SERPs Showing H1s Instead of Title Tags?
-
Hi,
I'm noticing two strange things in search results recently. Often I find that if I search for a client's company name, I see just the company name in SERPs where the title tag would normally be displayed. Examples:
'aci northwest'
'lanz heating'
As strange as that is, I'm tempted to assume this is just Google's way of "getting smarter" and showing more relevant results (though I'm not sure exactly where it's pulling from).
But it gets stranger. For the first example, 'aci northwest', when search that key phrase on Bing/Yahoo!, etc. I'm not only not seeing the title tag where it would normally be, but I'm seeing the H1 in it's place:
"When your projects demand more, demand ACI."
Any idea what's happening here?
Thanks in advance!
-
Here is a theory... because I am not really that involve with those 2, if I remember properly Bing/Yahoo are using the same search technology, so results shouldn't be that different, and my guess is they try to do the same as Google, showing what seems more relevant, but they are not as advanced yet so the probably add more weight to the H1 in the case of your website.
As I said, its just my theory, I am not so into those 2.
Happy to help!
-
Cool, thanks for the quick reply Andrés. So it sounds like my assumption on that part was essentially right.
Any idea about the second part - H1s showing up in place of title tag on other engines?
Thanks again!
-
Hi, quoting you: "I'm tempted to assume this is just Google's way of "getting smarter" and showing more relevant results" , yes you are right, Google actually shows what its more relevant, I know there is a more recent video about this, but this will give you a good explanation on the subject (Matt Cutts) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlJiLDn9-38
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
-
Google is putting brandname: in title tag
Hello, I was wondering why this is happening? In html for example the title tag is something like this: keyword 1 | keyword 2 | Brand name. Title is 67 characters.. When I search in google, I see the site but it shows brandname: keyword 1 | keyword 2 Is this bad? does this mean that google doesn't like the title tag that is in the html? I tried looking it up on google, but they were outdated and I honestly didn't really see an answer to what it means when this happens. Does the brandname: affect rankings?? Have any of you dealt with this, or noticed this?
On-Page Optimization | | donnieath0 -
Multiple and tags
It has recently come to our attention that some of the pages on our site have multiple and tags. I understand that this goes against best practices-- but I was wondering if anyone could tell me specifically how this could be impacting our site's performance and search rankings.
On-Page Optimization | | ZoomInformation0 -
Titles
Our site http://villasdini.com is offering beach villas on sunny Diani beach in Kenya. I have a category with beach villas in Diani beach which I want to be shown in serp if somebody search for Diani beach villas, or Diani beach hotels, Diani beach accommodation etc. I have also category with small boutique hotels, which I want to be shown in serp if somebody search for Diani beach villas, or Diani beach hotels, Diani beach accommodation etc. Should I also include Diani beach in titles? Will that not be too much of Diani bech in titles? I am afraid I have anyway already too much of "Diani beach" keyword and perhaps I am even punished for it as I can't rank for this keyword at all almost a year:-( I also want to rank on Diani beach itself and I have created Diani beach page which I want to be shown in serp when somebody search for Diani beach. I am kind of getting crazy of this:-( Any advice what I am doing wrong and what strategy I should rather do? Thank you very much, Iris
On-Page Optimization | | Rebeca10 -
Title tag length
Hi, I am fairly new to SEO and have just noticed the end of my title text has been cut off by Google in the serps results. Everything i have read tells me titles should be maximum of 70 characters, however, Google is only displaying 54. See below Security systems | wireless | battery powered | Police... Nobody else on the page is showing more than 54 characters. Am i missing something obvious? Any and all help gratefully appreciated. Thanks Si
On-Page Optimization | | DaddySmurf0 -
Head description tag, what now
Recently I heard Google virtually dropping the description tag for seo scoring? and it takes the data off the page, however one of my clients description is just pulling a url rather than any content from the page. is there some way thats ethical to suggest a description to google?
On-Page Optimization | | Shuffled0 -
Duplicate Title & Content in WordPress
I'm getting a lot of Crawl Errors due to duplicate content and duplicate title because of category and tag posts in WordPress. I rebuilt the sitemap and said to exclude category and tags, should that clear up the issue? I've also went through and did NO INDEX and NO FOLLOW for all categories and posts. Any thoughts on this issue?
On-Page Optimization | | seantgreen0 -
My blog title is getting added to my post title and I can't figure out how to remove it
Hello everyone, I am sure most of you guys know how to do this. I am finding that when my posts are listed in google, my blog title is added to my post title. 2 questions. 1. Is this hurting my rankings because the blog title is diluting my keywords making it look like I have a huge title? (the on page optimizer is dinging me for this. 2. I use a self hosted wordpress blog with the all in one seo plugin. Does anyone know how to remove the blog title from being appended to the post title? I thought I could do that in all in one seo by checking the rewrite title box and just having it say %post_title% but that didn't fix it. Also it was doing it before I checked that box as well. Any other ideas to try? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | FastLearner0 -
Duplicate page title and content
Hello, I have an ecommerce store where we offer many similar products, and the main difference could be the color or memory storage. Due to this reason my main problem appears to be be duplicate page title and content. What is the best way to correct this issue? I cant make them different neither. I always include this particular difference in title or description. I guess it is not enough? any way to fix it? thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | tolyadem10