Google Not Pulling The Right Title Tag & Meta Description
-
Hi guys.
We've found Google is pulling the wrong information for our title tag and meta description.
Instead of pulling the actual title tag, Google is pulling the menu name you click on to get to the page: "Bike Barcelona" instead of "Barcelona Bike Tours | ...."
Also, we've found that, instead of pulling the meta description we wrote, Google is using text from the pages copy.
Any tips?
-
Just to update on this i too know about Google doesn't always use our Meta tags. But its very weird when i see another meta tags when i search for mydomainname.com. But when i search for the keywords the SERP shows the meta tags i have used in my page. Weird !
-
Most of the time it's because Google thinks your tag doesn't match what the user is looking for e.g.
if a site is about cars and your tags about teddy bears its going to ignore the tag.
sometimes Google can just be plain stubborn though. Make sure you also give Google enough time to crawl your new META tag before you panic!
-
I find it amazing that we all strive to acquire rank in Google using suggested SEO standards to avoid their dreaded updates, yet they themselves cannot even get it right!
-
Thanks guys!
-
Just want to echo Chris's response and also point you to a link from Matt Cutts (lead engineer @ Google) talking about just this subject. http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-look-title-match-query-190039
Hope it helps!
Don
-
Hello,
Unfortunately Google doesn't always use your Meta tags there is a helpful Moz blog post on the subject here - http://moz.com/blog/why-wont-google-use-my-meta-description
Sometimes it can be a matter of giving it some more time others it can be back to the chalk board to tweak it some more.
Try some of the suggestions in the above post.
hope it helps & good luck!
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
-
AMP Benefits
Hello, Does AMP have ranking benefits ? Should I just AMP my post or all the pages of my website, product page, homepage etc... Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Title page google serp
Why does Google change the titles automatically? I have <title>Canyoning Açores - São Jorge | Discover Experience Açores</title> but google show Discover Experience Açores: Canyoning Açores - São Jorge
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tiagoarruda0 -
How Important is Meta Description on Non-Entry Pages?
If a page is never used as an entry page to your website -- in other words it's an obscure, relatively unimportant page that never ranks high enough in the search engines to be in the first few pages of the search results for any significant number of searches -- does editing the META Description really have any significant benefit? I guess the question could also be phrased as, does the Google Search Algo factor in the META Description tag, or is it only used for display purposes on the search results and doesn't affect ranking?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SeoJaz0 -
Should I worry about rendering problems of my pages in google search console fetch as google?
Some elements are not properly shown when I preview our pages in search console (fetch as google), e.g.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lcourse
google maps, css tables etc. and some parts are not showing up since we load them asynchroneously for best page speed. Is this something should pay attention to and try to fix?0 -
Heading Tags & Content Count
Hi everyone I am looking into this page on our site http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/sack-trucks Just comparing it against competitors in SEMRush, the tool shows a wordcount of this page for over 4089 words, compared with http://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Green-General-Purpose-Sack-Truck-200kg/p/500302 which only has 2658 - it has a lot more written content than our page - where is this word count coming from? Also looking at the same page on our site Woorank suggests we have the word 'sack truck' in the h1 and title too many times - it's only there once, but its this showing because its an exact match keyword? I'm just wondering if there is something wrong with the html or how the page is being crawed?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
What is Google supposed to return when you submit an image URL into Fetch as Google? Is a few lines of readable text followed by lots of unreadable text normal?
I am seeing something like this (Is this normal?): HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Autoboof
Server: nginx
Content-Type: image/jpeg
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
Last-Modified: Fri, 13 Nov 2015 15:23:04 GMT
Cache-Control: max-age=1209600
Expires: Fri, 27 Nov 2015 15:23:55 GMT
X-Request-ID: v-8dd8519e-8a1a-11e5-a595-12313d18b975
X-AH-Environment: prod
Content-Length: 25505
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2015 15:24:11 GMT
X-Varnish: 863978362 863966195
Age: 16
Via: 1.1 varnish
Connection: keep-alive
X-Cache: HIT
X-Cache-Hits: 1 ����•JFIF••••��;CREATOR: gd-jpeg v1.0 (using IJG JPEG v80), quality = 75
��C•••••••••• •
••
••••••••• $.' ",#(7),01444'9=82<.342��C• ••••
•2!!22222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222��•••••v••"••••••��••••••••••••••••
•���•••••••••••••}•••••••!1A••Qa•"q•2���•#B��•R��$3br�
••••%&'()*456789:CDEFGHIJSTUVWXYZcdefghijstuvwxyz���������������������������������������������������������������������������•••••••••••••••••••
•���••••••••••••••w••••••!1••AQ•aq•"2�••B���� #3R�•br�0 -
Structured Data + Meta Descriptions
Hey All, Was just looking through some google pages on best practices for meta descriptions and came across this little tidbit. "Include clearly tagged facts in the description. The meta description doesn't just have to be in sentence format; it's also a great place to include structured data about the page. For example, news or blog postings can list the author, date of publication, or byline information. This can give potential visitors very relevant information that might not be displayed in the snippet otherwise. Similarly, product pages might have the key bits of information—price, age, manufacturer—scattered throughout a page. A good meta description can bring all this data together. For example, the following meta description provides detailed information about a book. " This is the first time I have seen suggested use of structured data in meta descriptions. Does this totally replace a regular meta description or will it work in conjunction with the regular meta description? If I provide both structured data and text, will the SERP display text and the structured data the way it was previously displayed? Or will the 150 -160 character limit take precedence and just cut off all info after that?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Whebb0 -
Google Listing & Description Categories Question
How do you set up a website or home page to get the individual listing below the description text. For example with the SEO moz listing there are many of the categories listed below the description. Such as SEO Blog, SEO tools ... Is there a way to add this to a home page so good will pick it up this way? I attached a screen shot of what I am talking about because I think I am likely using the wrong terminology. Npcpu.png
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fertilityhealth0