Why isn't our complete meta title showing up in the Google SERPS? (cut off half way)
-
We carry a product line, cutless bearings (for use on boats).
For instance, we have one, called the Able, that has the following meta title (and searched by View Page Source to confirm): BOOT 1-3/8" x 2-3/8" x 5-1/2" Johnson Cutless Bearing | BOOT Cutlass
However, if I search for it on on Google by part number or name (boot cutless bearing, boot cutlass bearing), the meta title comes back with whole first part chopped off, only showing this : "x 5-1/2" Johnson Cutless Bearing | BOOT Cutlass - Citimarine ..."
Any idea why?
Here's the url if it will hopefully help: https://citimarinestore.com/en/metallic-inches/156-boot-johnson-cutless-bearing-870352103.html
All the products in the category are doing the same.
Thanks!
-
sometimes people write a meta title on meta description so its too long, there are free plug-ins, if you have a WordPress website where you can write the meta title and the meta description and often it shows if it's red, amber or if it's green, in terms of whether you have written a long enough or too long Meta title meta description
-
sometimes the meta title might be too long, we had this problem with a Bristol company we had to rewrite the meta titles using yoast SEO, to improve the organic seo.
-
Three methods using modules on your existing CMS of implementing the fixes. I use labels A, B & C three different configurations C is the least expensive I think all three of them would add a lot of value however you would be very safe using A or C
A)
**1) all-in-one with canonical **
2) JSON-LD
B)
1) Add a canonical tag to your site
https://addons.prestashop.com/en/url-redirects/22526-canonical-seo.html
2) open graph
3) JSON-LD
or
C )
1) Add a canonical tag to your site
https://addons.prestashop.com/en/url-redirects/22526-canonical-seo.html
2) This module offers structured data/JSON-LD Facebook and Twitter open graph tag redirects Site maps etc. a base SEO suite without a canonical tag found above.
This video is of the all-in-one module without the canonical tag unfortunately but it's the least expensive of the two.
I hope this wasn't confusing I would choose A or C it will really help your site.
All the best,
Tom
-
Very complete information. Thank you very much! I will first try simplifying the meta title, might be a bit too long now. See other competitors with the same meta title, just cutting out some of the later stuff we have.
Will go through this answer more in detail when back in the office tomorrow and see the other suggestions. Thank you once again.
-
I don't know how much it will help but if you remove the MFG prior to the part number it may help a little bit. It's a 30% chance but the reason I bring it up is when I google "MFG#: 870352103." exactly what you have on the page shows me the highlight what I have typed in however the part number is shown in addition but it is not highlighted.
I strongly believe this was done intentionally by Google for a better user experience.
Google tunicates and rewrites descriptions all the time. I don't think to have the part number in the SERPS is considered important to Google
Your meta description is a suggestion to Google. There’s no guarantee that it’ll actually be shown. So, if you don’t see your description, that means Google probably made something up for you. Perhaps it felt the meta description you created didn’t represent the content of the page, or is a duplicate, for instance. Here you’ll find all the possible reasons why your meta description doesn’t show.
very long part numbers are unlikely to give a clear idea of the content of the page, therefore, less likely to be displayed.
- Good descriptions are human-readable and diverse. Page-specific data is a good candidate for programmatic generation. Keep in mind that meta descriptions comprised of long strings of keywords don't give users a clear idea of the page's content, and are less likely to be displayed in place of a regular snippet.
- Use quality descriptions. Finally, make sure your descriptions are truly descriptive. Because the meta descriptions aren't displayed in the pages the user sees, it's easy to let this content slide. But high-quality descriptions can be displayed in Google's search results, and can go a long way to improving the quality and quantity of your search traffic.
- See https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35624?hl=en
- https://moz.com/blog/how-to-write-meta-descriptions-in-a-changing-world
- https://www.authoritylabs.com/title-tags/
- https://moz.com/learn/seo/meta-description
- https://kb.yoast.com/kb/my-meta-descriptions-arent-showing-up-in-the-search-result-pages/
I would look into implementing JSON-LD /schema on the page so you can edit your product number you can do this with the Screaming Frog it will show you the pixel with because character length is not always the same as the letter "I" use less space than the letter "H"
It is free for up to 500 URLs https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/
In addition, I have posted your page URL, description and it is still lacking a canonical tag I would add one.
the part number if search for will show up because that's what the user intends on looking for. In addition you do not want Google taking clicks from your website you want people to click on your site in order to find the part number you may want to change your content to make the part numbers a bigger part of the actual page content.
-
Page Url
-
https://citimarinestore.com/en/metallic-inches/156-boot-johnson-cutless-bearing-870352103.html
-
Title
-
BOOT 1-3/8" x 2-3/8" x 5-1/2" Johnson Cutlass Bearing [Length:53]
-
Meta Description
-
DURAMAX BOOT Cutlass Johnson Bearing, Naval Brass. Shaft Diameter: 1 3/8", Outside Diameter: 2 3/8", Length: 5 1/2", Thickness: 1/8". Weight: 1.8 lbs. 870352103 [Length:160]
-
Canonical
-
None
Google "boot cutless bearing, boot cutlass bearing"
https://citimarinestore.com/en/metallic-inches/156-boot-johnson-cutless-bearing-870352103.html
Google "cutless bearing"
https://citimarinestore.com/citiguide/johnson-cutless-bearings-your-complete-guide/
https://citimarinestore.com/en/136-johnson-duramax-cutless-bearings
Googling "870352103"
It could be that it's over 550 pixels
Try using https://metatags.io/ to add Open Graph tags to your products or Facebook twitter and other social media platforms
-
Page Url
-
https://citimarinestore.com/en/metallic-inches/156-boot-johnson-cutless-bearing-870352103.html
-
<title>BOOT 1-3/8" x 2-3/8" x 5-1/2" Johnson Cutlass Bearing</title>
To add JSON-LD
With
https://www.rankranger.com/schema-markup-generator (I used a Image from your page for the photo) https://citimarinestore.com/429-large/boot-johnson-cutless-bearing-870352103.jpg
Tested in https://search.google.com/test/rich-results?id=qjE-Sbw4lhzWGpK4hmYHqA
Add the MPN in JSON-LD****SKU is a retailer's own Stock Keeping Unit, which they use to keep track of inventory. This would be unique to each retailer. MPN is the Manufacturer's Part Number, which in the case of the DURAMAX BOOT Cutlass Johnson Bearing you mention would be 870352103
Hope this helps,
Tom
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
-
What's the best way to use redirects on a massive site consolidation
We are migrating 13 websites into a single new domain and with that we have certain pages that will be terminated or moved to a new folder path so we need custom 301 redirects built for these. However, we have a huge database of pages that will NOT be changing folder paths and it's way too many to write custom 301's for. One idea was to use domain forwarding or a wild card redirect so that all the pages would be redirected to their same folder path on the new URL. The problem this creates though is that we would then need to build the custom 301s for content that is moving to a new folder path, hence creating 2 redirects on these pages (one for the domain forwarding, and then a second for the custom 301 pointing to a new folder). Any ideas on a better solution to this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MJTrevens0 -
Google Adding Wrong Location to Title Tag on Multi-Branch Business Homepage
We're a business with 5 separate locations across 5 cities in Upstate NY. While doing some visual ad previews in the adwords interface I noticed that Google is altering my title tag and adding the word "Rochester" to the end of it, cutting short my designated title tag. Rochester is the location of our headquarters so not a big deal for 1/5th of our customers. But to my dismay, the same thing is happening when searching from the geo locations of my other branches. So when searching for my business in Buffalo (we have a physical address in Buffalo), the title tag in the results still says our company name and "Rochester". This of course is likely leading to confusion and actively harming our organic CTR in our branch locations. This is happening in all of the remaining 4 branch locations. I'm at a loss, I tried lengthening the title tag but it still gets cut off. The term Rochester appears (as do the other branch locations) in my meta description for the homepage as well as in the text of the page itself. I haven't gone so far as to remove that yet and hopefully don't have to. Does anyone have any ideas? Thank you in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Doylejg30 -
Google doesn't index image slideshow
Hi, My articles are indexed and images (full size) via a meta in the body also. But, the images in the slideshow are not indexed, have you any idea? A problem with the JS Example : http://www.parismatch.com/People/Television/Sport-a-la-tele-les-femmes-a-l-abordage-962989 Thank you in advance Julien
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Julien.Ferras0 -
Competitors Showing in Branded Search w/in Google FR
Hi All, When searching for our brand in Google France, I noticed that some of our major competitors show up beneath our Knowledge Graph listing. My managers and I are wondering if this is something Google just does as associated search or if there's a way that we can work around it. Thanks and please see attached image 🙂 2KYBeiT
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CSawatzky0 -
I have search result pages that are completely different showing up as duplicate content.
I have numerous instances of this same issue in our Crawl Report. We have pages showing up on the report as duplicate content - they are product search result pages for completely different cruise products showing up as duplicate content. Here's an example of 2 pages that appear as duplicate : http://www.shopforcruises.com/carnival+cruise+lines/carnival+glory/2013-09-01/2013-09-30 http://www.shopforcruises.com/royal+caribbean+international/liberty+of+the+seas We've used Html 5 semantic markup to properly identify our Navigation <nav>, our search widget as an <aside>(it has a large amount of page code associated with it). We're using different meta descriptions, different title tags, even microformatting is done on these pages so our rich data shows up in google search. (rich snippet example - http://www.google.com/#hl=en&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=http:%2F%2Fwww.shopforcruises.com%2Froyal%2Bcaribbean%2Binternational%2Fliberty%2Bof%2Bthe%2Bseas&oq=http:%2F%2Fwww.shopforcruises.com%2Froyal%2Bcaribbean%2Binternational%2Fliberty%2Bof%2Bthe%2Bseas&gs_l=hp.3...1102.1102.0.1601.1.1.0.0.0.0.142.142.0j1.1.0...0.0...1c.1.7.psy-ab.gvI6vhnx8fk&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.44442042,d.eWU&fp=a03ba540ff93b9f5&biw=1680&bih=925 ) How is this distinctly different content showing as duplicate? Is SeoMoz's site crawl flawed (or just limited) and it's not understanding that my pages are not dupe? Copyscape does not identify these pages as dupe. Should we take these crawl results more seriously than copyscape? What action do you suggest we take? </aside> </nav>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JMFieldMarketing0 -
SEO Tools You Can't Live Without?
Hi Guys, I'm currently in the middle of creating a comprehensive blog post covering SEO Tools that I wouldn't be able to work without. So far I've got the following down, as I use these on a day to day basis and they make my job infinitely easier. SEOMoz / OSE AHrefs BuzzStream Scrapebox Xenu / Screaming Frog Excel GWT / Analytics / Adwords Keyword Tool What tools or subscriptions do you use on a daily basis and couldn't be without?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SebastianCowie2 -
Google Algo update for over SEO'd sites: Is this a game changer?
This must be on the forum somewhere already but I cant find it. Google are updating there algo to penalise over SEO'd sites, is this a game changer? http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/373630/google-to-demote-seo-heavy-sites Cheers
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | activitysuper0 -
Why is my site's 'Rich Snippets' information not being displayed in SERPs?
We added hRecipe microformats data to our site in April and then migrated to the Schema.org Recipe format in July, but our content is still not being displayed as Rich Snippets in search engine results. Our pages validate okay in the Google Rich Snippets Testing Tool. Any idea why they are not being displayed in SERP's? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Techboy0