Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Technical SEO
    4. Google truncating or altering meta title - affect rankings?

    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.

    Google truncating or altering meta title - affect rankings?

    Technical SEO
    3
    3
    1796
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • santiago23
      santiago23 last edited by

      I have a site that the title tag is too long and the title is simply the name of the site (I think they get it from ODP, not sure)

      Anyway, the rankings for the home page have dropped quite a bit.  I'm wondering if the change that Google makes affects rankings (i.e. name of site doesn't have all the keywords).

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • SoftzSolutions
        SoftzSolutions last edited by

        I have a site that the title tag is too long and the title is simply the name of the site (I think they get it from ODP, not sure)

        Now if you believe that it is the ODP that is causing the trouble, you can add this Meta tag in the section of the pages -

        However, if this has not been the case, it could be that the links that have been built are not in line with the existing title. And sometimes, Google changes the title itself if it feels that the title is not well optimized –

        http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.in/2012/01/better-page-titles-in-search-results.html

        https://plus.google.com/u/0/+PierreFar/posts/62V16LPwzKv

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • danatanseo
          danatanseo last edited by

          While I don't think anyone can say for sure if one specific thing like this could result in lower ranking, IMHO a truncated title is not generally going to be the culprit of rankings drop. However, I do think a truncated title can significantly lower click-thru rate on your organic listings, which could be a factor in rankings (i.e. higher click-thru rate could equal higher rankings).

          I always encourage the sites that I SEO to adhere to Google's character limitations and make the most out of the organic real estate Google gives you. It's your chance to get someone to come to your site. If the title/and or description is truncated, it has less chance of being compelling, or containing the information that makes someone want to click through and visit your pages.

          Hope that's helpful!

          Dana

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • 1 / 1
          • First post
            Last post

          Got a burning SEO question?

          Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


          Start my free trial


          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.

          • See all categories

          Related Questions

          • Jane.com

            Will Google crawl and rank our ReactJS website content?

            We have 250+ products dynamically inserted and sorted on our site daily (more specifically our homepage... yes, it's a long page). Our dev team would like to explore rendering the page server-side using ReactJS. We currently use a CDN to cache all the content, which of course we would like to continue using. SO... will Google be able to crawl that content? We've read some articles with different ideas (including prerendering): http://andrewhfarmer.com/react-seo/
            http://www.seoskeptic.com/json-ld-big-day-at-google/ If we were to only load the schema important to the page  (like product title, image, price, description, etc.) from the server and then let the client render the remaining content (comments, suggested products, etc.), would that go against best practices? It seems like that might be seen as showing the googlebot 1 version and showing the site visitor a different (more complete) version.

            Technical SEO | | Jane.com
            0
          • trigaudias

            Google is shortening many of my title tags although they are already quite concise

            Hi, Title tags of our website are being truncated by Google even though they can be very short (sometimes < 40 characters) and with very few capital letters. We would like to understand why. Example: Principal component analysis (pca) in abcde - OurBrand shows up as: Principal component analysis (pca) in abcd... - OurBrand where abcde is the name of a very common software (5 characters), and OurBrand is a 6 characters long string (could be used in either lower case or upper case). Even when removing the brackets around pca, truncation still occurs... Any clue why?

            Technical SEO | | trigaudias
            1
          • MrGlobalization

            Commas in Meta Title and Description Okay?

            Hey there guys, have heard some recent information from some experts that utilizing commas in headings, meta titles or descriptions is not good for ranking. Can you guys please shed some light on this? Thank you!

            Technical SEO | | MrGlobalization
            0
          • moliver1022

            Will a CSS Overflow Scroll for content affect SEO rankings?

            If I use a CSS overflow scroll for copy, will my SEO rankings be affected? Will Google still be able to index my copy accurately and will keywords used in the copy that are covered by the scroll be recognized by Google?

            Technical SEO | | moliver1022
            0
          • yanaiguana111

            Registered Trademark in a Meta Title or Content

            I know that registered trademarks don't hurt SEO, however if the trademark is used in the middle of a popular search phrase (see below) will it hurt the site's chanced of getting ranked for this term. Example: Funkybrand® Shoes PS I found one brand that used the trademark Acuvue® contact lenses. thanks!

            Technical SEO | | yanaiguana111
            0
          • danielpett

            SEO plugin by Yoast messing up my title/meta description

            Hey guys, I'm having some issues with my wordpress blog, and I believe SEO plugin by Yoast could be the one causing it. I have set a title for my wordpress blog, and a tagline. This was set in dashboard > settings > general Under "titles and metas" > home in the plugin it says, title: %%sitename%% %%page%% %%sep%% %%sitedesc%%, and meta description is blank. The reports on seomoz says my title is title+meta description - making it to long (to many characters). What could be the issue here? Thanks in advance!

            Technical SEO | | danielpett
            0
          • tdsnet

            UK website ranking higher in Google.com than Google.co.uk

            Hi, I have a UK website which was formerly ranked 1<sup>st</sup> in Google.co.uk and .com for my keyword phrase and has recently slipped to 6<sup>th</sup> in .co.uk but is higher in position 4 in Google.com. I have conducted a little research and can’t say for certain but I wonder if it is possible that too many of my backlinks are US based and therefore Google thinks my website is also US based. Checked Google WmT and we the geo-targeted to the UK. Our server is also UK based. Does anyone have an opinion on this? Thanks

            Technical SEO | | tdsnet
            0
          • Hyrule

            Does a CDN affect search rankings?

            I feel kind of stupid asking this, but if i use one it would speed things up quite a bit. It is for a ecommerce website, any guidance on this would be awesome!

            Technical SEO | | Hyrule
            0

          Get started with Moz Pro!

          Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

          Start my free trial
          Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz API
          • Moz Data
          • STAT
          • Product Updates
          Moz Solutions
          • SMB Solutions
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Authority Checker
          • Link Explorer
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • Brand Authority Checker
          • Local Citation Checker
          • MozBar Extension
          • MozCast
          Resources
          • Blog
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Help Hub
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • How-to Guides
          • Moz Academy
          • API Docs
          About Moz
          • About
          • Team
          • Careers
          • Contact
          Why Moz
          • Case Studies
          • Testimonials
          Get Involved
          • Become an Affiliate
          • MozCon
          • Webinars
          • Practical Marketer Series
          • MozPod
          Connect with us

          Contact the Help team

          Join our newsletter
          Moz logo
          © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
          • Accessibility
          • Terms of Use
          • Privacy

          Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.