Complicated Title Tag Issues. Experts, Please Help!
-
Hey there Moz community! This is the first time I ask a question here so please forgive me if I miss any forum etiquette.
I am managing SEO for an educational site which is built in React Js, and so far much of the job has been keyword research and site optimization. The site still has slow PageSpeed though.
The Issues - 4 weeks ago we published 20 or so content pieces, I had pre-prepared title tags and meta descriptions. But when we released the content there was a programming error that made all of the pages show another title tag for all 20 pages instead of the pre-prepared individual title tags.
I noticed this after 3 days and the issue was fixed within 6 days, but by then Google had crawled and indexed the pages. And now I can't get Google to change to the pre-prepared tags no matter what I do! I've tried changing the content, changing the URL of one of the pages, and I've sent Google spiders to re-crawl the pages multiple times.
The super weird thing is that the correct title tag shows in the 'navigation bar/tabs bar' on google chrome:
But NOT when I view the source code for the page:
Yesterday I was taking a walk in the park and I just couldn't stop thinking about it (it is really starting to get to me by now since nothing works), so I ran back home and looked closely at one of these pages in the Google search console. And I noticed something I hadn't seen before… BOTH of the title tags can be found in the HTML:
Pre-prepared title tag: <title></strong>UK Seat Belt & Car Seat Laws: The Definitive Guide<strong></title>
The other title tag (in src section): title=Ace%20The%20DMV%20Permit%20Test%20%26%20Get%20Your%20License
Could this be the problem or what do you think? I've understood that Google has automated title tags and that they can choose their own if they think it fits better, but the title tags aren't even close to describing the topic as it is now so it doesn’t make any sense.
All answers are greatly appreciated! Your advice is life-saving for a learner like me.
P.S. I love SEO but it can be very frustrating sometimes!
Thank you very much,
Leo
-
UPDATE: It worked!!!!!! I'm so freaking happy! Love you guys!
-
This could definitely be relevant to us as the pagespeed is slow when first entering the site (like 6-7 seconds...) and a lot of resources are loaded (primarily unnecesary JavaScript and render-blocking resources according to Lighthouse). We're working on the pagespeed but I'll pass on this info to the development team in the meantime. If the Ross fix doesn't work we'll put the tags as high up as possible in the .
Thanks a lot, seoelevated! You are an absolute champion!
P.S. We're also changing to nextJS which, as I've understood, should solve a lot of JavaScript SEO issues.
-
Primarily, the requirement is to be in the section. However, I have seen cases where a long-load-time resource in the above meta tags can cause meta tags to be ignored. These were fairly extreme cases, where the resource took multiple seconds to load, synchronously. But moving the meta tags (and Title) above those resources fixed the issue. Also, in another case, we had a snippet from a CDN provider which included an iframe, and in that iframe there was a section and a closing . It turned out that Google was ignoring all of our tags after the which was injected in that iframe, even though it was only supposedly closing the section opened within the iframe. Once we moved that iframe to the end of our own section, below all our meta data, the issues resolved. So, with all that, I do recommend putting meta data at the top of the section, but depending on what else is in there, it might not be an issue for you.
-
Hi Leowa,
As long as it comes before you're fine.
-
Hi Seoelevated, thanks! It is in the section, but below google analytics and google tag manager scripts. Is that good enough? Although as it is right now the wrong title tag shows in the page source but we're implementing fixes according to the feedback from Ross (which will hopefully help!!)
-
I also suggest to double check that the actual title tag (the first one you included in your post) is in the section of the page, and not the . And preferably high up in the section before any scripts or other elements which could take significant time to load. Check this in "view page source" and not just using the "inspect" function of the browser's dev tools, to ensure that some scripts on the page aren't altering the title tag after the document is loaded, since the search engines may instead use whatever is initially set in the actual of the document before scripts execute.
-
Sounds good!
-
Hi Ross!
Thank you so much for your answer! I will try this immediately and let you know how it goes
Leo
-
Hi there,
I had a similar problem at one of the client's websites. You must remove the second title from the page because Google is confused about which title is correct. It is possible that the first titles are dynamically generated by the script and they are being overwritten by the second titles or vice versa. By the way, this "%20" means space in a programming language.
Ross
-
Hi, I noticed that the images I added don't show. So to clarify:
The 'navigation bar' on google = the tabs-bar on the top of chrome
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
-
Wordpress Tags error in MOZ
Hi, We are getting an enormous amount of missing meta description only on our tag archives. When we post we fill in a description and are using the Yoast plugin ( getting green lights). Now we are finding that we're missing descriptions in tags archives. What is the best thing to do? We're finding that the tags are creating a separate url for each tag that has missing description even though the post has a full description. 1. To block spiders from crawling tags? 2. To stop using tags? 3. What do you suggest? Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WalterHalicki0 -
Canonical tags for duplicate listings
Hi there, We are restructuring a website. The website originally lists jobs that will have duplicate content. We have tried to ask the client not to use duplicates but apparently their industry is not something they can control. The recommendations I had is to have categories (which will have the idea description for a group of jobs), and the job listing pages. The job listing pages will then have canonical tags pointing to the category page as the primary URL to be indexed. Another opinion came from a third party that this can be seen as if we are tricking Google and would get penalised, **Is that even true? **Why would Google penalise for this if thats their recommendations in the first place? This third party suggested using nofollow on the links to these listings, or even not not index them all together. What are your thoughts? Thanks Issa
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | iQi0 -
Title Tag Verses H1 Tag. Is having both the same better than different if there's only one clear winner in keyword search volume
Hi Mozzers, I am going through my categories on my eccomerce hire site trying to improve things and just wanted to check this query with you My understanding is that if I have the same H1 and title tag, then that would give more weight for that keyword phrase? Would I also be correct in assuming that the H1 is more important than the title tag or should both be treated as equals in terms of SEO. My dimemla is that for certain products we hire, there's only really one clear winner in terms of keyword phrase. The others I find in keyword planner are way down the volume list , so I have tended to put the H1 and title tag as the same and then have H2 tag and a slightly different heading. Is that the best philosphy or should I really mix them up , so the the title tag, h1, h2 are different ? Also Currently My on page content mentions the the H1 tag near the beginning of the content. Is this correct or should I really be using the H2 tag phrase near the beginning of the content. For example - One of the products we hire out is carpet cleaners. Therefore the main keyword phrase is carpet cleaner hire
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC12
and for our local pages its' carpet cleaner hire <city name="">.
This is my title tag and H1 tag and then for my h2 tag , I have something like "carpet cleaning equipment" with the content
mentioning carpet cleaner hire near the beginning.</city> I don't want to look likes its over optimization or mention the word hire to much but being a hire website, it's difficult not to and other keywords that don't mention it in it, are to varied so could increase bounce rates ?. When I look in GWT against my content keywords - the word hire shows a full bar. Just wondered what peoples thoughts are if what I am doing it okay?
thanks
Pete0 -
Does it matter if the meta description and meta keywords come before the title tag in the
The way our site was built, engineers put the title tag blow the meta desc. and meta keywords. I asked to have it changed based on the best practice of putting the most important content first, but apparently doing this will cause a major ripple effect in the way the site was engineered. Will we lose out on full SEO benefit with this structure? Should I stand down? <title></p></title>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Vacatia_SEO0 -
H1 Page Title Tag Placement
I'm a little confused over the correct area to place a H1 title Tag. When I look at Wordpress templates and published Wordpress sites, it suggests placing the H1 tag within the header area. However, SEO companies and other well postioned sites place the H1 title tag at the start of the main content area. What is the correct and/or best practice for placing H1 page title tags? Thanks Mark
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mark_Ch0 -
Site duplication issue....
Hi All, I have a client who has duplicated an entire section of their site onto another domain about 1 year ago. The new domain was ranking well but was hit heavily back in March by Panda. I have to say the set up isn't great and the solution I'm proposing isn't ideal, however, as an agency we have only been tasked with "performing SEO" on the new domain. Here is an illustration of the problem: http://i.imgur.com/Mfh8SLN.jpg My solution to the issue is to 301 redirect the duplicated area of the original site out (around 150 pages) to the new domain name, but I'm worried that this could be could cause a problem as I know you have to be careful with redirecting internal pages to external when it comes to SEO. The other issue I have is that the client would like to retain the menu structure on the main site, but I do not want to be putting an external link in the main navigation so my proposed solution is as follows: Implement 301 redirects for URLs from original domain to new domain Remove link out to this section from the main navigation of original site and add a boiler plate link in another area of the template for "Visit xxx for our xxx products" kind of link to the other site. Illustration of this can be found here: http://i.imgur.com/CY0ZfHS.jpg I'm sure the best solution would be to redirect in URLs from the new domain into the original site and keep all sections within the one domain and optimise the one site. My hands are somewhat tied on this one but I just wanted clarification or advice on the solution I've proposed, and that it wont dramatically affect the standing of the current sites.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MiroAsh0 -
Google changing the meta title for the homepage causing branding issues
A client of mine." Ross X Bute" current meta title is "Luxury designer clothing | Womens designer clothing" for the homepage. If i search for luxury designer clothing it will show the full meta title for the homepage. however if i search for the brand name.... "Ross & Bute" will show instead of the meta title. Whats the problem? Well my client a few month ago has decided to re brand the business to have a "X" to show instead of the "And". The rest of the site is branded with an "X" rather than "And" The URL www.rossandbute.com, so you can understand where google is getting this assumption from. Is there anyway to change this so it reads the the meta title in the SERPs? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Martin_Harris0 -
Canonical Tag Uses Source Title and Meta Data?
When optimising a regional same language micro site within a sub folder of a .com it dawned on me that our use of the hreflang and canonical meta elements will render individual elements such as H1 and title obsolete. As a canonical tag takes the canonical source title and meta right? It would still have value in optimising localised headings though? Appreciate any thoughts, suggestions (o:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 3wh0