Google is putting brandname: in title tag
-
Hello, I was wondering why this is happening? In html for example the title tag is something like this:
keyword 1 | keyword 2 | Brand name. Title is 67 characters..
When I search in google, I see the site but it shows brandname: keyword 1 | keyword 2
Is this bad? does this mean that google doesn't like the title tag that is in the html? I tried looking it up on google, but they were outdated and I honestly didn't really see an answer to what it means when this happens.
Does the brandname: affect rankings?? Have any of you dealt with this, or noticed this?
-
Donnleath, I wouldn't worry too much about this. In fact, Google has been rewriting title tags for about 3 or 4 years, now.
Google, for whatever reason, has decided to rewrite your title tag for you if the one you're using better matches the actual search query being used by the searcher. It's quite possible that if your home page, for example, ranks for one search query they will rewrite it but for another search query they won't rewrite it.
Google will use, from time to time, your brand name, company name, and even elements of your site's navigation to rewrite your title tag. I've seen them take internal links from a site's navigation and breadcrumb trail and use those words in the title tag.
In your case, what you need to decide is if the title tags that Google is rewriting are better or 'worse' for your searchers. If they're worse, then you might consider looking at your site's navigation and breadcrumb trail to see if there's something that you can fix on your site to maybe influence Google to rewrite them another way.
If you see that Google is rewriting ALL of those title tags, though, on all pages, then you might want to take a look at your site's title tags and see if they do need to be rewritten, taking what Google is suggesting, into account.
-
Hi there
Google will change your titles based on what they feel is the most suitable for search. Same with meta descriptions and so on.
Here is a great write up from SocialMediaToday on the subject. Optimize titles the best you can and abide by best practices / your important keywords / queries, but know that Google will sometimes take the reigns and change your titles based on what they feel is best. Google loves branding and this is further proof!
Let me know if this helps! Good luck!
P
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
-
Unkown H1-Tag on my webshop
Dear community, I have a unknown and undetecable H1-tag on my webshop. I'm currently optimizing my webshop and get stuck by two H1-tags on every page. Does anyone know where i can remove this H1-tag? My webshop URL: www.rijwielcashencarry.nl Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | rijwielcashencarry0400 -
Title Tags
Say you have a client that specializes in Driveways and you have multiple keywords within one locations. So for instance the keywords are Driveway company, Driveway installers, driveway repairs etc.. How would you set it up? San Diego Driveway Company, San Diego Driveway Installers, San Diego Driveway repairs or San Diego Driveway Company, Driveway Installers, Driveway repairs
On-Page Optimization | | benjaminmarcinc0 -
Title Tags for Index Pages
What tactics do you use to change the title tags of your index page so they're not all the same? For example, if you have an index page that has 100 pages, each with the same title, what tactics do you use to give each page a unique title and how important is it?
On-Page Optimization | | felt0 -
Canonical tags
In previous we had issues with capital letters in page urls. So we made a 301 redirection to lower case page url. But I read there that it's not good idea to use 301 redirection, better solution for that canonical tag. So we placed canonical url tak to lower case page url... So after week, in google webmaster tools I see around 60k os dublicate pages. Why google don't see canonical tag? Thank you
On-Page Optimization | | bele0 -
Removing old URLs from Google
Hello, I am sure that this question has been asked many times, but I am still not sure what to do about the following: Our site's URL structure has changed a few times in the past few months. Recenty, we have changed our URLs to become more SEO friendly. However, Google has indexed the old URLs as well. To give an example: The following page in our website shows the following URLs in Google Webmaster Tools: Confúcio e Seus Ensinamentos
On-Page Optimization | | Tev/artigo/68_38/2/as_religioes_iv_confucio_e_seus_ensinamentos/
/aula/14_6132/vestibular/confucio_e_seus_ensinamentos/
/aula/1_14_6132/vestibular/confucio_e_seus_ensinamentos/
/aula/_14_6132/Vestibular/confucio_e_seus_ensinamentos/
/aula/ensino/confucio_e_seus_ensinamentos/ The correct URL is the last one. What should I do about the other ones? Almost all the pages in our website have this problem. We have redirected the old URLs to the new ones, but is there anything else we should do? We were asking Google to remove them, but Google has informed us that it has reached the limit. Please advise us on waht we should do. We have removed the old sitemap with the old URLs. What else must we do? Thank you very much.
0 -
Google Ranking Dropped
Hi We launched a new website on the12th Feb 2012, it appeared on google page one for the search term "compare travel insurance" . Last week it changed ranking to page 49 of google ranking. my site is www.1234compare1234travel1234insurance1234ireland1234.com Take out the 1234 for my site address, some people have mentioned that it was honeymooned to page 1 due to being a new site with new content. Can anyone tell me if it looks as if I've done something wrong and been penalised by google? If not are there any SEO advice I could use to improve ranking? All comments and advice appreciated. Regards Paul
On-Page Optimization | | CocoMagenta1 -
Where does Google say this?
Just came across this article: http://www.searchmarketingstandard.com/tips-for-avoiding-thin-content And, it states, "Google says that it will ignore pages with less than 200 words of body text " I submitted a comment to the author, but was wondering in the meantime if anyone knows where Google says this?
On-Page Optimization | | nicole.healthline0 -
Duplicate Page Titles?
I'm running a campaign report within SEOmoz & am getting 9 pages that appear on this report. They all happen to be our author pages www.example.com//author/admin We have multiple authors. Is there a proper way that I should take care of this? Also as a side note, I'm using Yoast Wordpress SEO plugin, is there a setting on their I should change that will fix this issue? Or is it an issue at all? Thanks, BJ
On-Page Optimization | | seointern0