Reason behind SERP Behavior

[MonsterWeb28]

Greetings Mozzers,

What would be the cause of the Title of the SERP to read a company name only instead of the <title>content?</p> <p>For example, if everywhere on my website, it reads SuperFun (if SuperFun is my company name).  And I have a <title> of "SuperFun | Great Fun that is Super | New York"</p> <p>Let's say I then Google -> Great Fun in New York and I'm ranked 3rd. Yet the SERP reads "Super Fun" as the title.</p> <p>Any reason for this? Or ways I can further optimize this so it reads:</p> <p>1- the correct company name</p> <p>2- the <title> I specified in source code.</p> <p>Thanks for any clarficiation/advice on this matter!</p></title>

[MonsterWeb28]

Hey Keri,

Thanks for responding to this.  Yeah it seems like just one of those things.

We appreciate your information!

[MonsterWeb28]

Hey mememax,

We'll try this.  Thanks for your reply!

[mememax]

Hey Keri, yes I found that google makes those tweaks, however if you manage to have shorter, focused and highly related titles they normally won't change that. The issue normally is when someone's trying to point to too many keywords in a given page.

[KeriMorgret]

Google's been changing the title of page names in the SERPs for years, especially if they think it is too spammy or doesn't match the query. They even do it on Apple's main website. Sometimes there's just nothing you can do about it.

[mememax]

Hi Monster web, for additional reference, today I also found this article from yoast which may explain weird titles appearing in serps for WP driven sites.

[mememax]

Hi Monster web, sometimes google may use your DMOZ or Yahoo directory title (normally people uses their company name), it's quite rare but it could happen. Try to add this line to your source code:

(no slash if you're not xhtml page)

In that way you'll prevent all robots to take into account your yahoo or dmoz title for your listings.