Big change to title tags in SERPs for me, anyone else?
-
Beginning today, when I search in incognito mode, Google is giving me extremely limited titles, and not really going off of the title tag. The results are horrible for users, and make me nervous as an SEO. Image attached below:
-
I can't replicate it, but I wouldn't assume it's a glitch. Google is taking a lot more liberties with titles and snippets lately, and that's going to continue. It looks like they're going to remove display URLs (or rewrite them to paths) on mobile, and that may go to desktop, too.
In some cases, this can be a sign that Google thinks the title tag is either (a) a poor match to the query, or (b) too long or too spammy. If you're seeing title tags being rewritten frequently, you may want to revisit them in the context of that query. You can't 100% stop Google from rewriting, but there are ways not to encourage it.
-
Yeah, I figure it's a glitch, but never seen it before, and with their mobile stuff rolling out, I could see them testing title shortening tactics.
Still happening in incog every time, and never when I'm logged in.
-
I'm not seeing that in my incognito searches at all (or in logged in searches either.)
I wouldn't worry too much about it as an SEO. As you said, it's not a really good experience. Google would want to rectify that if it was a bug - it can't be a long term feature to show worse titles & low quality results. That just doesn't make sense from their business point of view.
Odd search result though, thanks for sharing it. I'll keep my eyes out too.
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
-
Rel=Canonical Tag on Homepage
I have a Rel=canonical Tag (link rel="canonical" href="htttps://homepage.com") on the homepage. Could this possibly have a negative effect? is it necessary?
Algorithm Updates | | JMSCC0 -
Google SERPs changes
Hi I wonder if anyone knew of any changes to the Google SERPs appearance in August 2015? We dropped in over a thousand visits to the homepage on brand so I wanted to find out why. Also, our DA went from 36 to 34 - does Google panda affect domain authority at all? Thank you
Algorithm Updates | | BeckyKey0 -
Googlebot soon to be executing javascript - Should I change my robots.txt?
This question came to mind as I was pursuing an unrelated issue and reviewing a site's robots/txt file. Currently this is a line item in the file: Disallow: https://* According to a recent post in the Google Webmasters Central Blog: [http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2014/05/understanding-web-pages-better.html](http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2014/05/understanding-web-pages-better.html "Understanding Web Pages Better") Googlebot is getting much closer to being able to properly render javascript. Pardon some ignorance on my part because I am not a developer, but wouldn't this require Googlebot be able to execute javascript? If so, I am concerned that disallowing Googlebot from the https:// versions of our pages could interfere with crawling and indexation because as soon as an end-user clicks the "checkout" button on our view cart page, everything on the site flips to https:// - If this were disallowed then would Googlebot stop crawling at that point and simply leave because all pages were now https:// ??? Or am I just waaayyyy over thinking it?...wouldn't be the first time! Thanks all! [](http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2014/05/understanding-web-pages-better.html "Understanding Web Pages Better")
Algorithm Updates | | danatanseo0 -
Did .org vs. .com SEO importance recently changed?
I have seen previous answers in the Forum about this subject but Google has seemed to have again changed the playing surface. Within the past 30 days, we have seen a huge spike in organic search returns seeming to favor .org as domain authorities. Has anyone else noticed this shift and is it just coincidence or worth factoring in? If it is a shift, will Google punish those that have .org but have used.com previously for switching the redirects to serve .org first? Thanks, Jim
Algorithm Updates | | jimmyzig0 -
Hummingbird - Client took hit. Anyone else?
I recently landed a client about 2 months ago. About 1 month ago organic started to go down. I'm not 100% sure it's Google hummingbird. Has anyone else looked at their GA or GWT and seen a decline?
Algorithm Updates | | Francisco_Meza0 -
Why do weaker competitors on open site explorer outrank me on SERP
Hi I am new to the whole SEO + marketing and was just wondering why the competition is doing better in SERP they are all in the top 1-5 positions; however i am 5th on page 2 ?? after doing a site explorer analysis i found that I am beating them in all aspects, my site is sparrowmakeup.com.au keyword is "makeup artist sydney' any suggestions on how to increase my SERP would be helpfull.
Algorithm Updates | | EdsonGroupMedia1 -
Is anybody else seeing large scale rankings drops in Bing this week?
I track around 1000 keywords for this site, and my rankings in Bing dropped for about half of them on Wednesday. No major changes have been made to the site, rankings are maintaining or improving in Google for a majority of these same terms. The average drop seems to be around 9-12 places, which to me signals more than just standard fluctuation. Anyone else seeing anything strange with Bing this week? Or does anyone have any ideas? I looked for posts about an algorithm change but haven't found anything. Thanks.
Algorithm Updates | | BrianCC0 -
Why does my Rank Checker result differ to SERPs
Hello SEOmoz members I've got yet another naive question for you. RankChecker is telling me that my client has risen to pg 1 position 7. Whilst SERPs is telling me they are still on position 14. I know that SERPs is variable depending on many factors, but this holds true for separate searches on other computers in various far flung locations. Please give me some insight into what is happening. I'm waiting to open the bubbly! Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | catherine-2793880