Google Changing <title> in SERPs to Whatever it Wants to

by lerxtjr

Posted: 11 years ago 19 replies

If you've noticed a lot of search results to look like "Whatever keyword phrase - company name" it's because Google is changing those listings to whatever it feels like. Why isn't anyone talking about this? I can't find any advice on WF about how to convince Google that my "Keyword Phrase | Slightly Different Keyword Phrase" is better than what G listed for me on its search results.

Seems like G's efforts to "equal the playing field" is going a bit too far and pretty soon we'll have the first 100 results looking exactly...and I mean exactly the same.

Addition: I should clarify this to those not in the know... Say you change the Page Title <title> of your home page to "Florida Sink Plumber | Miami Sink Plumbing Specialist" Even though your page source would remain unchanged, Google would display your page as something like "Florida Sink Plumber - Cool Plumber Guy" in the search results.

Search for your industry target and you'll see about 1/3 of the search results now have a hyphen in them. Go checkout a few pages and look at the "view source" and you'll see the <title> is not the same as what G is listing.

More important question: What the heck do we do about?

#&lttitle&gt #<title> #appearing #changing #google #results #search #serps #title #wrong

John Romaine 11 years ago

Originally Posted by lerxtjr

What the heck do we do about?

The same as you should be doing regardless - focusing on your own website, not Google.

Out of interest, have you got an example????
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writeaway 11 years ago

If this is true, I can't say I am surprised. Google IS gunning for the obvious SEO keyword sniping tricks. Given the track record of Penguin 1.0 and 2.0, should anyone really be surprised? Next on the agenda: dinging all Disavowal tool-reported domains, nuking low-content link sources, nuking low-relevance link sources?
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UMS 11 years ago

Google has been doing this for some time now. I personally wouldn't waste too much time on worrying about it.
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Annie15 11 years ago

This can be a solution, but beyond this i face changes in my title tag of my pages in SERP

This is due to the DMOZ listing. If the specific page has been listed in DMOZ the title may be fetched from DMOZ. To avoid this you can add this tag in your source code.

<meta name=”robots” content=”NOODP” />
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PROmotions LLC 11 years ago

I have never had this problem, Google always shows my META description exactly how it is written on my website in search results, and the Title is always the Title Tag I wrote in my META tags.

Example:

Keyword "cheap backlinks"

Notice my Title is:

PROmotions LLC Backlinks | Buy Backlinks | Cheap Backlinks.

And the description is:

We Offer Premium Quality SEO & SMO Services at Affordable Prices. Buy Backlinks Today. Packages Starting at $25.

Here is what my META tag looks like for that page:

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<meta name="generator" content="HTML Tidy for Linux (vers 25 March 2009), see www.w3.org" />
<title>PROmotions LLC Backlinks | Buy Backlinks | Cheap Backlinks.</title>
<link href="style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<link rel="pingback" href="http://www.promotionsllc.com" />
<link rev="made" href="mailto:promotionsservice@gmail.com" />
<meta name="alexaVerifyID" content="YBEHsnKbeKFMPZ-bMb5J4h3jDyc" />
<meta name="keywords" content="cheap backlinks, what are backlinks, buy backlinks, search engine optimization, seo, sem" />
<meta name="description" content="Premium Quality SEO Services at Affordable Prices. Buy Backlinks Today. Home Page Backlinks Starting at $30." />

(I recently changed the description, but it will change / update on Google in a few days.)
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Magento developer

11 years ago

Then what is the purpose of writing meta tags manually for our site?

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lerxtjr

11 years ago

Here's a screen shot (attached) of one of the top competitors in the area. I'm betting they're dumping a boatload into outsourced SEO. Screenshot shows what google sees upon search. But when I view source on the Expungements page, I see

<title>Denver Expungement Lawyer | Colorado Expunge Juvenile Criminal Record</title>

The second one in red has the headline 'misdemeanors' on the content page but google has for some reason 'allowed' their set Page Title to appear on google search results.

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yukon

Banned 11 years ago

Originally Posted by lerxtjr

This page title matches the 2nd SERP title in your screenshot:

<title>Denver Misdemeanors Defense Lawyer | Class 1, 2 and 3 Colorado</title>
Google Cache
"denver misdemeanors defense lawyer" inurl:"diegocriminaldefense"

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lerxtjr 11 years ago

Correct...I showed both to display how one shows <title> correctly but the other one does not and there doesn't seem to be a whole lotta rhyme or reason as to why one is kept the same and why another is not.

Interesting that I've seen a few responses that are saying this has been going on for quite a while but I've never noticed this until a month ago.

I'm thinking maybe the answer is to have the correct keyword phrase a few times more in content on the exact page the correct <title> is desired. And, maybe assuring a few other pages on the site are linking to that page specifically and then using the exact title text in the link. Dunno...just reaching for logic I guess.
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trevord92 11 years ago

Google has been changing page titles for quite some time now.

Usually when they think their algorithm knows your site better than you do (regardless of whether or not that's true).
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Beardo 11 years ago

Yeah this happens. I have some pages display exactly the title I like in the SERP while other pages get modified by google. It's been going on for ages and I never worke out a way around it so I don't worry about it anymore
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MikeFriedman 11 years ago

Google has been doing this for about 3-4 years now. It's nothing new.
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- paulgl 11 years ago
  
  You cannot, repeat, cannot force google to do anything.
  
  Many people who claim they can, well, how you spend your
  time and money is up to you.
  
  Google changes titles for many reasons. But they are not really
  changing the title. They are changing words in the listings for
  specific searches, done by specific things, by specific people,
  at specific times.
  
  They have been in the search game for a long, long time, and
  nobody does it better, as voted on by the numbers.
  
  Why do they do this? Because they are actually giving sites a
  chance to get a click that may be exactly what the searcher
  wants.
  
  An unwise person tries to trick google by shmoozing or
  muddying up their title.
  
  Paul
  
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  karismasand 11 years ago
  
  Google take your H1 from home page and he put everywhere in internal pages where title is below 30 characters.
  
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kevinkrieger 10 years ago

Google search results show a different title and tag line When I search for my website with my targeted keyword. It is not similar to my website's title and tag line. From where is Google indexing that wrong title and tag line for my website. Please help me getting rid off this problem. Any help will be appreciable.
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- prabash82 10 years ago
  
  It's might be you have created lot of back links using specific keyword for that page.Thats why google take that keyword as a title for SERP. Try to create backlinks using keyword variations.
  
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  kevinkrieger 10 years ago
  
  The keyword is sunnyvale limo service but shows some different title rather than showing my site's title.
  
  Thanks
  
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GeorgR. 10 years ago

Google doesn't display METAs or your keywords to display what you "like" them to display. Google displays what it deems relevant for the human who searches.
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bluefirepro 10 years ago

Follow simple rules and Big G doesn't mess up with your ranking.

- Check how you want your listing to appear in search results.
- Microformats
- Data Structures [Given in Webmaster tool]. Just tell google what to read and it will take ur command.

Use simple tactics and Google will be your ally.
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Google Changing <title> in SERPs to Whatever it Wants to

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