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.
Home Page Title - Google Overriding my Title Tag
-
Hi,
We have noticed our home page title tag has now been replaced by our brand name (by Google I'm assuming).
We have also noted that the page is dropping off SERPS for our main keywords, I suspect they are related but ofc I cant be sure. I know the recent Google update has impacted titles but I wasn't sure if it would apply here.
Has anyone any advice on this and/or having the same issue?
We normally rank well for grass seed (UK search) https://thegrasspeople.com/
I also noticed some strange mark up in our source code which seems to have been left behind by Sketch - we are getting this removed.
<title>Combined Shape</title> <desc>Created with Sketch.</desc>Chris
-
There seems to be a misunderstanding as the Page Title is matching the title tag of the code. Kindly check once again.
-
I have the same issue with my site - South West Film. The page title is Video Production Company Bristol - South West Film but Google replaces it with South West Film: Video Production Company Bristol. Not sure if it is hurting my rankings.
-
I have the same issue with my Joomla site South West Film which has the title tag as Video Production Company Bristol - South West Film but Google replaces it with South West Film: Video Production Company Bristol. Not sure if it is hurting my ranking.
-
Thanks for the advice.
-
Hey @chris_mc
We all had noticed a similar issue but this is not something new. Just like Google decides what to show for a meta description tag from the page on a SEPR, similarly, it can even choose the most appropriate title to display on SERPs based on your page content.
I would recommend adding quality content (About 600 to 800 words) which signals the crawlers what the page is about and include your primary and secondary keywords in the Page Title, Meta Description, Image Alt Tags, Headers, Content & Page URL and other important on-page avenues if feasible.
These will provide great signals to the crawler and Googlebot will know and showcase the appropriate Page Title.
-
@piotrstarzynski Thanks for the reply and link - we've asked the devs the same question, they are workling on the changes - they are just a little slow..
-
@chris_mc Title looks exactly the same as in code.
You have some unnecessary/garbage things in code. For example why do you need title meta?
Take a look here: developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/crawling/special-tags?hl=en
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
-
How many pages for a new site for Google to sink it's teeth into
Hello, I've got a high traffic site I'm building. Is 20 articles enough to start or should I start with 40 or 60 to not flop? I've got good internal linking. I've got: 3 10X articles
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW
17 cornerstones so far. Worked hard so far. Do I launch? or wait for 40? 60? I know thousands is best. Competitors have much more. Thank you, Bob0 -
SERP Title Display Issue
When doing a google search for "Wedding Invitations Toronto", you will find my site www.stephita.com shows up in top 5 results. I'm trying the figure out why the TITLE of the page no longer shows up in the SERP. Only the domain shows up above the link to the page. So you basically see www.stephita.com twice, when the first instance should be the "title" drawing from the HTML code. I did implement the JSON code to provide proper site data structure as well. Could someone check my source, and tell me if I'm missing something, or if I put TOO MUCH stuff there? Thank You!!!!
Local SEO | | TysonWong0 -
Questions about putting 2-3 keywords in title tag.
Hi there, what is the best way to decide the keywords to be used in title tag?
Web Design | | lucybish0 -
Is it best practice to have a canonical tags on all pages
The website I'm working on has no canonical tags. There is duplicate content so rel=canonicals need adding to certain pages but is it best practice to have a tag on every page ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ColesNathan0 -
Best Practices for Title Tags for Product Listing Page
My industry is commercial real estate in New York City. Our site has 300 real estate listings. The format we have been using for Title Tags are below. This probably disastrous from an SEO perspective. Using number is a total waste space. A few questions:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
-Should we set listing not no index if they are not content rich?
-If we do choose to index them, should we avoid titles listing Square Footage and dollar amounts?
-Since local SEO is critical, should the titles always list New York, NY or Manhattan, NY?
-I have red that titles should contain some form of branding. But our company name is Metro Manhattan Office Space. That would take up way too much space. Even "Metro Manhattan" is long. DO we need to use the title tag for branding or can we just focus on a brief description of page content incorporating one important phrase? Our site is: w w w . m e t r o - m a n h a t t a n . c o m <colgroup><col width="405"></colgroup>
| Turnkey Flatiron Tech Space | 2,850 SF $10,687/month | <colgroup><col width="405"></colgroup>
| Gallery, Office Rental | Midtown, W. 57 St | 4441SF $24055/month | <colgroup><col width="405"></colgroup>
| Open Plan Loft |Flatiron, Chelsea | 2414SF $12,874/month | <colgroup><col width="405"></colgroup>
| Tribeca Corner Loft | Varick Street | 2267SF $11,712/month | <colgroup><col width="405"></colgroup>
| 275 Madison, LAW, P7, 3,252SF, $65 - Manhattan, New York |0 -
Why is Google ranking irrelevant / not preferred pages for keywords?
Over the past few months we have been chipping away at duplicate content issues. We know this is our biggest issue and is working against us. However, it is due to this client also owning the competitor site. Therefore, product merchandise and top level categories are highly similar, including a shared server. Our rank is suffering major for this, which we understand. However, as we make changes, and I track and perform test searches, the pages that Google ranks for keywords never seems to match or make sense, at all. For example, I search for "solid scrub tops" and it ranks the "print scrub tops" category. Or the "Men Clearance" page is ranking for keyword "Women Scrub Pants". Or, I will search for a specific brand, and it ranks a completely different brand. Has anyone else seen this behavior with duplicate content issues? Or is it an issue with some other penalty? At this point, our only option is to test something and see what impact it has, but it is difficult to do when keywords do not align with content.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lunavista-comm0 -
Google Rich Snippets in E-commerce Category Pages
Hello Best Practice for rich snippets / structured data in ecommerce category pages? I put structured markup in the category pages and it seems to have negatively impacted SEO. Webmaster tools is showing about 2.5:1 products to pages ratio. Should I be putting structured data in category Pages at all? Thanks for your time 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | s_EOgi_Bear0 -
Google indexing only 1 page out of 2 similar pages made for different cities
We have created two category pages, in which we are showing products which could be delivered in separate cities. Both pages are related to cake delivery in that city. But out of these two category pages only 1 got indexed in google and other has not. Its been around 1 month but still only Bangalore category page got indexed. We have submitted sitemap and google is not giving any crawl error. We have also submitted for indexing from "Fetch as google" option in webmasters. www.winni.in/c/4/cakes (Indexed - Bangalore page - http://www.winni.in/sitemap/sitemap_blr_cakes.xml) 2. http://www.winni.in/hyderabad/cakes/c/4 (Not indexed - Hyderabad page - http://www.winni.in/sitemap/sitemap_hyd_cakes.xml) I tried searching for "hyderabad site:www.winni.in" in google but there also http://www.winni.in/hyderabad/cakes/c/4 this link is not coming, instead of this only www.winni.in/c/4/cakes is coming. Can anyone please let me know what could be the possible issue with this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | abhihan0