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
-
Google+ how to optimize [best practice tips]
I would like to learn more about Google+ optimization to help the brand and rankings, etc of the company I work for but I do not know where to begin. Anyone with advice? Or links to this type of information? The website is www.stillfrisky.com Thank you, Gina
Branding | | gina_m0 -
Product expansion on website. Best practices for Retargeting Interior Pages with a high concern for brand.
For the past year, I've worked on a website that offered one product (Product 1). The homepage targeted both branded terms and the highest volume keywords for the one product. We've built a lot of strong links to the homepage using the natural variations of the targeted Keywords & the homepage ranks very well for these terms. The brand is now expanding its offerings to two products (Product 1 & 2). Thus necessitating the creation of two product subpages. I'm not concerned about ranking of Product 2's page, only Product 1. From a branding perspective, the homepage URL works wonderfully for the expanded offerings. And from an SEO perspective, offering two products allows me to target a very high volume group of keywords on the homepage that now makes more sense given the offerings. This new group of keywords will make even more sense if brand is able to roll out a 3rd product. The profitability of Product 1 & 2 are about the same. The profitability of potential product 3 is far greater 1+2 combined. Product 3 also has the most natural correlation with the group of KWs I plan to target on the homepage, i.e., I care more about the ranking of the homepage once Product 3 has launched. Product 3 will have its own interior product page as there is plenty of search volume for KWs specific to this product. I'm worried about hurting the rankings of the old product and URL confusion between the homepage & the to-be-created Product 1 page. I don't see myself having a lot of options. Options 301 - It does not make sense to 301 redirect the homepage to the Product 1 interior page. The homepage URL has strong branding and will be used in future marketing. I do not believe that I value the maintaining the rankings of Product 1 enough to push for making the new homepage example.com/home or similar to allow for the 301 redirect. Canonical - The content of the homepage will be changing, thus a rel=canonical to the Product 1 page does not make sense, nor does it make sense from a ranking perspective as I also want the homepage to rank for the new set of KWs I will be targeting The only real option I see is attempting to reach out to strong back links with Product 1 anchor text (or context) & asking them the switch the URL to the Product 1 interior page. Combine this with proper site-wide internal linking to the new Product 1 interior page & an anchor text link on the homepage to the new Product 1 interior page. Am I missing something? Am I dismissing either one of the above options too easily. Am I over-thinking this (yes probably)? Would love another set of eyes on this.
Branding | | 2uinc0 -
Strategies for getting more listings on first of google
We have a client who is looking to increase the number of results on page 1 of google for their brand name to essentially force some historical negative comments off page 1 of google. I am thinking of things like a twitter page, Facebook page, YouTube page etc. plus optimising their site to try and get multiple pages on page 1. Does any one have experience of doing the same sort of thing?
Branding | | barnst0 -
Missing Title Pages
So, one of the campaigns I am running has 90 pages with missing titles. Normally I would consider this a very bad thing, BUT, the pages are product description pages. The referring pages are product listings, and the pages without titles, are small pop-ups. For example on a bigger stage: Nike has a product page, when you click on a shoe, a small window pops up with price, description, etc. How important/ vital/ relevant is it to have titles for these pop-ups, if it is even possible. Thank you in advance!
Branding | | Hartz0 -
Acquired Premium Domain, question about Brand name change related to SEO
We recently acquired a premium domain name The domain we were operating on before had a lot of SEO done on it, as well as branding campaigns. Now that we have the premium domain, would it be wise to start doing SEO on the premium domain and discontinue old domain promotions if we plan on changing the brand name? to clear up any confusion, we own for example AAAFurnitureStore.com we acquired the premium domain: AAAFurniture.com should we redirect AAAFurnitureStore.com -> AAAFurniture.com or since we already have established presence/brand do opposite and redirect AAAFurniture.com -> AAAFurnitureStore.com and keep the brand name same as "AAA Furniture Store"?
Branding | | lafurniturestore0 -
Google Displays Domain / URL Above Description?
I am seeing a new SERP format from Google. (new for me at least) In the past the title tag would display as the first line of a listing, followed by description and domain / URL. Today I see the domain / URL as the second line. This is placing an emphasis on "Who". If you have a big brand or a great URL this might be helpful to your CTR. Are you seeing this? What do you think of it?
Branding | | EGOL0 -
Brand(keyword) - dominate on SERP
Hi, I'm opening this topic here, to discuss about brand domination, but maybe more concentrated for europe countries than google.com Write here your suggestions,tactics, and more about social profiles and mini-blogs. For example, if we like to dominate for keyword "seomoz" than we will take some social profiles and miniblogs with seomoz, but write mroe about tactics to rank this profiles and miniblogs higher. Not only to create, but what kind of things to do regularly to have this profiles on top #10. ( miniblogs i mean like user.wordpress.com, user.blogger.com, user.tumblr.com etc.. ) Write here your tactics, but only if you are experienced on this! Thanks.
Branding | | leadsprofi0 -
What are the best ways to improve/trigger "Brand Signals"?
Google considers some companies "brands" or stronger "brands" than other sites. What are the best ways to show Google you are an actual brand, not a fly by night eCom?
Branding | | zachc_coffeeforless.com0