Google Changing the Title Tag to Your Brand
-
A while back google started changing our title tags to have our name in it, which was great and reasonable for the most part. We recently ran into a problem with it as we have some properties on our site that fall under a dba. Here is the example.
Title tag: Kolea- Waikoloa Vacation Rentals
Kolea is a vacation rental community is a resort called Waikoloa. Waikoloa Vacation Rentals is our company name and www.waikoloavacationrentals.com is our company site.Here is the problem:
Title tag: Hualalai Resort- Waikoloa Vacation Rentals
Hualalai is a completely different place than Waikoloa and we do business in there as Hualalai Vacation Rentals, but keep our properties on our www.waikoloavacationrentals.com site rather than microsites.How can you let google know that what they are doing is incorrect for specific pages? Thanks,
-
Hi Rob,
As the other guys have pointed out, it isn't possible to control when and how Google changes your title tag as far as I'm aware. You can try and send signals to Google such as linking to that page using specific anchor text, on-page copy etc.
I just did a few tests and the correct title tag seems to be appearing so Google may have figured it out and switched back to the correct one.
Are you still seeing them showing the wrong one? If so, could you link to a few examples of search results where this happens?
Cheers.
Paddy
-
If your title is concise and within the 10-70 characters limit (though width of letters can throw that off a bit) then you'll more likely appear with your correct title instead of an altered one. In some cases though, if Google considers your page relevant to a query but doesn't think your title is relevant then they will alter it. This may seem like an issue but can in fact allow you to appear for search terms that you didn't think you were relevant for but are. I've seen this happen on pages for one of the ecommerce sites I work on. When i search for one of our core terms I see the correct title and then a search for a synonym to our core term returns our site in the SERPs with an altered title. In this case its fine because the title wasn't originally optimized to the synonym but Google sees it as relevant, changes it, and allows us to rank well for the term. As far as I know though, there is no way to send Google a notice that they shouldn't alter your title in the SERPs. Google somehow reserves the rights to change how they list your site if it improves the search experience of its users.
-
Hi
Yes, we're noticing the same, more and more with fresh content the title tag seems to be ignored and replaced with just the domain name. Noticed this more frequently this week, maybe Dr Pete has some news
-
This is likely happening because Google is determining that
Hualalai Resort
is a variation of your brand name, Google tends to try and use signals to determine the best title, and somewhere along the way it has picked up signals utilizing that phrase.
What is the official brand name of the company itself?
It is relatively easy to build enough high quality citations to the website utilizing that name, and structure the pages of the site to reinforce that, so that you can influence that title selection.
-
Unfortunately, Google will re-arrange your title in a way they think it would be more appropriate/appealing to users. They usually change the word order, punctuation and god knows what else.
In your example, if the user searches for Waikoloa Vacation Rentals, while your real title is "Kolea- Waikoloa Vacation Rentals" they may change it to "Waikoloa Vacation Rentals: Kolea" and there's nothing you can do to have your title displayed as YOU want it to.
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
-
Different meta tags appearing in SERP for same landing page
Hi all, hoping someone can help. We have a landing page that ranks quite well for a number of keywords that send us a nice amount of organic traffic. We understand the importance of Meta tags, as Google will be the users first interaction with our site we want to stand out and be noticed and also show we provide information on their search query. The problem is this, while we have optimised the title and description tags for the landing page, this is only appearing on specific search results. If you were to search a different keyword, you would still get the same landing page, but the title tag and description would not pull through, it decides to pull through the page name and first few lines of text instead. Is there anything we can do to sort this issue?
Branding | | Ben_Malkin_Develo0 -
A problem when our brand name is searched
We have an issue in that when someone enters our new brand name "68 degrees creative" into google.com.au, the following results show: http://postimg.org/image/8x2id4ta9/ The second result is the Linked In page for Hiroshi. This is a person that was part of our old business but is no longer part of the new business (68 degrees creative). And therefore, his LinkedIn profile should not be appearing for this search as he has nothing to do with the new brand. In his LinkedIn profile, he has made no mention of our organisation 68 degrees creative. He also does not feature on our website: www.68degrees.com.au. We can therefore only conclude that the reason he is appearing for the search "68 degrees creative" is that Google has somehow connected him with the new organisation due to previous online ties and relationships which Google has determined by virtue of that associated him with the new organisation. We are ultimately unsure what their algorithm is in establishing this. Is there any way in which we can change this? We don't want his LinkedIn profile appearing when our company name is searched when he has not part of the company. Any help here would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.
Branding | | Gavo0 -
What EMD Meta Title should we use?
Situation: Recently I encountered a Meta Title issue for my company websites.
Branding | | TT_Vakantiehuizen
This Dutch company has four websites on one server. Three closely related EMD(Exact Match Domain) websites and one overarching website. (Holiday homes rental websites) Vakantiehuizen-Verhuur.nl (overarching)
Vakantiehuizen-Frankrijk.nl (EMD in EN: holidayrentals-France.nl)
Vakantiehuizen-Italie.nl (EMD in EN: Holidayrentals-Italy.nl)
Vakantiehuizen-Spanje.nl (EMD in EN: Holidayrentals-Spain.nl) Question:
What would be a preferable Meta Title for the EMD websites (homepage/subpages)? Keep in mind that the domains are EMD. The homepage will target the most important keywords and should not compete with subpages. Options for the homepage (translated from Dutch to English):
1. Holiday Rentals France | All holiday home rentals in France in a row!
2. Holiday Rentals France | Holidayrentals-France.nl powered by Holiday-Rentals.nl
3. Suggestions? Options for the subpages:
1. Holiday Rentals Normandy | Holidayrentals France
2. Holiday Rentals Normandy | Holidayrentals-France.nl
3. Suggestions? And concerning the keywords in the beginning; is it wise to use both plural and singular terms in the meta title? For Example:
Hotel New York. Best hotels in New York | Company Name0 -
Google displays the wrong store hours. Can anyone help lead me to the fix?
When doing the following search on Google "Ticket King Milwaukee hours" we see the wrong hours displayed at the top of the page. Just to the left of our places page, you will see "Tuesday hours 8:30-1:00 pm." That 1 pm closing comes up for every weekday, even though we are open until 6 pm weekdays, and 3 pm on Saturdays. I have checked the hours listed on our G+ page, our "Places for Business" page, our "about us" page on our website, and can't find where they are getting this incorrect data. I even went out and checked most of the "List your business" sites that I have registered with.
Branding | | Ticket_King
I have submitted this to Google, but have not heard back. Does anyone have any ideas as to how I can fix this, or at least find out where this bad data is coming from? I did find a company blog post from 2010 that listed our ours in a somewhat confusing way, but it was still correct. (I have since fixed that old post.)0 -
Add Google + button link to google page and not link
Hello SEOOOOOOOOO moz people ! I was wondering if you know how can I add Google + button to my page I tried to set it up in google page http://awesomescreenshot.com/08d1a9hmef https://plus.google.com/b/109790526955470383191/109790526955470383191/posts But i would like to link the button to my google + fan page https://plus.google.com/b/109790526955470383191/109790526955470383191/about and not the url of the page. As our website is indeed 12 websites if you go to http://www.ibremarketing.com you don't have the same +1 than http://www.ibremarketing.com/me or http://www.ibremarketing.com/ma Any idea of how to do it ? It would be amazing 😛
Branding | | AymanH0 -
Splitting our main website in Two... What is the fastest way for the new sites to become a brand in Googles eyes.
In a couple weeks our main website (which generates all of the revenue) will be split into two because of a long term branding / identity crisis. So my question is, how can i make sure (besides obvious 301 redirects) that these 2 new fresh urls become a brand as quick as possible in googles eyes? So far i am thinking of things like: press releases, blog posts with brand mentions. I am not ignorant and expect this to happen overnight, but we need a strong foundation to build on, which is why i am asking Anyone got a list / case study / advise so I can really blow it up on launch week? Thanks 🙂
Branding | | Hyrule0 -
How to get Google to link external review sites in Google Places
Hi, I have several company profiles in Google Places and Google Sites, I also have the same profiles for those companies in review sites like Yelp! and so on. I have seen that other sites have links on the bottom where Google points to those external review sites, but that doesn't happen for me yet, is there a way to tell Google that I have profiles on other review sites so they can link them or is it Google whenever they find them that will link them? Here's an example: http://maps.google.com/maps/place?cid=14126341780178539960&hl=en At the bottom you'll see that it says: Reviews from around the web Now this is one of mine: http://maps.google.com/maps/place?cid=12168877126282825032&hl=en Now how do I get that line at the bottom provided that I know there are reviews out there in other sites? Is there something I can do? Or is it all about Google doing it whenever they see fit? Thank you!
Branding | | tass0 -
New Social Media Site + META Tags for User Profiles
I'm currently in the process of building a social media site and was deciding whether or not to add META descriptions/keywords for individual user profiles. After reviewing Facebook, I noticed that in the META Description field, user profile pages just inherited the values for Facebook (there were no META keywords); and, when I reviewed LinkedIn, there was no META description/keywords at all. After this investigation, I figured it might be a question best addressed to the SEO community. With that, what do you guys think? If you were building a social media site, would you have META description + META keywords for each user's profile? If so, what would be the best way to optimize the individual profiles so they rank highly within the search engines?
Branding | | NiallSmith0