Spammy page titles

[sparrowdog]

Over the last couple of weeks,  I have noticed that Google aren't showing the page titles for my online shop anymore. They're set up with a third party plug-in piece of software, and while it's an old version of the software, the developer said it wouldn't be causing issues.

They have suggested that I re-write my page titles to be less spammy. The thing is, Google haven't attacked just spammy looking titles, they're just taking a swoop through my whole site and not showing any of my page titles in their search results.

I'm getting "Category Name - Shop Name" showing.

Here's some of the page titles no longer appearing and I honestly have no idea how to rewrite these to not be spammy. Are there any good articles on what's spammy and what isn't?

"Coconut oil - best tasting in Australia. Buy online from <my business="" name="">"</my>

"Discount Vitamix Blender. Best deal in Australia. Buy online from <my business="" name="">."</my>

"Natural & Organic skin care for the face | buy online in Australia from <my business="" name="">."</my>

There are others that are showing the real page titles, but I think it's only a matter of re-indexing before they're all not showing.

Any clue?

[danwebman]

Hi Joanne,

I don't think it's just the spammy titles, I also think it's the length of the titles, best below 55 char.

I would suggest something simpler and but the title's you suggested as Meta Description instead.

"Coconut Oil - <you company="" name="">" would be sufficient as a title.</you>

If the domain is an Australian domain then you don't need Australia in the title, also you may want to restrict your audience to Australia perhaps, dependent on your market.

Good Luck

[JaneCopland]

I would agree that the titles aren't particularly spammy, but also that you could re-word them slightly to make them more conversational (even a re-write for little reason can force a re-index of the tag itself which can help). This said, there really isn't anything untoward about what you've written already - the title tags take a common format and most sites do not have an issue with this.

Are you using the all-in-one SEO plug in, if you are running Wordpress?

[johnny122]

Just my personal experience in case it could help:

On some WP websites using "all-in-one SEO" to rewrite titles, Google rewrites my titles again.

On other sites using "yoast seo", I don't have this problem.

I will try to reduce titles length to see if it changes something.

[zeroabove]

Try to keep Google's ethos in mind, sites should be meant for humans. I'd look to rewrite those titles on the basis of what is right for the user, not what is attempting to gain traction through search engines.

For instance, "Discount Vitamix Blender. Best deal in Australia. Buy online from <my business="" name="">." could become "Discounted Vitamix Blender, we provide the best deals in Australia - <business name="">".</business></my>

I wouldn't say the example titles you've given are stuffed (read 'spammy') but if you're site is full of them you'll probably get penalised. Try introducing some standard, human-only titles.

Hope this helps