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.
Changing page titles and google penalties?
-
I just recently learned that changing your page title earns you a google penalty. Unfortunately i learned this after playing around with my page titles a bit to get the most optimal page titles. Does anybody know how long this google penalty lasts? is it forever? or just temporary?
-
A couple years ago I had about a hundred pages that described closely related substances. Their title tags consisted of the name of the substance and a few other words. I launched those pages and saw where they ranked and decided to change the words in hopes of better rankings. It worked good but not great as I was hoping. So I changed them again, and then again... BAM... my rankings droped big time. Like from bottom of first page to third page. They stayed there for a few months then moved up. Now almost all of those pages rank near the top of the first page.
Based upon this I think that Google is tolerant of a little bit of experimentation. But when you really go at it you might get demoted for a while. Now I don't monkey with title tags. I research first and then launch.
-
I can't speak to the author's credentials, but I can speak about the web page.
You should run as fast as you can from that type of web page. It is about as spammy as a page can get. The sidebar is full of large ads. The page is selling reports and memberships for thousands of dollars. The single page contains multiple articles covering a variety of topics, with tons of additional ads jammed between each article.
Before I joined SEOmoz I was lost in the SEO information jungle. Like you, I received a lot of bad SEO information. The best advice I can offer to you or anyone is limit your sources of SEO information. First places to look are:
-
Google search "Matt Cutts" + your keyword
-
Search SEOmoz
-
If you need to expand further, avoid any site with an ad on the page. It's ok if the site mentions it's own SEO tool or membership, but if you see ads for other sites and items for thousands of dollars, close the page. Their interests are clearly not to offer you the information you seek, but instead to use your need for information to service their needs.
-
-
I did it for about 2 months with my client's home page and nothing happened.
Maybe i was lucky... however i stopped now... maybe just in time
-
Where did you learn this information? Can you offer a URL?
How exactly did you make this determination? Can you offer the URL and the key term you are using?
-
Page titles definitely can change rankings. I have had mostly good experiences with optimizing my page titles for SEO, and a few bad ones, but nothing horrific. How far did your rankings drop?
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
-
On-page SEO
This is a question for the organic SEO experts, once you added the main keyword that you want to rank for in the homepage title, meta title plus meta description, perhaps once or twice in the text on the homepage. How often do you then write it in the content marketing, say blog posts, we want to rank higher on Google for "SEO agencies Cardiff" however if you mention this in the blog posts too much say once a week, this could lead to over optimisation issues?
On-Page Optimization | | sarahwalsh1 -
Can we change Title and/or Descriptions Dynamically Based on Search Query
If I recall we used to be able to change our title attributes tag dynamically based on the search query but not sure if it's possible now or if it makes sense to do so. Thoughts? Rosemary
On-Page Optimization | | RosemaryB1 -
Page Title (Meta descriptions) length... how strict are you?
I have just had a conversation with a client... the gist was this... Is it more important to stay under the 55-60 characters OR go over a bit and have the page title make sense and include the clients company name. The same argument for meta description. I have a client insisting on 55-60 length but the keywords are long and if we use the primary keyword phrase the length is 44 if we use the keyword phrase and add the company name it becomes 64. This is with us trimming it a bit. Anyone else discussed this before?
On-Page Optimization | | JohnW-UK1 -
How to Handle duplicate pages/titles in Wordpress
The wordpress blog causes problems with page titles. If you go to the second page of blog posts it there's a different URL but with the same page title. for example: page 1: site/blog page 2: site/blog/page/2 Each page gets flagged for duplicate page titles. Thanks in advance for your thoughts,
On-Page Optimization | | heymarshall1 -
Why does Google pick a low priority page on my site?
Hi Guys. One of my pages ranks quite well for "mid year diaries 14-15" on Google. The problem is it's a really specific product page (A4, Hardback, day-to-a-page diary I think). It would be much better for the user to land on our mid-year diaries category, not really deep into the site. Why is Google prioritizing this product page over our general 'mid year diaries' category? Especially when the category would relate to the search more accurately? I work for TOAD diaries and I think our page rank is 10 for this search. Eagerly awaiting some insight 🙂 Thanks in advance everyone! Isaac.
On-Page Optimization | | isaac6630 -
Page Title & Meta Description Getting Cut Off In The SERPs
Hi Guys, I am trying to figure out why my page titles and meta d tags are getting cut off in Goofle SERPS. My page titles are 70 characters or under (including spaces) and my meta Dd's are 155 characters or under (including spaces) so I cannot work out why They are getting cut off. Is there something I have missed?! Thanks, Meaghan
On-Page Optimization | | StoryScout0 -
Does Google look at page design
Hi everybody, At the moment i'm creating several webshops and websites with the same layout, so visitors can recognize the websites are from the same company. But i was wondering: Does google look at the layout of a webpage that it's not a copy of another website? This because loads of website have the same wordpress/joomla templates etc, or doesn't this effect rankingpositions? Thank you,
On-Page Optimization | | iwebdevnl0 -
Hiding Page Titles By Display None
Hi. I am new to this community, and new to SEO as well. A friend asked me to give them suggestions on onsite optimization for their Drupal website. I know page titles are very important, and usually they should be set to H1. (At least I think) This particular website has all their page titles set to H2 and they are using display:none in their stylesheet to hide them for graphic design reasons. What would be the most practical work around for this? We don't want this to appear sketchy in the eyes of the SE's, but putting page titles at the top of their pages really would take away from their graphical design. The second issue is that they use a module called Quicktabs for tabbed product specs on each page. Each tab is actually pulled from a post (called a node in Drupal), so each tab has it's own title that is an H2. So not only are they hiding the main page title, but they are hiding 5 others within the tabs, and their are 6 H2 elements showing up on each product page all set to display:none. Any creative suggestions? Hope that makes sense.... Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | aprilm-1890400