Google Generating its Own Page Titles
-
Hi There
I have a question regarding Google generating its own page titles for some of the pages on my website. I know that Google sometimes takes your H1 tag and uses it as a page title, however, can anyone tell me how I can stop this from happening?
Is there a meta tag I can use, for example like the NOODP tag? Or do I have to change my page title?
Thanks
Sadie
-
Great, that could be it, thanks so much for the response,
-
Hi,
If your title tag is too long, or if it contains to many similar words (or repeated words/phrases) Google will use what it thinks is better.
Keep your title tags short and descriptive and don't include too many different keywords 2 at most in my opinion.
Greg
-
Hi Sadie,
How long are your title tags? A new algorithm change that happened over the summer affects the way truncated titles appear in the SEPRs. The highlights: any title that is over 68 characters is no longer cut off and truncated; instead Google can produce a title algorithmically if the title element is too short or too long. If we would like to have control over the title item, that it must be within the new requirements (25ish to 68ish characters) This represents one possible solution, I hope it helped.
Here are the details from the update:
- "Trigger alt title when HTML title is truncated. [launch codename "tomwaits", project codename "Snippets"] We have algorithms designed to present the best possible result titles. This change will show a more succinct title for results where the current title is so long that it gets truncated. We'll only do this when the new, shorter title is just as accurate as the old one."
http://insidesearch.blogspot.ca/2012/06/search-quality-highlights-39-changes.html
Cheers!
J
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 suddenly indexing 1,000 fewer pages. Why?
We have a site, blog.example.org, and another site, www.example.org. The most visited pages on www.example.org were redesigned; the redesign landed May 8. I would expect this change to have some effect on organic rank and conversions. But what I see is surprising; I can't believe it's related, but I mention this just in case. Between April 30 and May 7, Google stopped indexing roughly 1,000 pages on www.example.org, and roughly 3,000 pages on blog.example.org. In both cases the number of pages that fell out of the index represents appx. 15% of the overall number of pages. What would cause Google to suddenly stop indexing thousands of pages on two different subdomains? I'm just looking for ideas to dig into; no suggestion would be too basic. FWIW, the site is localized into dozens of languages.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | hoosteeno0 -
Prioritise a page in Google/why is a well-optimised page not ranking
Hello I'm new to Moz Forums and was wondering if anyone out there could help with a query. My client has an ecommerce site selling a range of pet products, most of which have multiple items in the range for difference size animals i.e. [Product name] for small dog
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LauraSorrelle
[Product name] for medium dog
[Product name] for large dog
[Product name] for extra large dog I've got some really great rankings (top 3) for many keyword searches such as
'[product name] for dogs'
'[product name]' But these rankings are for individual product pages, meaning the user is taken to a small dog product page when they might have a large dog or visa versa. I felt it would be better for the users (and for conversions and bounce rates), if there was a group page which showed all products in the range which I could target keywords '[product name]', '[product name] for dogs'. The page would link through the the individual product pages. I created some group pages in autumn last year to trial this and, although they are well-optimised (score of 98 on Moz's optimisation tool), they are not ranking well. They are indexed, but way down the SERPs. The same group page format has been used for the PPC campaign and the difference to the retention/conversion of visitors is significant. Why are my group pages not ranking? Is it because my client's site already has good rankings for the target term and Google does not want to show another page of the site and muddy results?
Is there a way to prioritise the group page in Google's eyes? Or bring it to Google's attention? Any suggestions/advice welcome. Thanks in advance Laura0 -
Suspected hacking - Google has detected that some of your pages may contain hidden text or cloaking
I got below message from google, But I did not see any hidden text, Please check it. http://www.astrologerravisharma.com/: Suspected hacking Google has detected that some of your pages may contain hidden text or cloaking, techniques that are outside our Webmaster Guidelines. Specifically, we detected that your site may have been modified by a third party. Typically, the offending party gains access to an insecure directory that has open permissions. Many times, they will upload files or modify existing ones, which then show up as spam in our index. Sample URLs: http://www.astrologerravisharma.com/ http://www.astrologerravisharma.com/about-us/ http://www.astrologerravisharma.com/achievements/ Recommended action Clean up the hacked content so that your site meets Google's Webmaster Guidelines.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bondhoward0 -
User generated content - manual warning from Google
Over the weekend our website received large amounts of spammy comments / user profiles on our forums. This has led to Google giving us a partial manual action until we clear things up. So far we have: Cleared up all the spam, banned the offending user accounts, and temporary enabled admin-approval for new sign ups. We are currently investigating upgrading the forum software to the latest version in order to make the forums less susceptible to this kind of attack. Could anyone let me know whether they think it is the right time for us to submit a reconsideration request to get the manual action removed? Will the temporary actions we have taken be enough to get the ban lifted, or should we wait until the forum software has been updated? I'd really appreciate any advice, especially if there is anyone here who has experienced this issue themselves 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RG_SEO0 -
Why the archive sub pages are still indexed by Google?
Why the archive sub pages are still indexed by Google? I am using the WordPress SEO by Yoast, and selected the needed option to get these pages no-index in order to avoid the duplicate content.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MichaelNewman1 -
How Shall I represent title in my web pages
Few Questions. In Each And Every Page Title I Would Like To Add My Brand Name, and Then Some Keywords. Example : **Brand Name - Creative Watches ** I would like to use my brand name first of title and also in every page title. If i use brand name in every pages of my title does it will be duplicate title. please suggest me that can we use brand name in every pages of title or not.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sumit600 -
Duplicate Page Title problems with Product Catalogues (Categories, Subcategories etc.)
Hey guys, I've done a fair bit of Googling and "mozzing" and can't seem to find a definitive solution. In our product catalogue on our site we have multiple ways to access the product for navigation purposes, and SeoMoz is throwing up hundreds of duplicate page title errors which are basically just different ways to get to the same product yet it sees it as a "separate page" and thus duplicating itself. Is this just SeoMoz confusing itself or does Google actually see it this way too? For example, a product might be: www.example.com/region/category/subcategory/ www.example.com/region2/category/subcategory/ www.example.com/region/category/subcategory2/ etc. Is the only solution to have the product ONLY listed in one combination? This kind of kills our ability to have easy refinement for customers browsing the catalogue, i.e: something that falls under the "Gifts for Men" might also be a match for "Father's Day Gifts" or "Gifts for Dad" etc. Any solution or advice is greatly appreciated, cheers 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ExperienceOz0 -
Charity project for local women's shelter - need help: will Google notice if you alter the document title with Javascript after the page loads?
I am doing some pro-bono work with a local shelter for female victims of domestic abuse. I am trying to help visitors to the site cover their tracks by employing a document.title change when the page loads using JavaScript. This shelter receives a lot of traffic from Google. I worry that the Google bots will see this javascript change and somehow penalize this site or modify the title in the SERPs. Has anyone had any experience with this kind of javascript maneuver? All help would be greatly appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jkonowitch0