Google not showing the proper title
-
I noticed that google is not showing the proper title in the search results. If you search for PhraseExpander, the title that google reports is:
PhraseExpander: Text Expander for Windows
but in the title of the page I've set Text Expander for Windows - PhraseExpander
Why is that? How can I make google report the proper title?
Thanks.
Andrea
-
Yeah Matt is right they have been doing this for a while, they also change the description too sometimes.
-
Interestingly, I also notice it when I do a site search (using Google's site search).
We do not use a CMS for the main site, only for the blog.
Google seem to have taken the suffix from the blog and pasted it as the suffix in the title for all of our pages. We changed the blog's suffix to "- Brand" about a week ago but it may have not been indexed yet... -
That's strange.
Our title is:
Brand - Title
And only within the index they changed it to Title: Brand
Does this means that I should write the titles as: "Brand: Title" instead of the dash?
Although sometimes it had helped us (having title: Brand), that's only when the searcher goes for something like TITLE. But only for those exact searched.
-
I think I noticed it in February or so this year.
Here are some articles on it: http://socialmediatoday.com/georgestevens48/1317336/google-rewriting-page-titles-time-brand
http://yoast.com/google-page-title/
http://www.colewood.net/latest-news/google-rewrites-page-titles-and-forces-further-brand-building/
I've had clients start rewriting some of their own titles this way as Google seems to prefer brand:title I haven't rewritten it on my own site so I can watch the changes happen. (My own site is far too often a "testing ground." haha
-
I noticed tis on one of my sites also. How long have they been doing this? I know they have been doing so for a long time if you have no title or a generic title like "home", but it was only recent that I noticed putting the brand at the front.
I also noticed that it is not doing so for my US sites just my Australian sites
-
Google will often change your page titles if they can find a way to make them relate more to the search query. They have started focusing on "brands" more and they seem to prefer
Brand: title
If you search my site using just highonseo you will see the
Brand: title
And it's different than the actual site title.
You can limit this a little but using NoODP, NoYDIR but if they want to change it, they will. Just write really good, related titles and you shouldn't have it changed too often.
-
I looked at http://yoast.com/google-page-title/ and it seems that google sometimes takes the liberty to change the title of the page displayed in the results.
That's probably the reason why this is happening.
-
Thanks for the info. I'm using Yoast SEO on wordpress to put the title of the page.
I've tried changing the title removing the -. Let's see what happens.
But as you suggested I've checked another page
if you type "Download PhraseExpander" in google the proper title is not returned again.
The title that is returned is: "Download - PhraseExpander" but the title of the page is <title>Free PhraseExpander Trial - Try our text expander software for free</title>
I did a test and noticed that titles are properly returned in Bing (but not in google). What could be the issue?
Thanks.
Andrea -
This could possibly have something to do with the way your CMS handles the "-" punctuation elements between your two phrases. If you aren't using actual HTML markup for it, try changing to the HTML version, which would be: -
Conversely, if you are using the HTML markup, try taking it out and just using the -
Let me know if that helps at all....of course you will have to wait until Google recrawls the page to find out if it worked. If this is the issue, you will want to check your other pages to make sure it's not happening on them too.
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
-
Best Title Im working on
Im working on the best title Design based for the products, Pls suggest This is my title for product page I suggested ACDelco 40-count Super Alkaline AA Batteries: Buy ACDelco 40-count Super Alkaline AA Batteries online at Best Prices: Domain.com and in the page im using ACDelco 40-count Super Alkaline AA Batteries Definitely title crossing more than 60 characters, I have seen many ecommerce site, they never bothered about title character lenght.. Im confused!!! and Is there any best way of title design to include Buy, Online, best price are the frequent keywords with product name. Pls suggest
On-Page Optimization | | Rahim1190 -
Do Google Know What People Are Doing On My Site?
I run an ecommerce site and am keep to increase the time on site and reduce bounce rate. I have had some good results from writing good articles and advertising them on Outbrain and Twitter; both of these metrics have improved. However, I am wondering if Google will see this. Clearly if people land on the pages from the SERPS and return there they will know what is happening but will they know if people get there from an advert?
On-Page Optimization | | T0BY0 -
Show or hide content in responsive design
Hi everybody! I'm trying to design the mobile version of an ecommerce with lots of filters in the menu (size, colours, material, etc.) I'd like to know if it's better for this kind of sites to use an m.version or a complete responsive design. I have analyzed my keywords and it's true that my website is founded in a really similiar way in both cases (desktop and mobile) so I wanted to design the whole site in responsive at first, but I'm afraid of being penalized if I hide content in the mobile version. This is why I'm thinking about making the responsive for desktop and tablets and the m. option as well, so as to hide menus and images. What's your advice? Thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | esthergvent0 -
Google Showing H1 Title Instead of Doc Title in Search Results?
I see this often for my website: Google displays my pages' H1 title instead of the document title in its search results. Is there any particular reason for this? Do we have any kind of control on this?
On-Page Optimization | | sbrault740 -
Properly changing title, URL and content for new keywords without harming other rankings.
Hello - We are looking to try to bring up some keywords in the SERPs that we are currently ranking fairly low for. We sell Christening clothing for children and people will use both Christening and Baptism to search for the same thing. We currently rank very high for Christening (#1 on Google for certain combinations) but we are fairly low on Baptism.
On-Page Optimization | | BabyBeauBelle
I am trying to figure out the best way to start getting Baptism up by changing some title, URL and content pages to include more Baptism keywords. My concern is messing with the existing because we rank so well for Christening. Since we are ecommerce we can vary this quite a bit on our products, but again I'm nervous to do so fearing changing the wrong things, too many products etc and in the process of trying to raise one set of keywords (baptism) we harm the other set (christening).
Any advice would be appreciated!0 -
How google handle with Title when is invisible on the page?
I would like to display H1 Title tag invisible on the homepage. I set up Title colour same colour as background colour. How google handle with this cloaking? What should I to set up in the style.css?
On-Page Optimization | | joeko0 -
Duplicate Page Title
I have a dating site, it's got a lot of duplicate page titles, most of them are the language buttons for the users to view the site in there language. but I think it's obvious that the buttons don't have anything to do with it. I'm thinking that page tittle is basically a description of what the site is. like for an example "online-dating" is this it? please tell me in terms for a dummy, how to fix it.
On-Page Optimization | | clickit2getwithit0 -
Google Fonts & Site Speed
Hello, Does the use of one google font slow down a website enough to effect load speed and thus rankings? Here's the ones we're choosing from: www.google.com/webfonts How do we know if the one we choose is too slow? Thank you.
On-Page Optimization | | BobGW0