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.
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
-
XML Sitemap After On Page Changes
Hi everyone, could anyone please help me understand what to do next with the xml sitemap after making on page changes? For example, a website has an already existing xml sitemap and it's submitted to Google search console. We make changes to the website - URL structure, content, added new pages, 301 redirected broken links etc. for optimisation. Is there anything that we should do to change/update their current xml sitemap? Does it automatically update itself? Do we have to resubmit their xml sitemap to search console? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | nhhernandez0 -
Is it better to try and boost an old page that ranks on page #5 or create a better new page
Hello Everyone, We have been looking into our placements recently and see that one of our blog posts shows on page #5 for a popular keyword phrase with a lot of search volume. Lets say the keyword is "couples fitness ideas" We show on page 5 for a post /couples-fitness-ideas-19-tips-and-expert-advice/ We want to try and get on the first page for that phrase and wanted to know if it is better if we did one of the following: 1. Create a new page with over 100 ideas with a few more thousands of words. with a new url (thinking /couples-fitness-ideas) 2. Create a new page with a new url (thinking /couples-fitness-ideas) with the same content as the currently ranking post. We would want to do this for more freedom with layout and design of the page rather than our current blog post template. Add more content, let's say 100 more ideas. Then forward the old URL to the new one with a 301 redirect. 3. Add more content to the existing post without changing the layout and change the URL. Look forward to your thoughts
On-Page Optimization | | MobileCause0 -
Google Search - One page having problems
this issue is concerning my site - cruvoir.com we retail designer clothing online, and currently have 17 'designer' pages - one for each manufacturer brand name. We target these brand names for our campaign and track the progress with Moz and try to focus them in Google search. Of many of the designer names, we rank pretty well in Google search (usually under #15 when searching for the specific brand. All brands are doing well, except one brand : "Lost And Found" - a designer label we carry. This is the page for this brand name : https://cruvoir.com/5-lost-and-found we cannot figure it out. It happens to be our most important label we carry. when we search for this brand name or include it in any other search terms, we never are in the google search results. I expect it is a crawl issue, but we have covered all our ground in optimizing this brand page. It seems this page is also indexed with Google. But we cannot figure out why it does not rank us in search.
On-Page Optimization | | cruvoir0 -
Getting Google to see major changes?
I am making some big changes to my site based on Moz's advice. How can I get google to see all of them? I submitted them to Google Webmasters. Is that the best thing to do? How long until Google updates all my pages?
On-Page Optimization | | dealblogger0 -
How to mass change Title and Description of a website
Hey , I recently landed a client and his website has a lot of pages. After running a diagnostics in SEOmoz it seems like a lot of them dont have titles and descriptions. Also the ones that have titles and descriptions are not well optimized. I want to change/create titles and descriptions of this website but the problem is it has got 1000s of pages. So I was wondering is there an automated way of doing this? Thanks a lot in advance. Regards
On-Page Optimization | | MerilynL0 -
Would Changing the Titles of Root Categories Be Bad?
I have researched some more effective keywords to change my root category titles to. I am wondering if it would be a bad idea to change these titles considering all the things that could go wrong. From what i'm gathering there are a LOT of things that can go wrong but at the same time these things do need to be changed sometime! Is this a good or a bad idea & why? What could go wrong? Should I try changing the category titles one at a time instead of risking every one of my keywords / category titles not working out in the serps right away?
On-Page Optimization | | Mike.Bean0 -
How do I get rid of duplicate page titles when using a php site?
Hi. I have an e-commerce site that sells a list of products. The list is divided into categories and then those categories for the various pages on the site. An example of a page title. would be given root/products.php?c=40 another page would be given root/products.php?c=41 Is there a way to structure the site with SEO in mind?
On-Page Optimization | | curtisgibbsiii0 -
Duplicate Page Content and Duplicate Page Title
Hi All, I'm new in SEOMoz and have some questions after I have already spend 2-3 days trying to resolve the problems identified from Crawling one of my clients websites. I get quite a lot of Duplicate Page Conntent and Page Titles warnings and trying to find a workaround through the forums and posts. I continuously get this error on most of my pages: URL: http://domain.com/benefits with the same Page but with a WWW in front URL: http://www.domain.com/benefits Any advice will be highly appreciated. Thanks, Athos
On-Page Optimization | | athosk0
