Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Home Page Title - Google Overriding my Title Tag
-
Hi,
We have noticed our home page title tag has now been replaced by our brand name (by Google I'm assuming).
We have also noted that the page is dropping off SERPS for our main keywords, I suspect they are related but ofc I cant be sure. I know the recent Google update has impacted titles but I wasn't sure if it would apply here.
Has anyone any advice on this and/or having the same issue?
We normally rank well for grass seed (UK search) https://thegrasspeople.com/
I also noticed some strange mark up in our source code which seems to have been left behind by Sketch - we are getting this removed.
<title>Combined Shape</title> <desc>Created with Sketch.</desc>Chris
-
There seems to be a misunderstanding as the Page Title is matching the title tag of the code. Kindly check once again.
-
I have the same issue with my site - South West Film. The page title is Video Production Company Bristol - South West Film but Google replaces it with South West Film: Video Production Company Bristol. Not sure if it is hurting my rankings.
-
I have the same issue with my Joomla site South West Film which has the title tag as Video Production Company Bristol - South West Film but Google replaces it with South West Film: Video Production Company Bristol. Not sure if it is hurting my ranking.
-
Thanks for the advice.
-
Hey @chris_mc
We all had noticed a similar issue but this is not something new. Just like Google decides what to show for a meta description tag from the page on a SEPR, similarly, it can even choose the most appropriate title to display on SERPs based on your page content.
I would recommend adding quality content (About 600 to 800 words) which signals the crawlers what the page is about and include your primary and secondary keywords in the Page Title, Meta Description, Image Alt Tags, Headers, Content & Page URL and other important on-page avenues if feasible.
These will provide great signals to the crawler and Googlebot will know and showcase the appropriate Page Title.
-
@piotrstarzynski Thanks for the reply and link - we've asked the devs the same question, they are workling on the changes - they are just a little slow..
-
@chris_mc Title looks exactly the same as in code.
You have some unnecessary/garbage things in code. For example why do you need title meta?
Take a look here: developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/crawling/special-tags?hl=en
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
-
When Google rewrites a title tag, do you get the SEO impact for the original version?
Let's say you're writing a homepage title tag like this: KEYWORD | BRAND and Google rewrites it as BRAND | KEYWORD From Moz and best practices, we believe that keywords closer to the beginning of a title tag may have more impact on search rankings. So, when Google rewrites the title tag, do you get the impact you would have made with the keyword being closer to the front? Or, does Google give you the impact you would have received with the keyword being at the end?
On-Page Optimization | | Kevin_P0 -
Questions about putting 2-3 keywords in title tag.
Hi there, what is the best way to decide the keywords to be used in title tag?
Web Design | | lucybish0 -
Home Page Disappears From Google - But Rest of Site Still Ranked
As title suggests we are running into a serious issue of the home page disapearing from Google search results whilst the rest of the site still remains. We search for it naturally cannot find a trace, then use a "site:" command in Google and still the home page does not come up. We go into web masters and inspect the home page and even Google states that the page is indexable. We then run the "Request Indexing" and the site comes back on Google. This is having a damaging affect and we would like to understand why this issue is happening. Please note this is not happening on just one of our sites but has happened to three which are all located on the same server. One of our brand which has the issue is: www.henweekends.co.uk
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JH_OffLimits0 -
Is Google able to see child pages in our AJAX pagination?
We upgraded our site to a new platform the first week of August. The product listing pages have a canonical issue. Page 2 of the paginated series has a canonical pointing to page 1 of the series. Google lists this as a "mistake" and we're planning on implementing best practice (https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2013/04/5-common-mistakes-with-relcanonical.html) We want to implement rel=next,prev. The URLs are constructed using a hashtag and a string of query parameters. You'll notice that these parameters are ¶meter:value vs ¶meter=value. /products#facet:&productBeginIndex:0&orderBy:&pageView:grid&minPrice:&maxPrice:&pageSize:& None of the URLs are included in any indexed URLs because the canonical is the page URL without the AJAX parameters. So these results are expected. Screamingfrog only finds the product links on page 1 and doesn't move to page 2. The link to page 2 is AJAX. ScreamingFrog only crawls AJAX if its in Google's deprecated recommendations as far as I know. The "facet" parameter is noted in search console, but the example URLs are for an unrelated URL that uses the "?facet=" format. None of the other parameters have been added by Google to the console. Other unrelated parameters from the new site are in the console. When using the fetch as Google tool, Google ignores everything after the "#" and shows only the main URL. I tested to see if it was just pulling the canonical of the page for the test, but that was not the case. None of the "#facet" strings appear in the Moz crawl I don't think Google is reading the "productBeginIndex" to specify the start of a page 2 and so on. One thought is to add the parameter in search console, remove the canonical, and test one category to see how Google treats the pages. Making the URLs SEO friendly (/page2.../page3) is a heavy lift. Any ideas how to diagnose/solve this issue?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jason.Capshaw0 -
Best Practices for Homepage Title Tag
Hi, I would like to know if there is any update about the best practices for the homepage title tag. I mean, a couple of years ago, it was still working placing main keywords in the homepage title tag. But since the last google SERP update, the number of characters that are being shown were reduced, and now we try to work with 55 and 56 characters. That has reduced our capacity of including many keywords on the title tag. Besides, search engines are smarter now to choose the correct inner page to show in SERP. But I am wondering if the Homepage Title should have a branded orientation or should include main keywords, cause it is still working that strategy. I would appreciatte any update in this issue. Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | teconsite0 -
Google indexing pages from chrome history ?
We have pages that are not linked from site yet they are indexed in Google. It could be possible if Google got these pages from browser. Does Google takes data from chrome?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vivekrathore0 -
Home Page Copy Ideal Length
Hi Guys, I'm currently trying to turn around the organic performance of a website I have been working on. I have been reading that content for home pages should be particularly long. What is the ideal length of the copy on a home page? 500 words, 1000 words, 1500 words? The current work is kind of short in my opinion, and I would like to know if it would be a worth while effort to make it longer since this thing is getting clobbered organically. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | oomdomarketing1 -
Should I Allow Blog Tag Pages to be Indexed?
I have a wordpress blog with settings currently set so that Google does not index tag pages. Is this a best practice that avoids duplicate content or am I hurting the site by taking eligible pages out of the index?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JSOC0