Google Changing the Title Tag to Your Brand
-
A while back google started changing our title tags to have our name in it, which was great and reasonable for the most part. We recently ran into a problem with it as we have some properties on our site that fall under a dba. Here is the example.
Title tag: Kolea- Waikoloa Vacation Rentals
Kolea is a vacation rental community is a resort called Waikoloa. Waikoloa Vacation Rentals is our company name and www.waikoloavacationrentals.com is our company site.Here is the problem:
Title tag: Hualalai Resort- Waikoloa Vacation Rentals
Hualalai is a completely different place than Waikoloa and we do business in there as Hualalai Vacation Rentals, but keep our properties on our www.waikoloavacationrentals.com site rather than microsites.How can you let google know that what they are doing is incorrect for specific pages? Thanks,
-
Hi Rob,
As the other guys have pointed out, it isn't possible to control when and how Google changes your title tag as far as I'm aware. You can try and send signals to Google such as linking to that page using specific anchor text, on-page copy etc.
I just did a few tests and the correct title tag seems to be appearing so Google may have figured it out and switched back to the correct one.
Are you still seeing them showing the wrong one? If so, could you link to a few examples of search results where this happens?
Cheers.
Paddy
-
If your title is concise and within the 10-70 characters limit (though width of letters can throw that off a bit) then you'll more likely appear with your correct title instead of an altered one. In some cases though, if Google considers your page relevant to a query but doesn't think your title is relevant then they will alter it. This may seem like an issue but can in fact allow you to appear for search terms that you didn't think you were relevant for but are. I've seen this happen on pages for one of the ecommerce sites I work on. When i search for one of our core terms I see the correct title and then a search for a synonym to our core term returns our site in the SERPs with an altered title. In this case its fine because the title wasn't originally optimized to the synonym but Google sees it as relevant, changes it, and allows us to rank well for the term. As far as I know though, there is no way to send Google a notice that they shouldn't alter your title in the SERPs. Google somehow reserves the rights to change how they list your site if it improves the search experience of its users.
-
Hi
Yes, we're noticing the same, more and more with fresh content the title tag seems to be ignored and replaced with just the domain name. Noticed this more frequently this week, maybe Dr Pete has some news
-
This is likely happening because Google is determining that
Hualalai Resort
is a variation of your brand name, Google tends to try and use signals to determine the best title, and somewhere along the way it has picked up signals utilizing that phrase.
What is the official brand name of the company itself?
It is relatively easy to build enough high quality citations to the website utilizing that name, and structure the pages of the site to reinforce that, so that you can influence that title selection.
-
Unfortunately, Google will re-arrange your title in a way they think it would be more appropriate/appealing to users. They usually change the word order, punctuation and god knows what else.
In your example, if the user searches for Waikoloa Vacation Rentals, while your real title is "Kolea- Waikoloa Vacation Rentals" they may change it to "Waikoloa Vacation Rentals: Kolea" and there's nothing you can do to have your title displayed as YOU want it to.
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
-
Different meta tags appearing in SERP for same landing page
Hi all, hoping someone can help. We have a landing page that ranks quite well for a number of keywords that send us a nice amount of organic traffic. We understand the importance of Meta tags, as Google will be the users first interaction with our site we want to stand out and be noticed and also show we provide information on their search query. The problem is this, while we have optimised the title and description tags for the landing page, this is only appearing on specific search results. If you were to search a different keyword, you would still get the same landing page, but the title tag and description would not pull through, it decides to pull through the page name and first few lines of text instead. Is there anything we can do to sort this issue?
Branding | | Ben_Malkin_Develo0 -
Spammy brand mentions
Hi guys, Recently I started to receive via Google Alerts a lot of brand mentions on obviously spammy pages/websites like this http://www.iconshut.com/business-cards-every-matrix-has-recently-gone-through-a-rebranding--icons/ Where Every Matrix (EveryMatrix) is our brand name. It have first noticed it a few weeks ago but I started to receive this kind of alerts almost daily. There are no links pointing back to our website so I can not disavow them at least. Since it could be a negative SEO attempt, my feelings are that this kind of mentions (https://moz.com/blog/panda-patent-brand-mentions) will hurt on the long run and I'm concerned that I can not control it or at least I don't know how to do it. What is you take on this? What can we do?
Branding | | EveryMatrix0 -
Changing Social Media Profiles Name
Hi Mozzers, A client is thinking about changing their social media handles to shorten them to just their brand name as opposed to brand name plus the word 'apparel'. What is the implications of doing this and does the link change from facebook/brand-apparel or does the URL stay the same? Thanks Gareth
Branding | | Bush_JSM0 -
Google +
Hello mozzers , We manage a website for a client This is the website: http://www.mynaughtyscotland.com . [editor's note: site for escorts in Scotland, may not be safe for some workplaces]They recently got penalized but they don't have links so is not a penguin update.The client said that they noticed the drops in rank after they had their Google + account suspended.So the question is, if you have your google + account conected to the website by the rel="publisher" tag,And your google + account gets suspended, will you be getting your site penalized as well ?
Branding | | asmedia0 -
Path to getting reviews on Google and Yelp
Yelp and Google, what would be the right path customers have to follow in order for their reviews to be posted and more importantly, to stay there?
Branding | | echo10 -
Why has Google started to re-write my page titles?
Since earlier this week I've noticed that Google has started to re-write several of our page titles and I'm not entirely sure why - does anyone have any info? We are a UK business and currently have top spot for the keyword 'toilet cubicles' - however, our index.html page title has changed as follows: FROM: Toilet Cubicles | WC Panel Systems for Washrooms | Cubicle Centre TO: Cubicle Centre: Toilet Cubicles | WC Panel Systems for Washrooms Is this Google favouring a more brand-led approach to search? Be interesting to hear everyone's thoughts... Cheers, Craig.
Branding | | cubicle_Craig0 -
One writer, multiple brands - optimizing rel=author across several blogs
Our company has a few different brands, each with their own domain and site. These are not microsites intended to drive traffic to a main site; they all have independent e-commerce functions, full product lines, etc. Imagine we run Plumbing Widgets Inc, Kitchen Remodeling Company, and Springfield Countertops. It's not immediately obvious to surfers that one parent company operates all of these brands, and we're fine with that. Considering that it enables us to own a lot of SERP real estate for some money KWs, we're more than fine with it. We'd like to create a blog for each of these sites/brands. Here's where it gets tricky. After doing some reading, I am persuaded that using rel=author will help us with SERP CTR and possibly rankings themselves. I am going to be writing all of the blog content, at least to start. I don't think I want to rel=author myself on all of these discrete blogs, do I? And surface the fact that one person is the head writer for the blogs of all these brands? Creating blogging pseudonyms doesn't seem like a good idea, since part of the value of rel=author is genuine social engagement, and creating social personas that seem genuine is probably more trouble than it's worth. (Not to mention icky and dishonest.) Should I choose a customer service rep or manager for each brand and use their names and social identities (with their permission, obviously)? It seems like that would involve challenges of its own. I've ghostwritten for one business owner before, but this is on a larger, more complex scale. Any insights are appreciated!
Branding | | CMC-SD0 -
How to set up Google Local for regional branches?
Hi our company is expanding and we are opening up branches throughout the UK. I want to register a Google Local for each of our new branches. How is best to do this? My exposure to Google Local is somewhat limited, though I have set up single businesses before, I've never dealth with multiple addresses. Any help or advice would be great! Thanks Aran
Branding | | Aran_Smithson0