Can anyone explain these changes to our Titles in the SERPS?
-
Hi there,
We've been doing well in the SERPS over the past few weeks. Our previous meta title was displayed as:
"Hunter Original Tall - Buy Original Tall Online Here"
However, recently we've seen the title in the SERP switch over to:
"Hunter Original Tall - Cloggs.co.uk"
This has occurred on several of our product pages which display a particular style of a certain brand. So for example:
"Ugg Bailey Button - Cloggs.co.uk"
Has anyone else experienced these changes or can explain why this may have happened?
There is not change to the source code and our Titles have proven to have good click through rates in the past. Any ideas mozzers? -
Barry at Search Engine Roundtable has written about Google choosing their own page titles for your site, and I've seen reports of it here as well, so you're certainly not alone. Here's what Barry has written:
http://www.seroundtable.com/google-title-selection-12989.html
-
I'm glad to hear it's happening else where, it doesn't appear to be negatively affecting the SERPs which is a good thing, but I'd really like to know what's causing it.
I've had a look in Webmaster tools and can see no indication there, thought there maybe something in the 'html suggestions' section.
-
Ive been seeing the same thing on and off, so its not just you. But I have no idea why it is happening.
-
Right that's what threw me off as well, and that's why I ruled out the possibility that it was pulling the site titles from the ODP. Here is Google's explanation of how they choose Title/Description snippets. I suppose they could just be pulling it from the content of the website and writing their own, but I've never really encountered that happening without it being related to an external link source. Strange. Hopefully another SEOmozzer can provide better insight.
-
Thanks for the reposne Anthony!
I'll look into it. But would that mean that there is a site somewhere linking to multiple pages on our site with links strong enough to overpower the Title ? it's possible just seems unlikely to be doing across so many different pages.
-
I can't be sure without digging into your site a bit, but Google has been known to use the anchor text of strong links to your website in place of your title tag, on some occasions. This is discussed in this YOUmoz post, Distilled Stole My Page Title.
Could this be the cause?
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
-
Do you think profanity in the content can harm a site's rankings?
In my early 20's I authored an ebook that provides men with natural ways to improve their ahem... "bedroom performance". I'm now in my mid 30s, and while it's not such an enthralling topic, the thing makes me 80 or so bucks a day on good days, and it actually works. I update the blog from time to time and build links to it on occasion from good sources. I've carried my SEO knowledge to a more "reputable" business, but this project is still interesting to me, because it's fully mine. I am more interested in getting it to rank and convert than anything, but following the same techniques that are working to grow the other business, this one continues to tank. Disavow bad links, prune thin content.. no difference. However, one thing I just noticed now are my search queries in the reports. When I first started blogging on this, I was real loose with my tongue, and spoke quite frankly (and dirty to various degrees). I'm much more refined and professional in how I write now. However, the queries I'm ranking for... a lot of d words, c words (in the sex sense)... sounds almost pornographic. Think Google may be seeing this, and putting me lower in rankings or in some sort of lower level category because of it? Heard anything about google penalizing for profanity? I guess in this time of authority and trust, that can hurt both of those... but I wonder if anyone's heard any actual confirmation of this or has any experience with this? Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | DavidCapital0 -
Why Google changed our page-title suddenly which has been same for years
Hi all, I know Google shows a different page titles. Happens when over optimised or when we copied competitors page title. But we did neither. Suddenly Google changed our homepage page title in search results. Our page title suffix "brand name" has been moved to beginning. Our page title is still for years.
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz1 -
Can I use schema markup for my Trustpilot results?
Hi we have excellent Trustpilot reviews & want to know if we can include these in schema markup in order for the results to show in SERPs? The Trustpilot results show in PPC but not SERPs. A competitor looks to have no Trustpilot or other independent reviews but is showing 5 stars in SERPs, i also cant find any customer reviews on their site, it looks to be just coding that is driving the SERPs view? Their site is goldencharter.co.uk Any thoughts much appreciated Thanks Ash
Algorithm Updates | | AshShep11 -
Am I the only one experiencing this Google SERP problem?
I perform Google searches every single day, sometimes several times in a day. These searches have nothing to do with being a marketer--they're simply as a consumer, researcher, person who needs a question answered, or in other words: a typical person. For about the past month or so, I have been unsuccessful at finding what I'm looking for on the first try EVERY SINGLE TIME. Yes, I mean it--every single time. I'm left either going all the way to the third page, clicking dozens of results and retuning to the SERPs, or having to start over with a differently worded query. This is far too often to be a coincidence. Has this been happening to anymore else? I know there was a recent significant algorithm update, right? I always look at algorithm updates through the eyes of an SEO, but I'm currently looking at it through the eyes for an average searcher, and I'm frustrated! It's been like trying to find something on Bing!
Algorithm Updates | | UnderRugSwept0 -
New feature on the SERPs - anyone know what this is!?
Hey guys, I've just been doing a bit of searching to give the new Penguin update a good going over and came across the following result on the right side of the page. As you can see, it's a link to the site that's sitting at the top of the SERP. At first, however, I thought it was some snazzy AdWords feature. Although, having clicked into the link "20 hours ago", it seems that Google has pulled the snippet from the diy-kitchens.com's Google+ feed. Anyone seen this before? Is it a new thing? Is it only the top result that's able to get a snippet from Google+? 7hA4g49.png
Algorithm Updates | | Webrevolve0 -
Bing Vs Google SERP
I realize the major search engines use different criteria but I don't see how - for the same home page keyword - my site could rank #3 on page 1 for a Bing search and be off the charts (Page 15+)? on Google. Has Google gone so far off the charts with their new Penguins and Pandas so as to be in a different universe? Seems Google is now extremely over-weighting big sites like Wikipedia, WebMD, eHow, etc. and in doing so vastly reducing the diversity of results shown. I am commonly seeing different pages of the same website appear multiple times in the first 2-3 pages of Google results. What's the point?
Algorithm Updates | | veezer0 -
Can you compare overall search volumes year on year for specific terms?
Hi. I was wondering whether anyone knew if it is possible to compare search volumes for keywords year on year for absolute figures (so not using Insight). For example: How many people searched for computer mouses from 1.1.11 - 1.4.11 Compared to How many people searched for computer mouses from 1.1.12 - 1.4.12
Algorithm Updates | | SEOclient120 -
Using Brand Name in Page titles
Is it a good practice to append our brand name at the end of every page title? We have a very strong brand name but it is also long. Right now what we are doing is saying: Product Name | Long brand name here Product Category | Long brand name here Is this the right way to do it or should we just be going with ONLY the product and category names in our page titles? Right now we often exceed the 70 character recommendation limit.
Algorithm Updates | | mlentner1