Page title in SERP question
-
Has anyone typed in a phrase in Google and seen their listing on the SERP, but the page title on the Google SERP is not what the CMS is set to ?
Ie the page title in the SERP is not what is expected? Something related to the company, but not what is set on the CMS…
Very odd – has anyone seen something like this before? What could be causing it? Is there a way to change it?
-
Barry Schwartz has written about the last part (when it's not a DMOZ listing) at http://www.seroundtable.com/google-title-selection-12989.html. There have also been several comments in Q&A about Google not using either the site's title tag or the DMOZ entry for the title in the SERP.
-
Yes- I did not mention this in my other response. Adam is correct also, it could be that Google has an outdated index.
-
Sometimes Google will display the title and meta element of a DMOZ listing. If you are listed in the DMOZ open directory project, simply put the following to your head section and it will default back to what you actually have on the page.
Sometimes, Google will also change the Title and description elements in the SERPs for user experience. It's difficult to see how or why, but it does happen. Does this help?
-
Yes, I've seen this more than once. There are two causes I'm aware of:
-
Google hasn't updated its index and is showing an old version of your page.
-
Google is getting the title from elsewhere, such as DMOZ (they can and will do this in some cases).
-
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
Image Titles and Descriptions Question
Hello, I have a question about optimizing the SEO on my pages through image titles and descriptions. There are a few times on my website that I use the same image on multiple pages. I am under the impression that giving it a title such as "social-media-marketing-agency-graphic.jpg" will help the SEO for the phrase "social media marketing agency" on that page. My question was, if I want to use the same image on multiple pages, am I better off uploading an entirely new image with a new title to make it more relevant to the new page? Or will this not make large enough of a difference? Or is there an easier solution? Please let me know your thoughts on how to best optimize the pages
On-Page Optimization | | brightsocial0 -
The effect of having CR LF HT commands in a <title>tag</title>
Hello. I am looking at a customer site with a CMS system that is controlling the population of the meta TITLE Currently it has the TITLE set as this <title>(CR)(LF)<br />(HT)Site Details REMOVED - Customer name REMOVED(CR)(LF)<br /></title> Naturally, we would prefer it to be <title>Site Details REMOVED - Customer name REMOVED</title> What affect would these commands have in the title! Google shows their title when you Google the company website... so I guess it can see it .... but GA "Top Site Content" widget shows it as blank ? Any ideas? Cheers
On-Page Optimization | | BinaryTris0 -
I've just manually edited all the page titles and meta descriptions on a site, when will this show in Google results?
I've just manually edited all of the page titles, meta descriptions and optimised the copy on a client's site. I submitted this for a new crawl on Google via Webmaster Tools but when I do a Google search the old versions are still showing. Will it still take a few weeks for the new versions to show even though Google has crawled it via Webmaster?
On-Page Optimization | | aoifep0 -
Duplicate Page Content Question
This article was published on fastcompany.com on March 19th. http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/164/designing-facebook It did not receive much traffic, so it was re-posted on Co.Design today (March 27th) where it has received significantly more traffic. http://www.fastcodesign.com/1669366/facebook-agrees-the-secret-to-its-future-success-is-design My question is if google will dock us for reprinting/reusing content on another site (even if it is a sister site within the same company). If they do frown on that, is there a proper way to attribute the content to the source material/site (fastcompany.com)?
On-Page Optimization | | DanAsadorian0 -
Changing of title page and description
Can I ask how long after changing the Title and Description tags on a website do people have to wait to see these changes reflected in Google? I changed a site of mine a couple of weeks back, pinged the site to google and had well over 5,000 googlebots to the page (not a result of pinging, I get that anyway), yet Google continues to display the old listing. Any secret techniques to speeding this up? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | Grumpy_Carl0 -
Title tag questions
General title tag questions how important is it not to change your title tag, I own a prom dress site and I'm always changing them between prom and homecoming' Is it bad to have title tags that are only different by one word across thousands of pages on your site. I have thousands of dresses so each title tag only varies by the style # I have always had title tags that are for example black prom dresses, well i recently discovered that just black dresses is googled 10 times the amount so im debating changing them to black dresses so that the word dresses is closer to the front of the title tag, am I over reacting or is that a good idea or would it be bad to put black dresses, black prom dresses, black homecoming dresses I also put the year in almost every title tag 2012, is that bad, I ranked great for 2012 stuff but could it hurt my homepage domain rankings on major broader keywords
On-Page Optimization | | Dirty0 -
E-Commerce product pages that have multiple skus with unique pages.
Hey Guys, With the recent farm/panda update from google i'm at a cross roads as to how I should optimize product pages for a project i'm working on for a client. My client sells tires and one particular tire brand can have up to 15 models and each model can have up to 30 sizes. IE: 'Michelin Pilot Sport Cup' comes in 15 different sizes. Each size will have it's unique product page and description bringing me to my question. Should I use the same description on every size? I do plan on writting unique content for each tire model however i'm not sure if I should do it for every size. After all the tire model description is the same for every size, each size doesn't carry any unique characteristics that I can describe. Thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | MikeDelaCruz770 -
Small Site Title Tag / Structure Question
Bit embarrassed to ask this question, but will ask it anyway! I have done some quite reasonable basic SEO for clients in the south of Spain with small sites and had reasonable success. My wife and I came to the Pyrenees in the south of France to take over and run bed and breakfast in a lovely old farm and some self-catering accommodation in one of the pastures (with my continuing to do a bit of work for clients too). We are running and developing the place for friends who are away 3-4 years. They had an abysmal site, so we designed one to together: http:www.loubetaspyrenees.com/ (I have given the French version because it's what I am most concerned with - there is an English version in case I can tempt you to a holiday here!) It's been very well received by users, so that's great. We have the place on about 12 agencies amd almost all link to our site, so it serves as a good showcase. Here's my issue (for the French site): It went online 11th Feb and is already doing well for more "long tail" searches, and for more local and specific searches, but is proving slow on our prime search terms. The prime market is French, and they key terms are "Gîtes" for the self-catering accommodation, and "Chambres d'Hôtes" for the Bed and Breakfast. Our key Geographical term for the French market is "Hautes Pyrenees" - it's a departmental area. In Google.fr We are around result 100 out of 600k results for "Chambres d'hôtes hautes pyrénées" and aren't in the first 200 for "Gîtes Hautes Pyrénées". This is a competitive market and we are competing with optimised and long-established agencies but still hope to do better. I know I am losing from poorly constructed title tags cannibablising the results, but cannot see how to solve this: Home Page Title tag: "Gîtes et Chambres d'Hôtes dans les Hautes Pyrénées | les Baronnies" I have two main pages on the Gîtes: Gîte for 2-3 people Title tag "Gîte dans les Hautes Pyrénées pour 2-3 personnes en les Baronnies"
On-Page Optimization | | PeterMurray
Gîte for 3-9 people Title tag "Location Gîte dans les Baronnies Pyrénées pour groupe 3-9 personnes" ("Location" means rental) Google understood the above and put us no 1 out of over 1miillion results for a search for a gite for 9 people in the south west of France ("gite sud ouest 9 personne") And 2 pages for the Bed and Breakfast: B&B in the farm building: "Chambres d'Hôtes dans les Hautes Pyrénées dans une ferme restaurée"
B&B in gite apartments with sitting rooms: "Chambres d'Hôtes dans les Hautes Pyrénées avec salon et terrasse" I am not sure how to handle the titles for the Home Page and for the 4 subpages - sounds silly, but have you any advice on how I might handle these titles better? I thought of using more general terms on the Home Page ("Holiday accommodation in the ..."), but on such a small site (18 pages in each language version) I feel that would be unwise. It seems I must try to find some way of differentiating the titles on the other 4 pages so that i am not cannibalising but where there are so few alternatives I am not sure how! Oh dear, sorry this was so long!0