Why Google scrambles/change our product page titles? And descriptions too?
-
Here is an interesting issue we are noticing lately: Google is always more scrambling and changing the title of our product pages in the SERPs results.
Here is an example:
Keyword: "bach arioso sheet music". We are down at the 6th spot, and the shown title is different from what's defined inside the TITLE tag of that page.
And that appears often for other keywords/product pages. Why's that? How can we control that? It is hard for us to optimize titles and test CTR and other metrics if Google is showing them differently to the users.
Similar issue with the description tag: sometimes Google instead of showing to the users the description tag contents, shows part of the text taken from the page even though the searched keywords are included both in the title and the description tag, and so I can't find justification to show text taken from the page instead... it is quite difficult to understand the motivation beyond all this!
Any thoughts are very welcome. Thanks!
Fab.
-
Yes, that makes sense... I will do that. Thanks!
-
You need to change it to something less keyword stuffed and less spammy looking that you are happy with and see how Google handles it. Experiment.
BTW, you and I may not think your title is keyword stuffed or spammy, but that does not matter - what matters is the algorithm is interpreting it as that, so you need to change it to get the title in the search results that is better than what Google is deciding for you.
-
Hmm... I guess I need to test a little bit more on this. That's good to know, thank you!
-
I think the way Google change them is often terrible, and I don't understand why it changes my titles and not my competitors' when they are pretty much all alike. I don't see much logic here... anyhow, if this is the way it works and there is nothing I can do about it, that's ok. I will make some more research on this topic. Thanks!
-
Yeah, I can understand that, but how can I test different titles, wording, etc if Google change them anyway? That becomes something hard to test... am I wrong?
-
Agreed, Google tend to change them when the algorithm perceives that the title of the page is not useful to the searcher. This usually happens when the title is spammy or keyword stuffed. Google is trying to better serve the searcher and not the webmaster by doing this. You need to experiment/split test the title.
-
Google tends to scramble the title tag and description tag up if they think that it will serve the user better based on the provided search query.
Sometimes Google changes title tags so they'll contain branding purposes.
Anyway nothing is wrong with Google changing your title and/or description tags. Google always serves what they think is best for the users. I've noticed that they were scrambling my things up too and they actually helped me improve my title tag.
-
Why not change it to the way Google is displaying it? Maybe they like that better
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
-
Blocking Dynamic Search Result Pages From Google
Hi Mozzerds, I have a quick question that probably won't have just one solution. Most of the pages that Moz crawled for duplicate content we're dynamic search result pages on my site. Could this be a simple fix of just blocking these pages from Google altogether? Or would Moz just crawl these pages as critical crawl errors instead of content errors? Ultimately, I contemplated whether or not I wanted to rank for these pages but I don't think it's worth it considering I have multiple product pages that rank well. I think in my case, the best is probably to leave out these search pages since they have more of a negative impact on my site resulting in more content errors than I would like. So would blocking these pages from the Search Engines and Moz be a good idea? Maybe a second opinion would help: what do you think I should do? Is there another way to go about this and would blocking these pages do anything to reduce the number of content errors on my site? I appreciate any feedback! Thanks! Andrew
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | drewstorys0 -
SEO Impact & Google Impact On Removing Product From Category Page for Ecommerce Site
Hello Experts, For my Ecommerce site previously I was showing products at category pages i.e. first all subcategories name after that list all products of all subcateogries. That also approx per category 500 products via load more feature. My query is now I am planning to show products only at Product Listing Page and not on Category pages so what will be SEO impact and how google will treat this? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Johny123450 -
Our Web Site Is candere.com. Its PA and back link status are different for https://www.candere.com, http://www.candere.com, https://candere.com, and http://candere.com. Recently, we have completely move from http to https.
How can we fix it, so that we may mot lose ranking and authority.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Dhananjayukumar0 -
Why would one of our section pages NOT be indexed by Google?
One of our higher traffic section pages is not being indexed by Google. The products that reside on this section page ARE indexed by Google and are on page 1. So why wouldn't the section page be even listed and indexed? The meta title is accurate, meta description is good. I haven't received any notices in Webmaster Tools. Is there a way to check to see if OTHER pages might also not be indexed? What should a small ecom site do to see about getting it listed? SOS in Modesto. Ron
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | yatesandcojewelers0 -
Why is our page will not being found by google?
Hi, We have a page that went live nearly 2 months ago. https://www.invoicestudio.com/Secure/InvoiceTemplate Why does google not notice it. Both site: URL's return nothing. site:www.invoicestudio.com/Secure/InvoiceTemplate site:www.invoicestudio.com/Secure This is an important page for us and do not understand why google doesn't like it. Hope you can help Thanks Andrew
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Studio330 -
Google is displaying my pages path instead of URLS (Pages name)
Does anyone knows why Google is displaying my pages path instead of the URL in the search results, i discoverd that while am searching using a keyword of mine then i copied the link http://www.smarttouch.me/services-saudi/web-services/web-design and found all related results are the same, could anyone one tell me why is that and is it really differs? or the URL display is more important than the Path display for SEO!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ali8810 -
Posing QU's on Google Variables "aclk", "gclid" "cd", "/aclk" "/search", "/url" etc
I've been doing a bit of stats research prompted by read the recent ranking blog http://www.seomoz.org/blog/gettings-rankings-into-ga-using-custom-variables There are a few things that have come up in my research that I'd like to clear up. The below analysis has been done on my "conversions". 1/. What does "/aclk" mean in the Referrer URL? I have noticed a strong correlation between this and "gclid" in the landing page variable. Does it mean "ad click" ?? Although they seem to "closely" correlate they don't exactly, so when I have /aclk in the referrer Url MOSTLY I have gclid in the landing page URL. BUT not always, and the same applies vice versa. It's pretty vital that I know what is the best way to monitor adwords PPC, so what is the best variable to go on? - Currently I am using "gclid", but I have about 25% extra referral URL's with /aclk in that dont have "gclid" in - so am I underestimating my number of PPC conversions? 2/. The use of the variable "cd" is great, but it is not always present. I have noticed that 99% of my google "Referrer URL's" either start with:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | James77
/aclk - No cd value
/search - No cd value
/url - Always contains the cd variable. What do I make of this?? Thanks for the help in advance!0 -
Why does this page not show in google at all?
www.lavenderblue-flowers.co.uk Sorry for formatting, below is the source. There are alot of blocks from robots.txt but is there anything easily rectified to get this site SOME visibility? Duplicate content maybe PANDA had it? No backlink profile too which isnt helping but even still, surprising to see a domain auth of 1. Thanks in advance for any responses. DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html><head><meta content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"><meta http-equiv="expires" content="Fri, 17 Jun 2011 12:06:27 GMT"><title>Bridport Interflora Florist, Lavender Blue, Dorset, DT16 3XDtitle><meta name="description" content="Lavender Blue in Bridport, Dorset, DT16 3XD delivers to Interflora florist based in Bridport is a well established family run business with a dedicated team of florists. We specialise in beautiful wedding flowers and take great pride in our funeral tributes, floral arrangements designed for any occasion for local, national and worldwide delivery."><meta name="keywords" content="Bridport,Interflora Florist,Lavender Blue,Dorset,DT16 3XD"><meta name="abstract" content="Interflora florist based in Bridport is a well established family run business with a dedicated team of florists. We specialise in beautiful wedding flowers and take great pride in our funeral tributes, floral arrangements designed for any occasion for local, national and worldwide delivery."><meta name="robots" content="index,nofollow"><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/kernel/styles/print.css?new=new" media="print"><link rel="stylesheet" href="/kernel/styles/d4.css?designtype=d4;theme=blue;" type="text/css"><style type="text/css">style><script language="JavaScript1.2" src="/kernel/utils.js?new" type="text/javascript">script><script language="JavaScript1.2" type="text/javascript" src="/kernel/interflora.js?head=1;si=1000343;">script><script language="JavaScript1.2" type="text/javascript">script><script language="javascript"> var b_site_url = getcookie('b_site_url');if (b_site_url != "" && !getcookie('referral_id') && location.protocol == 'http:' && b_site_url != location.host && location.pathname.indexOf('catalog2') == -1) location.href = location.protocol + "//" + b_site_url + location.pathname + location.search;script>head><body><img border="0" src="/kernel/images/speck.gif" width="1" height="1" alt class="nospace"><div id="page-body"><table class="page-topbanner" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td background="/kernel/images/d4/border-blue_03.gif" align="left" valign="top"><img src="/kernel/images/d4/border-blue_01.gif" alt>td><td colspan="2" style="background-image: url(/kernel/images/d4/border-blue_03.gif); background-position: top; background-repeat: repeat-x;"><img src="/kernel/images/speck.gif" width="300" height="50" alt>td><td align="right" valign="top" background="/kernel/images/d4/border-blue_03.gif"><img src="/kernel/images/d4/border-blue_04.gif" alt>td>tr><tr><td style="background-image: url(/kernel/images/d4/border-blue_05.gif); background-repeat: repeat-y;" align="left" valign="top"><img src="/kernel/images/d4/border-blue_01b.gif" alt>td><td valign="top" class="sd-image_only" id="sd-logo_store" colspan="1" rowspan="1"><img src="/kernel/imageload?ttl2=15;table=content_images;key1=fd_img_2606422_1" alt="" title="">td><td class="logo-if" align="right"><img src="/kernel/images/logo-if.png" alt="interflora.co.uk the flower experts™">td><td style="background-image: url(/kernel/images/d4/border-blue_07.gif); background-position: right; background-repeat: repeat-y;"> td>tr><tr><td style="background-image: url(/kernel/images/d4/border-blue_05.gif); background-position: left; background-repeat: repeat-y;" colspan="3" align="center"><table id="website" cellspacing="0" border="0" align="center"><tr><td colspan="3" id="fol_address">1 Lilliput Lane, Bridport, Dorset, DT16 3XDtd>tr><tr><td id="email" colspan="3"><b>Email:b> lavenderblueflowers@hotmail.co.uktd>tr><tr><td style="padding-right:10px;"><b>Phone:b> 01308 459145td><td style="padding-right:10px;"><b>Fax:b> 01308 458417td>tr>table>td><td style="background-image: url(/kernel/images/d4/border-blue_07.gif); background-position: right; background-repeat: repeat-y;"> td>tr><tr><td style="background-image: url(/kernel/images/d4/border-blue_05.gif); background-position: left; background-repeat: repeat-y;" colspan="3" align="center"><div class="page-topmenu"><table class="page-topmenu" cellspacing="0"><tr><td id="account"><a href="/myaccount/"><img src="/kernel/images/d4/icon-account.gif" style="margin: 3px 3px 4px 3px; vertical-align: middle;" width="15" height="13" alt="My Account">My Accounta>td><td id="menu"><a href="/">Homea><img class="bullet" src="/kernel/images/speck.gif" width="2" height="2" alt style="margin: 10px 4px 10px 4px;"><a href="/page.xml?page_name=about">About Usa><img class="bullet" src="/kernel/images/speck.gif" width="2" height="2" alt style="margin: 10px 4px 10px 4px;"><a href="/page.xml?page_name=delivery">Delivery Infoa><img class="bullet" src="/kernel/images/speck.gif" width="2" height="2" alt style="margin: 10px 4px 10px 4px;"><a href="/page.xml?page_name=contactus">Contact Usa>td><td id="cart"><a href="/shopcart/"><img src="/kernel/images/d4/icon-shopcart.gif" style="margin: 3px; vertical-align: middle;" width="14" hieght="14" alt="Shopping Basket">Shopping Basketa>td>tr>table>div>td><td style="background-image: url(/kernel/images/d4/border-blue_07.gif); background-position: right; background-repeat: repeat-y;"> td>tr>table><p id="browser-warning" style="display: block; padding: 2px; border: 2px solid #FC9F85; margin: 0px; background-color: #FDFFC4;"><b>For your information:b> This message has appeared because we've noticed your browser doesn't fully support all functions of this site. For further information please <a href="/page.xml?page_name=faq">click herea>.p><script language="JavaScript1.2" type="text/javascript">var theBrowser = navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase();if(is_nav7up || (parseInt(is_moz_ver) >= 1) || is_ie5_5up || theBrowser.indexOf("safari") != -1) {hideElement('browser-warning',0);}script><table class="body" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td align="left" valign="bottom" style="background-image: url(/kernel/images/d4/border-blue_05.gif); background-position: left; background-repeat: repeat-y;"><img src="/kernel/images/d4/border-blue_05.gif" alt>td><td class="menu" valign="top"><img src="/kernel/images/speck.gif" width="150" height="1" border="0" alt><br><form method="get" action="/search/index.xml" id="leftnav_search"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" class="global-search"><tr><th colspan="2">SEARCHth>tr><tr><td width="50%"><input class="text" type="text" name="keywords1" id="search" value maxlength="50" size="15">td><td align="left"><input type="submit" class="button" name="search" id="search" value="GO">td>tr><tr><td colspan="2" align="left"><a href="/search/advanced_search.xml">Advanced Searcha>td>tr>table>form><div class="menusection"><a class="menuParent_off" id="parentcat_2003443" href="/catalog/category.xml?category_id=2003443"><div class="spacer">div><span class="menu-bullet"><img src="/kernel/images/arrow.gif" class="menu-bullet">Anniversaryspan><div class="spacer">div>a><div class="menuChildren" id="menuChildrencat_2003443">div><a class="menuParent_off" id="parentcat_2003453" href="/catalog/category.xml?category_id=2003453"><div class="spacer">div><span class="menu-bullet"><img src="/kernel/images/arrow.gif" class="menu-bullet">Congratulationsspan><div class="spacer">div>a><div class="menuChildren" id="menuChildrencat_2003453">div><a class="menuParent_off" id="parentcat_4" href="/category/flower-arrangements/"><div class="spacer">div><span class="menu-bullet"><img src="/kernel/images/arrow.gif" class="menu-bullet">All Flower Bouquetsspan><div class="spacer">div>a><div class="menuChildren" id="menuChildrencat_4">div><a class="menuParent_off" id="parentcat_2003493" href="/catalog/category.xml?category_id=2003493"><div class="spacer">div><span class="menu-bullet"><img src="/kernel/images/arrow.gif" class="menu-bullet">Sympathy & Funeralspan><div class="spacer">div>a><div class="menuChildren" id="menuChildrencat_2003493">div><a class="menuParent_off" id="parentcat_2003463" href="/catalog/category.xml?category_id=2003463"><div class="spacer">div><span class="menu-bullet"><img src="/kernel/images/arrow.gif" class="menu-bullet">Thank Youspan><div class="spacer">div>a><div class="menuChildren" id="menuChildrencat_2003463">div><a class="menuParent_off" id="parentcat_2001478" href="/category/same-day-flowers/"><div class="spacer">div><span class="menu-bullet"><img src="/kernel/images/arrow.gif" class="menu-bullet">Same Day Flower Deliveryspan><div class="spacer">div>a><div class="menuChildren" id="menuChildrencat_2001478">div><a class="menuParent_off" id="parentcat_2124203" href="/category/summer_flowers/"><div class="spacer">div><span class="menu-bullet"><img src="/kernel/images/arrow.gif" class="menu-bullet">Summer Flowersspan><div class="spacer">div>a><div class="menuChildren" id="menuChildrencat_2124203">div><a class="menuParent_off" id="parentcat_2003403" href="/category/luxury-flowers/"><div class="spacer">div><span class="menu-bullet"><img src="/kernel/images/arrow.gif" class="menu-bullet">Luxury Flowersspan><div class="spacer">div>a><div class="menuChildren" id="menuChildrencat_2003403">div><a class="menuParent_off" id="parentcat_1000343" href="/catalo
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ewanstevenson0