Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Meta title not showing up correctly on SERP
-
We have an issue with some clients on a Wordpress CMS where title tags implemented on a Yoast SEO plugin for the Homepage are not coming up as we'd implemented them. However, the source code shows we'd implemented them correctly according to what we'd wanted.**For example, this is the title tag we implemented in the CMS:Towing Services Alberta | Jack's TowingSource code shows:Towing Services Alberta | Jack's TowingHowever, SERP results shows:**Jack's Towing | Towing Services Alberta This is not an issue with the rest of the other pages and there isn't a global template for our client's sites. It's perplexing that it's only happening on the Homepage and this is across for 3 of our clients' sites.Even more perplexing, recently we've noticed that SERP is only showing the client's business name as the title tag and this is across for 2 out of the 3 clients we'd mentioned above. Nothing has changed in the back-end.Would appreciate some insight on this issue!
-
A strange situation here also with https://locksmith24-7.nl/

I did not include Amsterdam in the meta titel but google is still showing this, how can this happen, any SEO EXPERT solutions for this?
-
Hi Gaston, LureCreative and Nigel, your responses and suggestions are much appreciated. We will test it out and hopefully be able to update on here what's the outcome!
-
Good advice. This is also better from an SEO point of view as the main Keyphrase is now at the beginning of the title. i.e. Towing Services Alberta is more likely to be searched for than 'Jack's towing'.
I would also experiment with putting two key phrases at the beginning with your name at the end. Which is what Google will often do if your name is missing.
so: Towing Services Alberta | Tow Service | Jack's Towing
This allows two contextually strong key phrases to be hoofed into the title. Frankly, I would put the phone number in the description, not in the title as it will not be searched for. Use the title only for keyword rich information that will be searched for, then flesh it out with a strong call to action in the description along with phone number.
Regards
Nigel
-
This is a common thing we see especially when your meta title is "(Keyword Phrase) | (Company Name)". Keep in mind that the Yoast plugin only "strongly suggests" the Meta Title to show up in Google's SERPs, but Google can alter it, and often will if they think it is too keyword heavy or if they want to put the business name first instead of last.
I would test "Towing Services Alberta | Jack's Towing | 888-888-8888" if the client is ok with having their phone number in, this would put the business name in the middle of the title, which in our experience makes it less likely to be changed in SERPs. If the client does not want their phone number in SERPs you may have to experiment with it.
To speed up the testing process, use Google Search Console's Fetch & Render tool and re-index the page to see Google change the result in their SERPs alot faster (usually). Hope this helps and best of success!
-
Hello Gavo,
How long has it been since the setting was applied in the yoast plugin? and how long has it been since you started seeing the wrong title in serp?
Would you please tellme in wich search engine (.com, or .co.uk or other) are you seing this issue?
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
-
Correct robots.txt for WordPress
Hi. So I recently launched a website on WordPress (1 main page and 5 internal pages). The main page got indexed right off the bat, while other pages seem to be blocked by robots.txt. Would you please look at my robots file and tell me what‘s wrong? I wanted to block the contact page, plugin elements, users’ comments (I got a discussion space on every page of my website) and website search section (to prevent duplicate pages from appearing in google search results). Looks like one of the lines is blocking every page after ”/“ from indexing, even though everything seems right. Thank you so much. FzSQkqB.jpg
On-Page Optimization | | AslanBarselinov1 -
Review markup not showing up in SERP anymore
Hi all, I have been collecting reviews for a little while now. Ofcourse im hoping to cross the 150 reviews border soon 🙂 But i also added the review markup to my website to show up in organic results. This was working fine for a while. I did not added the markup to my homepage. But now for somehow google is not showing this review markup anymore in search results. So i decided to give the company that is hosting the review tool (google partner also) a call. The informed me that they had a lot of calls and e-mails since 2 weeks from their customers. All with the same problem that review markup is not used in search results anymore. Anyone else had this, or know about this issue?
On-Page Optimization | | J05B0 -
Can I add multi location business cities to homepage meta title or desc.?
I have a business with 6 locations (in the same state) but very different cities. We we expanded from one location with the city name in the URL we followed best practices to move to the new domain without the singular city name in the URL. We definitly took a hit on the organic side and I'm trying to figure out best practice for where to add geo info. Currently I have geo info: -In footer
On-Page Optimization | | beehiive
-Contact Page -On local page It's a WP site and each location has it's own page (ie. locations/geolocation_keyword). I know all other locations will take sometime but my concern is the hit we took on the original location that had geo-target URL. I guess really my question is simply can I include city names in homepage meta title and desc.?
and is there anything else I can do to bounce back organically on the original city faster?0 -
Prices in title tag
At our ecommerce site adwords ads generally perform a lot better when the product price is included in the ad title. Does anyone here have any experience and data on CTR with including product prices in title tags of product / category pages?
On-Page Optimization | | ese0 -
Does a phone number in the title tag hurt your rankings in SERP?
Hi Mozzers, One of my client is a carpet cleaner and I was wondering if adding a phone number into the title tags would hurt our rankings . I am asking because the client has mentioned it and that we do have some space to add a phone number into the tag. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Page Title in Local SEO Title Tags?
Hi All, Still working on my title tag usage for local SEO, and I was hoping for some more feedback. My question is this: In Local SEO titles, I'm using location + keyword combinations, unique on each page. However, since each page has a specific title for the client, I figure I should be placing that at the front. My thought here was that this helps with the overall usability to the reader of the website. Ex. Contact Us page for Pizza shop Contact Us | Springfield IN Gourmet Pizza | Moe's Italian Pizza Anyone have thoughts on this one? Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | kbaltzell0 -
Title tag for category page
I'd like to know your views on the best approach for title tags for category pages for ecommerce sites. 3 examples A) Category name | Free delivery on $50 purchase | Brand name B) Discover best "category name" on brand name C) Category Name | 1st Keyword, 2nd keyword | Brand name Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | walidalsaqqaf0 -
Using commas in the title tag?
Is there a disadvantage/advantage to using commas to separate words in the title tag. Which will be more effective as a title tag: "keyword1 keyword2 - Brand" OR "keyword1, keyword2 - Brand"?
On-Page Optimization | | Audiohype0