Does personalization that changes meta data display in SERPs impact SEO?
-
My company has been rolling out personalization at the page level across our site using behavior paths embedding content from cross pathed pages as well as customer journey mapping. The dynamically generated content doesn’t change the URLs. In the SERPs I’m seeing that our title tags and meta descriptions also seem to be dynamically generated even though we have these elements crafted.
The way our elements are crafted:
- Title tag: descriptive Keyword rich phrase | Brand
- Meta description: Keyword rich, grammatically correct description tied to title tag and page content for consistency.
I search a specific URL:
- Title tag display: Keyword rich phrase | Brand – Brand
- Meta description display: Random content pulled from the page
I search a phrase that includes Brand + keywords in the URL:
- Title tag display: Title tag we crafted
- Meta description display: Meta description we crafted
I search a phrase that includes Brand + keywords in the title tag:
- Title tag display: Title tag we crafted
- Meta description display: Random content pulled from the page
Does Google crawl the page and digest the title tag and meta description we crafted? Or is Google going to ding us for having the brand twice, exceeding the length of the title tag, etc.? I have been searching the interwebs, forums and the cosmos, but the only information I’m finding is related to the fact that URLs are changing and how that would impact SEO. That’s not the case for us. Thoughts on how all this is impacting our SEO efforts?
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
-
My site is showing indexed in search console but not appearing in Serps
hi, i have recently made sites.google site and submitted to search console but when I copy paste in google , its not appearing
Algorithm Updates | | alan-shultis0 -
Dates appear before home page description in the SERPs- HUGE drop in rankings
We have been on the first page of Google for a number of years for search terms including 'SEO Agency', 'SEO Agency London' etc. A few months ago we made some changes to the design of the home page (added a blog feed), and made changes to the website sitemap. Two days ago (two months after last site changes were made) we dropped subsantially in the SERPs for all home page keywords. Where we are found, a date appears before the description in the SERPs, dating February 2012 (which is when we launched the original website). The site has been through a revamp since then, yet it still shows 2012. This has been followed by a few additional strange things, including the sitelinks that Google is choosing to show (which including author bio pages showing in homepage site links), and googling our brand name no longer brings up sitelinks in the SERPs. The problem only affects the home page. All other pages are performing as standard. When Penguin 4.0 came out we saw a noted improvement in our SERP performance, and our backlinks are good and quality, largely from PR efforts. Of course, I would be interested in additional pairs of eyes on the back links to see if anyone thinks that I have missed anything! We have 3 of our senior SEOs working on trying to figure out what is going on and how to resolve it, but I would be very interested if anyone has any thoughts?
Algorithm Updates | | GoUp3 -
Google Adding / Manipulating Page Meta Titles?
We have a client who is experiencing some heavy google modification to the title tags being displayed on the search engine. It is adding "- 0 Reviews" to an ecommerce site. Obviously a bad start. There were no instances of these keywords anywhere on any of these pages, header tag or otherwise (on only a handful of the affected pages there was a single commented out image with an alt tag 0 reviews - but it was commented out and since removed) We have attempted to rewrite the title multiple times and it will modify the title but still include the non-relevant addition. Has anyone ever experienced anything like this?
Algorithm Updates | | Spindle0 -
Super Awesome SERPs
Okay, anyone else notice the resent UI launch in the Google SERPs? I was planning a trip to visit a friend in Dayton, Ohio and used the query "things to do in dayton oh" and i got a really neat points of interest bar and city stats. Anyone notice anything else neat with the UI change? Seems like some good stuff for local possibly. example-serp.png
Algorithm Updates | | kchandler0 -
SEO Budgets, the million dollar question???
Hi All, I am currently looking to revamp my SEO strategy inline with Google's latest Panda and Penguin updates, and looking to appoint a new agency. With SEO changing so much over the years and so many players in the marketplace quoting all sorts, I simply need to determine the kind of money I need to be spending on my SEO, 2) what i should be getting for the money, or different budget levels what I need to be focusing on in priority order, a top ten in sorts Should i be looking to increase or decrease my spend over the long term. I am only a small business with a turnover of about 50 - 80k and need to really cement my strategy so it work long term but also shows a steady return. I have one guy quoting $99 a month, one £250 and one £750, you can probably see my problem. Thanks in advance.
Algorithm Updates | | etsgroup0 -
Is changing your meta titles frequently good SEO Practice
Greetings, Im a new SEO and really knew nothing until signing up to SEOMoz. After reading the SEO101 and gathering as much information in a short period of time things started to become a little clearer. So I started my first campaign used my new SEO knowledge and input all of my meta information. Then I waited a few days to see what happened with my search result. We had never ranked for a single keyword before mind you. So a couple/few of days go by and I started punching in my keywords and looking through the pages. There I was page three. I was SO happy. I read the entire SEO101 again, realized a little more about what I had to do. So I started changing everything up, adding pictures, I found out what a IMG ALT Attributes were in the HTML editor, bolded text and all the other things I missed the first time around. Three days go by and I move up again. I start to notice my traffic is increasing and I am actually getting organic hits through search traffic. This has never happened before. I am over the moon. But I realize that I have my main focus keyword as the second key word in my title tag. So I switch the two words around, wait a few more days. Here's why I ask my question. The original title tag was still showing up and I was on the first page for both keywords, and I could see both title tags when searching for either keyword. So; Is changing your meta titles frequently good SEO Practice ? Warmest regards, Michael S&M Warning: adult site, NSFW
Algorithm Updates | | Sexandmetal0 -
Sitelink Disappeared from SERPs
Hi everyone, Something weird has happened to one of our client's site. First of all I want to explain that the client's name is something like a Person Name plus another generic keyword, for example Truxy Lawyers. Before when you searched for the brand keyword (in my example Truxy), Google would show in the SERPs the client's site as first result with six sitelinks below. Now when searching for the same branded keyword (for example Truxy), Google doesn't show the sitelink anymore, but the first result is the home page and the second and third results are subdomain pages. Does anybody know why Google all of the sudden decided to stop showing the site link? Things get more weird when you search the complete brand name "Truxy Lawers" for example, because in this case Google shows the site link. Does anybody know what has caused this? Thank you!
Algorithm Updates | | Aviatech0 -
FLASH vs HTML links in SEO
In terms of a small flash slideshow and having text and links on various slides within, is such text and links as easily index-able (or even at all) compared to static html text on a webpage?
Algorithm Updates | | heritageseo0
