Does personalization that changes meta data display in SERPs impact SEO?
-
My company has been rolling out personalization at the page level across our site using behavior paths embedding content from cross pathed pages as well as customer journey mapping. The dynamically generated content doesn’t change the URLs. In the SERPs I’m seeing that our title tags and meta descriptions also seem to be dynamically generated even though we have these elements crafted.
The way our elements are crafted:
- Title tag: descriptive Keyword rich phrase | Brand
- Meta description: Keyword rich, grammatically correct description tied to title tag and page content for consistency.
I search a specific URL:
- Title tag display: Keyword rich phrase | Brand – Brand
- Meta description display: Random content pulled from the page
I search a phrase that includes Brand + keywords in the URL:
- Title tag display: Title tag we crafted
- Meta description display: Meta description we crafted
I search a phrase that includes Brand + keywords in the title tag:
- Title tag display: Title tag we crafted
- Meta description display: Random content pulled from the page
Does Google crawl the page and digest the title tag and meta description we crafted? Or is Google going to ding us for having the brand twice, exceeding the length of the title tag, etc.? I have been searching the interwebs, forums and the cosmos, but the only information I’m finding is related to the fact that URLs are changing and how that would impact SEO. That’s not the case for us. Thoughts on how all this is impacting our SEO efforts?
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
-
Using Brand value for SEO: Can we use keyword with brand name?
Hi Moz community, I am curious to know this. Let's say there is a brand value for a company. It has it's own popularity that it's been mentioned across the internet and social media directly with brand name without their service or industry keyword. Now if the company started promoting themselves like keyword along with their brand name, will it help them to rank for that keyword. For example, Moz is already famous, now they want to rank for "SEO" and related keywords, so they started calling themselves on internet "Moz SEO"; will this fetch them in ranking for keyword SEO? My ultimate question is, using primary keyword along with brand name will work out in ranking for that primary keyword or not? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Does using parent pages in WordPress help with SEO and/or indexing for SERPs?
I have a law office and we handle four different practice areas. I used to have multiple websites (one for each practice area) with keywords in the actual domain name, but based on the recommendation of SEO "experts" a few years ago, I consolidated all the webpages into one single webpage (based on the rumors at the time that Google was going to be focusing on authorship and branding in the future, rather than keywords in URLs or titles). Needless to say, Google authorship was dropped a year or two later and "branding" never took off. Overall, having one webpage is convenient and generally makes SEO easier, but there's been a huge drawback: When my page comes up in SERPs after searching for "attorney" or "lawyer" combined with a specific practice area, the practice area landing pages don't typically come up in the SERPs, only the front page comes up. It's as if Google recognizes that I have some decent content, and Google knows that I specialize in multiple practice areas, but it directs everyone to the front page only. Prospective clients don't like this and it causes my bounce rate to be high. They like to land on a page focusing on the practice area they searched for. Two questions: (1) Would using parent pages (e.g. http://lawfirm.com/divorce/anytown-usa-attorney-lawyer/ vs. http://lawfirm.com/anytown-usa-divorce-attorney-lawyer/) be better for SEO? The research I've done up to this point appears to indicate "no." It doesn't make much difference as long as the keywords are in the domain name and/or URL. But I'd be interested to hear contrary opinions. (2) Would using parent pages (e.g. http://lawfirm.com/divorce/anytown-usa-attorney-lawyer/ vs. http://lawfirm.com/anytown-usa-divorce-attorney-lawyer/) be better for indexing in Google SERPs? For example, would it make it more likely that someone searching for "anytown usa divorce attorney" would actually end up in the divorce section of the website rather than the front page?
Algorithm Updates | | micromano0 -
Fetch as Google - removes start words from Meta Title ?? Help!
Hi all, I'm experiencing some strange behaviour with Google Webmaster Tools. I noticed that some of our pages from our ecom site were missing start keywords - I created a template for meta titles that uses Manufacturer - Ref Number - Product Name - Online Shop; all trimmed under 65 chars just in case. To give you an idea, an example meta title looks like:
Algorithm Updates | | bjs2010
Weber 522053 - Electric Barbecue Q 140 Grey - Online Shop The strange behaviour is if I do a "Fetch as Google" in GWT, no problem - I can see it pulls the variables and it's ok. So I click submit to index. Then I do a google site:URL search, to see what it has indexed, and I see the meta description has changed (so I know it's working), but the meta title has been cut so it looks like this:
Electric Barbecue Q 140 Grey - Online Shop So I am confused - why would Google cut off some words at start of meta title? Even after the Fetch as Googlebot looks perfectly ok? I should point out that this method works perfect on our other pages, which are many hundreds - but it's not working on some pages for some weird reason.... Any ideas?0 -
Profile Picture Display Next to Map on Google Search
On a recent Google search, I noticed that the top result also displayed the Google map of the location next to it but aside from that, it also displayed that business' Google+ Profile picture. I'm wondering how that is done. We have a Google+ account as well with an image associated with our business. At this point, the map doesn't even display for our business, but how does one get the map and the profile picture to appear on search results? Here's a link to the search result in question:
Algorithm Updates | | atuomala
http://www.google.com/search?q=tech+squad&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS511US511&aq=f&oq=tech+squad&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#hl=en&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS511US511&sclient=psy-ab&q=tech+squad+wi&oq=tech+squad+wi&gs_l=serp.3..0l2j0i30l2.6041.6590.0.6592.3.3.0.0.0.0.79.158.2.2.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.1.4.psy-ab.DoA-PSlyt-A&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.42768644,d.cGE&fp=b5d841bb1ab219dc&biw=1440&bih=785 tech_squad_serp.jpg0 -
How long does it take for a new website to start showing in the SERP'S
I launched my website about 6 weeks ago. It was indexed fairly quickly. But it is not showing up in the Google SERP. I did do the on page SEO and followed the best practise's for my website. I have also been checking webmaster tools and it tells me that there is no errors with my site. I also ran it through the seomoz on page seo analyzer and again no real big issues. According to seomoz I had 1 duplicate content issue with my blog posts, which i corrected. I understand it takes some time, but any ideas of how much time? And f.y.i it's a Canadian website. So it should be a lot easier to rank as well. Could my site be caught in the Google 'sandbox effect' ? Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.
Algorithm Updates | | CurtCarroll0 -
Meta Keywords ... Client request
I have a client who would like to include Meta Keywords in their site as they have seen competitors with it, we haven't used Meta Keywords tag before as doesn't impact ranking as we all know - however if I am to put them in - is there a limit - would 200 + negatively impact the site? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | lauratagdigital0 -
Shortened Title in Google Places/Local Results in SERPs
I've been doing some local SEO lately and noticed something today. When I do a search for "State/town name Cat Toys", I see the title tag of the website in the local results as opposed to the business name. I'm happy they are showing up above the normal results, but I wonder if having the brand name at the end of the site title impacts clicks. For example: Site name: New Hampshire Cat Toys and Accessories | Cats R Us But in the places results the title is cut short because they show the address, so all they see is: New Hampshire Cat Toys and.... Do you think branding is especially important in local results? Or less important? I could hear arguments for both sides. I realize the site URL is shown in green below the title, but it's not the same as having a brand in the title portion. It also looks like some of the competition has just their name show up as opposed to their website title. Is this something I can fix in Google Places, or is something Google does on its own? Cheers, Vinnie
Algorithm Updates | | vforvinnie1 -
Sitelink Disappeared from SERPs
Hi everyone, Something weird has happened to one of our client's site. First of all I want to explain that the client's name is something like a Person Name plus another generic keyword, for example Truxy Lawyers. Before when you searched for the brand keyword (in my example Truxy), Google would show in the SERPs the client's site as first result with six sitelinks below. Now when searching for the same branded keyword (for example Truxy), Google doesn't show the sitelink anymore, but the first result is the home page and the second and third results are subdomain pages. Does anybody know why Google all of the sudden decided to stop showing the site link? Things get more weird when you search the complete brand name "Truxy Lawers" for example, because in this case Google shows the site link. Does anybody know what has caused this? Thank you!
Algorithm Updates | | Aviatech0