Google inconsistent in display of meta content vs page content?
-
Our e-comm site includes more than 250 brand pages - lrg image, some fluffy text, maybe a video, links to categories for that brand, etc. In many cases, Google publishes our page title and description in their search results. However, in some cases, Google instead publishes our H1 and the aforementioned fluffy page content.
We want our page content to read well, be descriptive of the brand and appropriate for the audience. We want our meta titles and descriptions brief and likely to attract CTR from qualified shoppers. I'm finding this difficult to manage when Google pulls from two different areas inconsistently.
So my question... Is there a way to ensure Google only utilizes our title/desc for our listings?
-
If you figure out a way to do this, you'd be rich! They don't seem to care who they touch, whether it's Apple or SEOmoz of the little site. When I search Google for [negative keywords seomoz] I get back the post that I wrote about negative keywords, and Google has rewritten the title to be "negative-keywords-for-positive-roi - SEOmoz". negative-keywords-for-positive-roi is the URL/post slug! If you use different phrases to search, you'll find the correct post title. Quite frustrating!
-
I agree on this: "Many people aren't in DMOZ, and Google will still alter their meta titles and descriptions to match the search query"
That was my situation.
-
Many people aren't in DMOZ, and Google will still alter their meta titles and descriptions to match the search query. Google employees have said that one of the reasons the titles are changed in the SERPs is if they look spammy (not saying that yours are, just stating what they have said).
-
We have also experienced this, but after we started using the NOODP-meta tag the problem disappeared. 2 weeks after adding the content="noodp" name="robots" /> to all pages on our site SERP was updated.
Case is, that with inconsistency in you meta tags, Google SERP will show data from dmoz.org (updated:) or using information gathered from your own site, using a H1/H2 as title and ingress text as description.
-
Make sure your title is not nearly identical to your other titles. It took months for me to get rid of that STUPID problem! I went through the source code, changed the titles, built links to that specific page... then 3 months later it finally worked.
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
-
Is there a way to get a list of all pages of your website that are indexed in Google?
I am trying to put together a comprehensive list of all pages that are indexed in Google and have differing opinions on how to do this.
Technical SEO | | SpodekandCo0 -
Very wierd pages. 2900 403 errors in page crawl for a site that only has 140 pages.
Hi there, I just made a crawl of the website of one of my clients with the crawl tool from moz. I have 2900 403 errors and there is only 140 pages on the website. I will give an exemple of what the crawl error gives me. | http://www.mysite.com/en/www.mysite.com/en/en/index.html#?lang=en | http://www.mysite.com/en/www.mysite.com/en/en/en/index.html#?lang=en | http://www.mysite.com/en/www.mysite.com/en/en/en/en/index.html#?lang=en | http://www.mysite.com/en/www.mysite.com/en/en/en/en/en/index.html#?lang=en | http://www.mysite.com/en/www.mysite.com/en/en/en/en/en/en/index.html#?lang=en | http://www.mysite.com/en/www.mysite.com/en/en/en/en/en/en/index.html#?lang=en | http://www.mysite.com/en/www.mysite.com/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/index.html#?lang=en | http://www.mysite.com/en/www.mysite.com/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/index.html#?lang=en | http://www.mysite.com/en/www.mysite.com/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/index.html#?lang=en | http://www.mysite.com/en/www.mysite.com/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/index.html#?lang=en | | | | | | | | | | There are 2900 pages like this. I have tried visiting the pages and they work, but they are only html pages without CSS. Can you guys help me to see what the problems is. We have experienced huge drops in traffic since Septembre.
Technical SEO | | H.M.N.0 -
Google Seeing Way More Pages Than My Site Actually Has
For one of my sites, A-1 Scuba Diving And Snorkeling Adventures, Google is seeing way more pages than I actually have. It sees almost 550 pages but I only have about 50 pages in my XML. I am sure this is an error on my part. Here is the search results that show all my pages. Can anyone give me some guidance on what I did wrong. Is it a canonical url problem, a redirect problem or something else. Built on Wordpress. Thanks in advance for any help you can give. I just want to make sure I am delivering everything I can for the client.
Technical SEO | | InfinityTechnologySolutions0 -
How to know which pages are indexed by Google?
So apparently we have some sites that are just duplicates of our original main site but aiming at different markets/cities. They have completely different urls but are the same content as our main site with different market/city changed. How do I know for sure which ones are indexed. I enter the url into Google and its not there. Even if I put in " around " it. Is there another way to query google for my site? Is there a website that will tell you which ones are indexed? This is probably a dumb question.
Technical SEO | | greenhornet770 -
How narrowly geo targeted should your Google Places page be?
Hi Mozers I'm still struggling with my London based client with two locations and one business. Basically she has a location in W1W 'Westminster' and a location in 'WD!' Borehamwood. Has anyone any good resources of input concerning geotargeting. I've done some searching but can't get quite the help I'm seeking. I'd like to make the Pages cover a 5mile radius and be highly specific to their locations. Is this the right way to proceed? Thanks
Technical SEO | | catherine-2793880 -
Is optimising on page mobile site content a waiste of time?
Good Morning from dull & overcast 2 degrees C wetherby UK 😞 Whilst Ive changed markup for seo purposes on desktop versions I would like to know if the principles of optimising on page content ie modifyting <title><h1> is exactly the same for <a href="http://www.innoviafilms.com/m/Home.aspx">http://www.innoviafilms.com/m/Home.aspx</a></p> <p>Whilst the desktop version of innovia films ranks well for the terms the client requested some time back now their attention is focusing on the mobile site but I feel a bit confused and I'll try my best to explain...</p> <p>Is it not totally redundant to "Optimise" a mobile site content as when i search via google on a smartphone i'm seeing the SERPS from the desktop version and when I click on a snippet the mobile site just piggybacks on the back of the listing anyway.</p> <p>Put another way is it not a royal waist of time tinkering with mobile site on page content for long as Googles SERPS on a smartphone are exactly the same as on a desktop ie they are not too seperate entities.</p> <p>Or am i totally wrong and you could optimise a mobile for a completely different term to its parent desktop version.?</p> <p>Tried to explain this the best i can, my head hurts... :-(</p> <p>Any insights</p> <p>welcome :-)</p></title>
Technical SEO | | Nightwing0 -
301ed Pages Still Showing as Duplicate Content in GWMT
I thank anyone reading this for their consideration and time. We are a large site with millions of URLs for our product pages. We are also a textbook company, so by nature, our products have two separate ISBNs: a 10 digit and a 13 digit form. Thus, every one of our books has at least two pages (10 digit and 13 digit ISBN page). My issue is that we have established a 301 for all the 10 digit URLs so they automatically redirect to the 13 digit page. This fix has been in place for months. However, Google still reports that they are detecting thousands of pages with duplicate title and meta tags. Google is referring to these page URLs that I already have 301ed to the canonical version many months ago! Is there anything that I can do to fix this issue? I don't understand what I am doing wrong. Example:
Technical SEO | | dfinn
http://www.bookbyte.com/product.aspx?isbn=9780321676672
http://www.bookbyte.com/product.aspx?isbn=032167667X As you can see the 10 digit ISBN page 301s to 13 digit canonical version. Google reports that they have detected duplicate title and meta tags between the two pages and there are thousands of these duplicate pages listed. To add some further context: The ISBN is just a parameter that allows us to provide content when someone searches for a product with the 10 or 13 digit ISBN. The 13 digit version of the page is the only physical page that exists, the 10 digit is only a part of the virtual URL structure of the website. This is why I cannot simply change the title and meta tags of the 10 digit pages because they only exist in the sense that the URL redirects to the 13 digit version. Also, we submit a sitemap every day of all the 13 digit pages so Google knows exactly what our physical URL structure is. I have submitted this question to GWMT forums and received no replies.0 -
Does it matter that our cached pages aren't displaying style
We've got pages that, when I search for them in Google and click on Cache, show NO styles, nothing from the CSS. Is there any way that could effect rankings? I don't think so, but it does fall into the category of showing one thing to the bots and another to the user, which is bad. Also, could blocking /scripts in robots.txt be preventing bots from accessing the CSS? Thanks
Technical SEO | | poolguy0