that?

[paints-n-design]

OK there is no general issue,just search for "visueller yoga guide" so i guess google is changing the title that it fits better, search for a term in the title and its the right one.

www.google.de/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=visueller yoga guide

^^ es gibt keinen generellen Fehler, vermutlich überschreibt Google den Title, dass es besser passt, suche einfach mal nach "visuellem Yoga guide"

[paints-n-design]

interessant, warum lässt du eigentlich "category" - yoast kann das doch rausschmeissen. Wann hattest du den Titel geändert? BTW hast du 2 mal Yoga Übungen als Title, einmal als Produkt.Ich habe das Problem nicht, Wordpress und Yoast nutze ich auch. Vorsicht, wenn du sie rausnimmst, das /blog/ drin stehen bleibt und der Artikel nicht deine Produkte überschreibt. Ich forsche mal ein bisschen und melde mich.

thats interesting, why do you let the "category" in your urls when yoast can take them out? when did you changed your title tag? by the way, you hav got 2 times "Yoga Übungen" in your titles, one is a product. I never had that problem, and I use Wordpress and Yoast like you do. Be carefull if you want to take the category out, it could override youre product pages. I search a bit for the probebly reason and answer again.

Sorry MOZ I think we can understand each other better in german

[soralsokal]

The source code is fine. Exactly how I set it up in the Yoast SEO plugin.

My thought was that there is some other thing in the theme code (for categories) that makes Google skipping the title from the source code.

Otherwise how can Google accept 100% of pages and post titles/description, while ignoring them for all the categories?

I honestly don't know where the problem is. Even worse, I don't know how to go about this issue

[LauraSultan]

What makes you think it might be a theme issue? Both the Moz toolbar and the Screaming Frog tool show the title as "Yoga Übungen - Mit visuellen Guides, Videos & viel Inspiration," so I would be very surprised if Google was reading a different title from the page.

[soralsokal]

Thank you for your reply. Generally I would agree with your statement. This is also d'accord with the explanation of Yoast.

But is it really likely, that Google accepts the title and description for all my pages and blog posts.? And not accepts from all category pages?

I see a pattern here and I don't believe this is the root of the issue.

So far I could only imagine, that it's an issue of the theme and source code problem.

[LauraSultan]

Matt Cutts did a video about what criteria they use to change page titles back in March, and Jennifer Slegg posted a breakdown at http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/news/2342232/why-google-changes-your-titles-in-search-results.

Cutts mentioned 3 criteria that they use. If your existing title doesn't meet that criteria, they may change it.

1. Concise (short enough title)

2. Good description of page and site that the page is on

3. Relevant to your query

Apparently, Google finds it more relevant to put the Category name + the name of your site.

watch?v=L3HX_8BAhB4

[Martijn_Scheijbeler]

It's still the same problem I've had it with one of our category pages before as well. What could be the problem is that you're linking to the page with the anchor text which is currently the title. If you do that to much they sometimes use the anchor text as the new title if they think it would work better.