Can Google display a diffrent page title?
-
Hi if I search google UK for the phrase car leasing, google returns my listing as
Car Lease Deals
However the same search on Yahoo or Bing bring back
Contract Hire | Vehicle & Car Leasing Deals | Car Lease Deals
this is the real page title. Why would this happen?
Thanks
Andy
-
Actually, Google often changes title tags, especially based on the query. They've been doing this for a couple of years now.
-
To add my experiance to this, it seems to happon more commonly when it feels your h1 or the serch term e.t.c. is more relivent to the search.
Depending on the search, it can harm or hurt. In terms of ranking for your keyword it shouldn't be a problem, but clickthrough wise it is more iffy.
-
Neither. Bad that you have less control over them, but potentially good that Google is showing something different, if it results in more clickthroughs. Unfortunately there is no way to test for that that I'm aware of, at least not while they're changing the title.
I'm not the type that recommends relying on Google to pick the best title for your page, but to be honest, "Contract Hire | Vehicle & Car Leasing Deals | Car Lease Deals" is fairly keyword heavy, and isn't that attractive to click on. A title like "Car Lease Deals" might do better in terms of clickthrough rates, but that's just my speculation.
Changing the title tags seems to be Google's answer to SEO-focused title tags that are packed with keywords, and I think it's a good thing for users. Hard to say for webmasters, but at the moment they don't give us any choice in the matter, since I don't believe they give us the option to turn it off.
This paragraph is speculation on my part: They're likely going to be changing the title based upon (A) things the user is looking for and (B) what else your page says. So if the user looked for "vehicle leasing deals", Google might choose to show that portion of your title tag. On the other hand, they might choose to show "Car Lease Deals" if that phrase is more common on the page and used in header tags, etc.
-
Hi Kane thanks for your speedy answer. Is this a good thing or a bad thing from my perpective.
Thanks
Andy
-
Wow nice! great info Kane, thanks for the link.
-
Yup, they've been changing title tags for at least a year now. Here's a Google Webmaster Blog post about it from Jan 2012:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/01/better-page-titles-in-search-results.html
-
To my understanding, no Google does not display titles dynamically, unless, of course the developer used Javascript or something. In any case it would be bad SEO practice and they wouldn't rank. My only guess would be caching maybe? Very odd indeed.
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
-
Can Yoast plugin change back old title automatically?
I have a problem with the first page on my website. Im using Wordpress and Yoast SEO plugin. After I have changed and updated some information on the page, I also wanted to change and make a better page title. That I understand is to be changed under pages, by scrolling down to the Yoast setting for the specific page. Is that right? However, I have changed the title over and over again, and asked Google to re-index the page. Everything is fine directly after that. But when I check again after 24-48 hours, the page have automatically changed back to the old title? How is that possible? I´ve tried about 5-10 times, but it does the same thing after 24-48 hours every time. Hope you people with great knowledge can help me out here. 🙂
Algorithm Updates | | Masse0 -
Page 1 all of a sudden for two clients
Hello, So, for many months, a couple of my clients have had a handful of terms that they were ranking for on Page 2. All of a sudden in the past month, both clients have moved up to Page 1, #2 for most of their terms. I have been working on some optimization tests and made minor changes, but I am concerned because the consistency of the #2 position for both clients for all of the previously Page 2 ranking keywords. I have seen this type of Google increase for clients before, and my experience has shown that it is a test from Google-so, from Google's perspective: "we're going to move your rankings up to Page 1 and see what you do with this to prove to us that your site is worth the position". Anyone had any experience with this kind of movement? Thanks so much in advance..
Algorithm Updates | | lfrazer0 -
Our company is mentioned on some high-traffic, authoritative sites and some of our products are linked as well. If we link to those pages, does it affect our SEO? How can we take advantage of those mentions?
I heard that if you link to another site, when Google indexes your site, they crawl that page that is referenced. By whatever metrics they use, if that site has your name or a link to your site, Google would rank it higher. I am not sure how true that is, but what value does another site mentioned our site have on our SEO?
Algorithm Updates | | JonathonOhayon1 -
Am I the only one experiencing this Google SERP problem?
I perform Google searches every single day, sometimes several times in a day. These searches have nothing to do with being a marketer--they're simply as a consumer, researcher, person who needs a question answered, or in other words: a typical person. For about the past month or so, I have been unsuccessful at finding what I'm looking for on the first try EVERY SINGLE TIME. Yes, I mean it--every single time. I'm left either going all the way to the third page, clicking dozens of results and retuning to the SERPs, or having to start over with a differently worded query. This is far too often to be a coincidence. Has this been happening to anymore else? I know there was a recent significant algorithm update, right? I always look at algorithm updates through the eyes of an SEO, but I'm currently looking at it through the eyes for an average searcher, and I'm frustrated! It's been like trying to find something on Bing!
Algorithm Updates | | UnderRugSwept0 -
Bing's indexed pages vs pages appearing in results
Hi all We're trying to increase our efforts in ranking for our keywords on Bing, and I'm discovering a few unexpected challenges. Namely, Bing is reporting 16000+ pages have been crawled... yet a site:mywebsite.com search on Bing shows less than 1000 results. I'm aware that Duane Forrester has said they don't want to show everything, only the best. If that's the case, what factors must we consider most to encourage Bing's engine to display most if not all of the pages the crawl on my site? I have a few ideas of what may be turning Bing off so to speak (some duplicate content issues, 301 redirects due to URL structure updates), but if there's something in particular we should monitor and/or check, please let us know. We'd like to prioritize 🙂 Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | brandonRT0 -
How do I separate 2 Google+ business listings?
Ever since Google Places started merging with Google+, my client's business listing is now showing up in local search results incorrectly under another business name who shares the same address as them. Has anyone else encountered this problem or a way to correct it?
Algorithm Updates | | TheeDigital0 -
Double Listings On Page One
I've been noticing a trend over the past month and a half. My sites that use to get more than one page listed in certain SERPs are now being adjusted. It almost looks manual but I know it is most likely a change in the algorithm. Let's say I had a SERP where my site was showing two different sub-pages in a single SERP at #4 and #6 are now having one page being pushed up to #3 but the other page is being pushed back past the first page. I'm not worried about penalizations or loss of value. I have been seeing this accross many of my client's sites. I just wanted to confirm that others were seeing it as well (so I'm not going crazy) and/or if Google has made any announcements or leaks regarding this shift. Maybe it's just my sites coming of age or something but I would love to be able to explain it more knowledgeably than with a "Google might be doing this". BTW - This is not effecting any of my Brand SERPs.
Algorithm Updates | | BenRWoodard0 -
Too many page links?`
Hi there This blog insert was flag suggesting there was too many page links? I cant identify the same problem? Can anyone explain?
Algorithm Updates | | footballfriends0
