Why Won't Google Update My Title?
-
I have waited plenty of time. Google has cached several pages with the updated title placed in the <title>tags.<br /><br />However search results, continue to show otherwise.<br /><br />I read the following (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35624?hl=en)</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>If we’ve detected that a particular result has one of the above issues with its title, we may try to generate an improved title from anchors, on-page text, or other sources. However, sometimes even pages with well-formulated, concise, descriptive titles will end up with different titles in our search results to better indicate their relevance to the query. There’s a simple reason for this: the title tag as specified by a webmaster is limited to being static, fixed regardless of the query. Once we know the user’s query, we can often find alternative text from a page that better explains why that result is relevant. Using this alternative text as a title helps the user, and it also can help your site. Users are scanning for their query terms or other signs of relevance in the results, and a title that is tailored for the query can increase the chances that they will click through.</em></p> <p>The reason I want to change my title, is because there seems to be a relevancy issue (as pointed out my other community members here.) Google is having trouble recognizing understanding what our site is about.<br /><br />So instead of a title that reads, "Felix And Fingers: Dueling Pianos" (as Google continues to use) I prefer "Dueling Pianos - Felix And Fingers"<em> </em> I don't believe Google is recognizing us correctly as a dueling piano company.<em><br /></em>Google doesn't seem to like that. Any idea why or how I might go about getting this updated?</p></title>
-
I would be willing to bet your issue is with authority and that is why it is being corrected. I have heard (cannot remember where) that in the algorithm that Google uses for titles it normalizes things. Like if I were to make a title called "Jets and the Joan" and constantly used "Joan and the Jets" in the page, it would normalize the title. If you look at everything on the page and off the page you are using the version that Google is showing, except for your title. I think more than likely that is what is overriding the title of the page. You would need to change things like your facebook, text on site, some OG data, ect to try to work it out. It might be more trouble than it is worth unless you are thinking this is killing your click through. Also one thing you might try as an experiment is to add more words like "A Dueling Piano Duet - Felix and the Fingers" and see if the extra words cause them not to match the other version and normalize it.
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
-
Domain and urls aren't showing up in Google search
Hi, Moz community, I hope you are staying safe, I have been trying to search our website in Google by using the whole domain name, but it's not showing up. For example: https://www.example.com/
Competitive Research | | ksmith88
https://www.example.com/inner-page.html
Or if search brand name: Example, doesn't come up But when I try example.com, it comes up along with other pages. Neither the inner pages are being come up in the search nor the home page with https://www.example.com. I have checked with Site:example.com, it is showing all the pages, but it is weird on the other hand that it is not visible in the search, what could be the reason? Any tool to check it? I thought it was because of the latest core update from Google. But, there are many keywords in the rankings, so I am sure the website hasn't been impacted. I checked penalties or issues through many tools and even in the search console, everything is fine. Any help would be appreciated.1 -
Continuous drop in Rankings on Google.uk
I have a Website who was ranked top 6 for most competitive keywords on Google.co.uk but suddenly dropped to page 2 after 21st January 2013 and later back to top 10 position and now dropped to pages 2 to 5, for most terms. I initially thought it was the transition rank causing this fluctuations. The strange thing is, i haven't done anything wrong in terms of back linking efforts. My site is content rich and offers real value to users also, the website PR increased from 3 to 4 recently, my site seomoz rank, PA, DA and Moz trust is higher than top ranked websites above mine. Please any suggestions?? Kindly help.....
Competitive Research | | ayo10 -
Why do keyword competition rankings differ between Google and SeoMoz?
I am a novice at keyword ranking etc. so I appreciate your patience! I checked a longtail keyword - how do i get out of this relationship - in Google AdWords and it came back 'low competition.' When I entered it in SeoMoz it came back as 'very competitive.' Any thoughts? I appreciate your help.
Competitive Research | | UncleTodd0 -
My site is ranked in the top 5 for my keywords, but howcome I'm low in an organic search results for my key words?
Are the other factors such as page rank, Alexa rating and mozRank used to determine where I will show up in search results, over Goggle's key word rank for my key words?
Competitive Research | | allstatetransmission0 -
What are the competition's Google Places pages optimised for?
I'm doing some work on a client's Googe Places page, and wondered if there's any way to see what a completitors Places page is currently optimised or categorised for? Basically, we're trying to rank for 'Bathrooms Edinburgh' and almost all of the page 1 SERP's are (unsurprisingly) full of Places results, with #1 Organic slot right down at the bottom of the page. In short - we NEED to get our Places page kicked into shape, and pronto! So, is there any way to find out how the competition's Places pages are ranking so well? e.g. What have they categorised themselves under? Cheers in advance folks, JM
Competitive Research | | JamesMio0 -
When providing search results for SEO purposes to you use the exact results in Google Adwords
Hi Mozzers Just quick question When an SEO company are supplying their testimonials for example
Competitive Research | | mcliddy
Keyword Search Term has 33,000 visits a month
Keywords is in position 1 but the search volume they are showing is broad, i was always brought up to do research on exact results unless im using the reserch for a PPC campagin? Has anyone got any ideas?? should it be braod im looking at or exact?? Many Thanks Matt0 -
Is it valuable for a local business to build links into its Google Place?
G'Day All, Almost all of my clients are geo-based small service-based businesses. I've noticed during my research that the google places for our competitors in 3 separate niches (3 different clients) seem to be the dominating results for almost all relevant keyword terms. I'm curious to see if anyone has actively tried to increase the ranking of a google place by building links into it. Is this something that anyone else sees value to for a local small business? I would love to get some thoughts. And for that matter I'm also curious to see if anyone thinks there might be value to optimizing a Facebook Fan Page or Yelp Business page. They all seem to be key drivers of traffic our client websites so I'm wondering how difficult it is to make them rank as opposed to a website. Thanks!
Competitive Research | | blahblahblah20150 -
Can't Grasp Why Pages rank Higher?
The first result "Bankruptcy on IRS" is the search term. Why does the first url rank higher in google. The second one, the IRS.gov page beats them in PA, DA root domains links. The title meta has bankruptcy near the front. unclefed does have the IRS keyword in the title, but an I missing something here? What are the other factors, that are most obvious. Sure one can have bad links, and other negative criteria, but these are pretty decent sites that probably don't engage in much in seo, let alone bad SEO. Sure link text and mix of links can help, but am I missing something here? Actually what I think I really need IS A CHECKLIST OF WHAT TO CHECK IN WHAT ORDER WHEN COMPARING WHY ONE PAGE RANKS BETTER THAN ANOTHER. Appreciate all discussions. Thanks in advance. http://www.unclefed.com/AuthorsRow/Daily/Fwdcsea.html http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=98701,00.html
Competitive Research | | joemas990