Google adding strings to meta title in SERPs => Driving my client crazy!
-
Fellow Mozzers,
I'm really baffled by Google's behaviour adding strings before my meta title in the SERPs.
This behaviour seems random, but it mainly happens on queries that trigger the homepages (multilingual .com domain).
I'm aware of meta title guidelines concerning length, and I know that Google may insert strings if it thinks it could benefit the user.
But clearly their "aid" is not helpful at all...Client is really anxious to get this resolved and we're stumped on what could be the cause for this...
Some examples:
Query: https://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&pws=0&q=Ogone - Online payment gateway
Result title: en-gb - Ogone - Online payment gateway
Normal title: Ogone - Online payment gatewayQuery: https://www.google.at/#hl=de&q=Ogone Online Payment Service Provider
Result title: ogone.at - Ogone. Online Payment Service Provider & e-payment ...
Normal title: Ogone. Online Payment Service Provider & e-payment Deutschland
=> For longer titles it will just prepend strings, and leave out our piece of the meta titleQuery: https://www.google.nl/#hl=nl&pws=0&q=Support Ogone
Result: Support | Ogone
=> For very short titles, Google doesn't add anything, why does it so for the other results?I really don't understand why this happens. The titles are long enough (but not too long), no strange characters inserted.
Please, please help.
Thanks in advance!
Nikolaas
-
We've found the solution. We needed make each meta title unique, so we added the country dynamicall to each meta title.
-
Hey Federico,
Yes we are using rel alternate to its fullest extent. But this still doesn't explain this strange behaviour.
Any ideas?
-
Are you using the advantage of rel="alternate" hreflang="x"?
-
That's really interesting! How is it effecting your CTR? Higher than average? Lower?
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
-
4XX client error
I am a bit confused...my recent site crawl told me I had 1 4XX Client error, (high priority). This is the page...
Technical SEO | | sdwellers
http://www.seadwellers.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/367679d2+0+277-SD.mp4 This link below is listed as the "linking page"....I guess that the link comes from?
http://www.seadwellers.com/category/dive-travel/ I'm just not getting this...where did the page of the first link above come from...and what is the deal with the catagory/dive-travel/ page? And how do I fix? Any guidance would be greatly appreciated...0 -
Google Indexing - what did I missed??
Hello, all SEOers~ I just renewed my web site about 3 weeks ago, and in order to preserve SEO values as much as possible, I did 301 redirect, XML Sitemap and so on for minimize the possible data losses. But the problem is that about week later from site renewal, my team some how made mistake and removed all 301 redirects. So now my old site URLs are all gone from Google Indexing and my new site is not getting any index from Google. My traffic and rankings are also gone....OMG I checked Google Webmaster Tool, but it didn't say any special message other than Google bot founds increase of 404 error which is obvious. Also I used "fetch as google bot" from webmaster tool to increase chance to index but it seems like not working much. I am re-doing 301 redirect within today, but I am not sure it means anything anymore. Any advise or opinion?? Thanks in advance~!
Technical SEO | | Yunhee.Choi0 -
Title in google organic display
The title (top link) in my organic result in google search has my page title then a dash and another keyword. This keyword is not related to the search result. It may discourage clicks. Where does google get that and how can i change it? For example: Page Title - unrelated keyword
Technical SEO | | bhsiao
url
link description0 -
Special Characters in Title Tags & Meta Descriptions
Do special characters, such as the "&" symbol or a "," in title tags and meta descriptions negatively affect your ranking in search engines? Any feedback is much appreciated. Thank you!
Technical SEO | | ZAG1 -
Meta-robots Nofollow
I don't understand Meta-robots Nofollow. Wordpress has my homepage set to this according to SEOMoz tool. Is this really bad?
Technical SEO | | hopkinspat1 -
Searching on root domain words = ranking on > page 10 in SERP
Hello, Our website wingmancondoms.com (a new condom brand) is not ranking in Google on the keywords "wingman condom", and I don't know why. In Yahoo and Bing everything is allright. I saw on this forum that it is maybe best to change my language URL's to wingmancondoms.com/nl /de and /fr instead of a direct URL like http://www.wingmancondoms.com/wingman-kondome (german translation). But is this our problem or are there more problems. Google is indexing our page well, no errors etc. Any other possibilities?
Technical SEO | | jogo0 -
Google local listings
im working with gutter installation company, and we're ranking for all the top keywords in google. the only thing that we're not ranking for is for the map results, for the keyword "gutter ma" since we're located in Springfield ma, i thing Google considers certain areas from Boston, because its more center of Massachusetts, What can i do to improve my rankings in maps for this keyword, because i know it wont work with PO box since i need to confirm an address? Thanks
Technical SEO | | vladraush990 -
Why does google show two different titles for my rankings?
I have two keywords I am ranked for but google is showing two different title tags. One is the more updated version while the other is the older version. In all in one seo pack it shows the updated title tag but google still shows the old Why is this?
Technical SEO | | junkcars0