Issues with Sitelinks
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Hey Everyone,
I found a couple threads where this was asked, but unfortunately I haven't seen any responses that explain it yet.
My issue is with the sitelinks Google is choosing for a section of my website; they're using wrong/lowercase anchor text for a couple of the page titles that isn't anywhere on the page or in the backend that I can find (see screenshot).
Any thoughts/reasons as to why they'd be using the lowercase text there?
Thanks in advance!
- David
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Thanks for the answers! I actually found out it had to do with a subheadline that was in all caps in the articles that was coming through. SEO, the neverending puzzle...
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I see a similar thing happening and in it looks like Google doesn't pick the title for the Sitelink, but instead Google picks my URL.
So for example where my <title>on a page can be "Contact us by sending us an email or just call us", it is correctly displayed in a non-site link situation in Google, but in a site link situation the title suddenly is displayed as "Contact", because my URL is example.com<strong>/contac</strong>t</p> <p>The same happens for the site link title "About [company name]" where the URL is example.com<strong>/about-[company-name]</strong>.</p> <p>BTW, in your case it looks like Google is picking the H1 tag in a way.</p> <p>Hope this helps.</p> <p>André</p></title>
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Unfortunately, you're in a tough spot here. Google no longer gives you the ability to have demote specific sitelinks. When it comes to page titles, Google often rewrites them as they see fit. You cannot prevent them from ignoring or editing a specific page title.
I have seen the following two things have a major impact on Google's decision to alter existing title tags.
- Title Tag Length: If your title tag is too long, Google often chooses to truncate it as they see fit or choose body content related to the query.
- Anchor Text: If you can find any internal or external anchor text links that point at those pages with that punctuation style, try to get them updated to the punctuation you want.
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