Pages Titles in SERPs - Wordpress Site
-
In Google SERPs we have several websites (built in wordpress) who's pages are being displayed without using the page title - is this google ignoring the page title or is there a problem in our code - also if this is google is it still taking notice of the page title to determine what content is on the page?I have read several articles on this but wondered if someone can advise - I can provide the URL if required.Also I wanted to 100% that our robots.txt is behaving its self.
-
OK here are the issues, stop using hyphens (-) and stop using pipes (|) these is seen as an attempt to stuff words in just for search engines. Google thinks that this will not be a good read for its users and will rename them.
Also please keep in mid that Google does change title tags based on the search query sometimes to give you a better click through rate. They are testing things all the time.
Also make sure your meta tags are the correct lengths for best results, some you have are very short and just one word not great for SEO and others are too long.
-
Looking at your domain (I've only checked out the homepage at the moment), the Title tag is implemented correctly in the code. That being said, your title tag is very long:
Gary has pointed out some reasons why Google might be ignoring your title tag. I would suspect that because you've exceeded the recommended length (generally 65 characters but up to 69 characters), they may be trying their own titles to see if it works better.
Looking at the search term you've sent over, the title for this page is as follows:
Again, this is too long for Google to show in the search results, so they're probably testing their own version instead of truncating it with ... at the end to see if they can improve your CTR.
[identifying information removed by staff at request of author]
-
Hi Gary,
Yes I read this today which is what has prompted my question - I just want to make sure that the site code is doing what it should be and check that something technical is wrong with the site. i.e. Something not marked up properly etc...
See my reply above to get the URL and details.
Cheers
-
Hello,
The pages I am looking at/that have been totally completely are all the sub pages of the "About Us" section.
This is not the page title.... The page was last updated on the 29/09/13 and last cached on 01/10/13 - Please let me know if I am looking at the wrong information.
Sorry in advance if I am being retarded - I just want to make sure the robots.txt or any other part of the code is causing this problem.
Cheers
[identifying information removed by staff at request of author]
-
Google will decide what title tag to show for your site, if they feel that your title is not compelling enough they will try different options. They do this mostly when a title tag is full of keywords or phrases and not a readable sentence.
This was actually brought up yesterday in a conversation with John Mueller yesterday.
Many recent experiments show that the Title tag is still a big ranking factor.
-
Surely is one of the key raking factor.Kindly share the URL of your site and the SEO plugin you are using.
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
-
Major Landing page removed from Google SERP and replace homepage URL.How do I fix it?
Hi Major Landing page removed from Google SERP and replace homepage URL.How do I fix it? In an SPA website (angularJS), Why it happens?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cafegardesh0 -
Google update this wknd or page title issue?
Hi, I've seen a big ranking drop for many major terms, for a particular site, just on Google. This happened Fri 20th or Sat 21st just gone. I don't see any news on an algorithm update over the weekend.I had changed many of the sites major page title protocols 2 weeks ago but a) I would have expected any negative effect before now and not all at once b) the protocols were carefully crafted to avoid traffic drops for major terms and c) i'm seeing traffic drops for keywords that still start at the beginning of the page title d) im seeing drops for some pages which are still using the OLD page titles. I had even tested the protocol on a number of pages in advance to ensure it wouldn't cause problems. As a bit of background - the title protocols were changed to make them more user friendly and less keyword heavy. CTR from search improved so was hoping for better not worse rankings! Ideas, gratefully appreciated.Andy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AndyMacLean0 -
Duplicate keyphrases in page titles = penalty?
Hello Mozzers - just looking at a website which has duplicate keyphrases in its page titles... So you have [keyphrase 1] | [exact match Keyphrase 1] Now I happen to know this particular site has suffered a dramatic fall in traffic - the SEO agency working on the site had advised the client to duplicate keyphrases. Hard to believe, huh! What I'm wondering is whether this extensive exact match keyphrase duplication might've been enough to attract a penalty? Your thoughts would be welcome.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
SEO for 1,000,000 page site
Dear All, I hope you can help me with another question about doing SEO for a large site: 1 - My domain is 11 year old, all time was a parking domain
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SteveTran2013
2 - We have 10,000 articles - unique content (500-1500 words)
3 - the remaining are automated content, however, they are also unique with data (numbers, figure) We are going to launch it in 2 weeks, and intend to do the following things: Stage 1: first 2 months - only post 10,000 articles with unique content, NO using automated ones.
Link building: get 5-10 authority links pointing to it, either article writings or link pages (authority links Yahoo directory/Dmoz) Stage 2: month 3 to 6: gradually put the automated content online while still posting unique and well written articles.
Link building: Start building links with PR websites, article submission. Do you think there are any problems with this plan? and if 5-10 links can improve our site ranking, given it has a lot of unique content? Thank you very much. BR/Tran1 -
Will thousands of redirected pages have a negative impact on the site?
A client site has thousands of pages with unoptimized urls. I want to change the url structure to make them a little more search friendly. Many of the pages I want to update have backlinks to them and good PR so I don't want to delete them entirely. If I change the urls on thousands of pages, that means a lot of 301 redirects. Will thousands of redirected pages have a negative impact on the site? Thanks, Dino
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Dino641 -
The same "About" page on multiple WordPress microsites
Hello there, I have over 10 WordPress websites that all have the same "About" page because the same company. I have concerns that this will adversely affect my sites and i'm looking for the best way to deal with this. I was either going to remove the "About" page with Google Webmaster Tools and robots.txt or use the canonical meta tag on that page. Any thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SpaMedica0 -
Why does google not show my ecommerce category page when I have the same keywords for many products in the product title?
I have found that google removes the google serach listing of a category from my site (ecommerce) when products within the category have the same key words. I sell golf shirts and have a category called "Mens Golf Shirts" Within the category I have added many products but when the too many of the products say mens golf shirt my link on google gets removed. Before i had products named: FUNKTION Mens Short Sleeve Golf Shirt Red / Black but now I have had to change it to: FUNKTION Red / Black I can understand that they may see this a keyword stuffing but how do I get around this to ensure that each product can rank on google for mens golf shirt
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | funktiongolf0 -
Was moving up in SERPS then Got Stuck on Page 2
Hi, I was continuously acquiring quality back-links and my site was moving up in Google SERPS for 3 main keywords. Within a few weeks i was on Page 2 and 3 for these three keywords, but after reaching there I got stuck on these pages and positions despite no change in link building strategy / pattern. I have even increased the number and quality of links that I acquire per day, but I am still stuck at exact same positions. The website is10 months old and related to a software niche. I update this website once a week. For one keyword I am stuck at position 1 of page two (you can well imagine the frustration..!!). My question is that what do I need to do to get out of this "SERP lock"?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RightDirection0