Fixing meta title issue please?

20 replies
  • SEO
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Hey guys, with my new WP theme I have been running into a problem with the meta title, using yoast or all in one seo the title changes are not reflecting in the page source view. I had hired a WP coder to fix the problem, it was working but now doesn't and he's "looking into it" but I would like to understand a few things with your help please?

First, my research on the net is confusing, one source mentioned:
The Title Tag

Although the title tag appears in the head block of the page, it isn't actually a meta tag. What's the difference? The title tag is a required page "element" according to the W3C. Meta tags are optional page descriptors.


Is that accurate that when I look in the page source here the title I am seeing is NOT a meta title?


Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet
#fixing #issue #meta #title
  • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
    Originally Posted by mikehende View Post

    Is that accurate that when I look in the page source here the title I am seeing is NOT a meta title?
    You may have a meta title for some reason, but the real page title is the one in <title> tag. Ignore meta title, nobody uses it.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Why is your price page title showing random text?

    <title>[grid_12] Pricing [grid_4 alpha] This is the pricing list for my services: [price_list]$60Virus removal and cleaning $60Windows repair or reloading $60Hard drive replacement & reload windows $50Data recovery $60Mac software re|Pricing|PcandNetServices</title>
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  • Profile picture of the author mikehende
    The coder is working on the newly developed title issues.

    So now it gets more confusing, I am taking 2 marketing courses which clearly instructs to optimize the title, url and description. So what's the deal here, ignore the titles no matter what it shows?
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    • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
      Originally Posted by mikehende View Post

      The coder is working on the newly developed title issues.
      Well put. You need to do some serious work to develop those kinds of title issues.

      I'm not quite sure what you're trying to even accomplish, or if those strings are just leaking to your title tags for some reason. You should not have a long string of keywords in the title. And if you want, you could just create a few custom fields, and have Yoast SEO display those. Or something.
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  • Profile picture of the author mikehende
    I am trying to clarify things with the coder as I write this, will keep you guys up to speed. Sorry I need to clarify if what the 2 marketing courses is teaching me is correct, should I optimize the meta title as they are saying or completely ignore it please?
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    • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
      Originally Posted by mikehende View Post

      should I optimize the meta title as they are saying or completely ignore it please?
      It's not that straightforward. There's quite a lot of clueless people who actually mean "title" when they say "meta title". If they're talking about the <title> tag then that's something you should mind. Do you know what they're referring to?

      However, it's not "optimization" to stuff keywords in your title tag.
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  • Profile picture of the author mikehende
    They are referring to the "meta title" I think, the one you edit in Yoast or other SEO plugin. Wait a minute, this is the very basic thing which is confusing me, if you could have a look at the screenshot of the view source page again please,, the title that the arrow is pointing to, is that a regular page title or is that a meta title please?

    Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Meta titles are just like any other meta data. They can be used by your browser if they decide to do so. Search engines can also use the data if they decide to. However, none of the major search engines are using things like meta titles or meta keywords for anything involving rankings.

      Meta titles are in the format of

      Code:
      <meta name="title" content="Page title">
      If a marketing course is telling you that the meta title is important, the author of the course is either lying to you or totally misinformed.

      Title tags, are required for valid W3C markup of a webpage and they ARE used by major search engines as a ranking factor. They are also usually, but not always, what you see show up as the title of a page in the SERPs in Google, Bing, etc.

      Title tags use the format of

      Code:
      <title>Title of your page</title>
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  • Profile picture of the author mikehende
    So to confirm that title which is showing my screenshot is not a meta title but the page title?
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by mikehende View Post

      So to confirm that title which is showing my screenshot is not a meta title but the page title?
      If it is written as

      <meta name="title" content="Page title">

      it is a meta title.

      If it is written as

      <title>Title of your page</title>

      then it is a title tag.


      Meta title are utterly useless. Title tags are vitally important.
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      • Profile picture of the author mikehende
        Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

        Meta title are utterly useless. Title tags are vitally important.
        Yes, that explains why this top site does not have a meta title:

        view-source:Computer Repair NYC | PC - Mac - iPhone Repair NYC | Data Recovery NYC

        Ok got it now and yes I know the 2nd arrow in my screenshot is not pointing to a meta title but a meta description, thanks guys.

        Before I should ask another question regarding site SEO, can you guys PLEASE recommend an online affordable marketing course where I can get accurate instructions please?
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        • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
          Originally Posted by mikehende View Post

          Yes, that explains why this top site does not have a meta title:

          view-source:Computer Repair NYC | PC - Mac - iPhone Repair NYC | Data Recovery NYC

          Ok got it now and yes I know the 2nd arrow in my screenshot is not pointing to a meta title but a meta description, thanks guys.

          Before I should ask another question regarding site SEO, can you guys PLEASE recommend an online affordable marketing course where I can get accurate instructions please?

          For onpage stuff, this book is a pretty good source. It's the only one I have ever read that I still feel I can recommend.

          Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Secrets: Danny...Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Secrets: Danny...
          99% of the courses out there are trash. This book will give you a solid foothold on the basics.
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      • Profile picture of the author mikehende
        Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

        If it is written as

        <meta name="title" content="Page title">

        it is a meta title.

        If it is written as

        <title>Title of your page</title>

        then it is a title tag.
        Hmnn, looking at my source pages it is showing something different from both examples written above:

        <meta charset="UTF-8" /><title>About Mike|PCandNetServicess</title>

        That would suggest to me it is a meta title, is this right please?
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        • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
          Originally Posted by mikehende View Post

          Hmnn, looking at my source pages it is showing something different from both examples written above:

          <meta charset="UTF-8" /><title>About Mike|PCandNetServicess</title>

          That would suggest to me it is a meta title, is this right please?

          No that is not a meta title.


          <meta name="title" content="About Mike|PCandNetServices">

          That would be a meta title and a meta item placed on the same line. Your theme is just coded badly. Those are two different things you are looking at. The meta charset is just more meta data. It is showing on the same line as the title tag. A better coder would have put the title tag on a line by itself like this:

          <meta charset="UTF-8" />
          <title>About Mike|PCandNetServicess</title>
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    • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
      Originally Posted by mikehende View Post

      So to confirm that title which is showing my screenshot is not a meta title but the page title?
      Yes.

      And the second arrow doesn't even point to meta title, but the meta description. Just read a few characters further. The name of that element is "description", and actual description is in the next attribute that's called "content".
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  • Profile picture of the author mikehende
    Alright, I am guessing that will be a difficult question to answer far as marketing courses go, guess I will need to deal with what I am currently subscribed to. Moving on, the page title, is that edited in Yoast or in the wordpress php file?
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  • Profile picture of the author mikehende
    The coder I hired is only to do some backend work, he has fixed the title problems. If you look at my page source, everything looks jumbled, this came with the theme and I have to believe it's the theme's problems which was causing yoast not to work properly so much for "premium" themes.

    One last thing on title and description optimization please, in my description in the page source it is showing the apostrophe before the 's' in the word "everyone's"with these characters:
    '

    as shown in this screenshot:
    Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet

    Would that be ok for the search engine? If not,what should I do
    here please? Sorry I don't know why those characters are not showing in this post.
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by mikehende View Post

      The coder I hired is only to do some backend work, he has fixed the title problems. If you look at my page source, everything looks jumbled, this came with the theme and I have to believe it's the theme's problems which was causing yoast not to work properly so much for "premium" themes.

      One last thing on title and description optimization please, in my description in the page source it is showing the apostrophe before the 's' in the word "everyone's"with these characters:
      '

      as shown in this screenshot:
      Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet

      Would that be ok for the search engine? If not,what should I do
      here please? Sorry I don't know why those characters are not showing in this post.

      That's what I meant. Whoever coded the theme did a lousy job of it.

      The characters don't matter. Plus it's a meta description. It's not a ranking factor.

      Personally, I would write something better than that. Grammar wise, that description is not very good.

      Start with something like:

      "I treat your computer better than I treat my own...."

      It flows much better. Words like 'you' and 'your' make it much more personal than "everyone's".

      I guess those marketing courses you are taking are not teaching any sales skills...
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      • Profile picture of the author mikehende
        Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

        That's what I meant. Whoever coded the theme did a lousy job of it.
        Oh, I know. Can you offer any advice on my previous post pelase or would that be a job for a coder?
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        • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
          Originally Posted by mikehende

          Would that be ok for the search engine? If not,what should I do
          here please? Sorry I don't know why those characters are not showing in this post.
          If you're only talking about the characters that have their HTML encoded versions in the meta description I'd guess that should be ok. Some systems do that. If it's not working you're going to see that fairly soon when Google updates your meta descriptions, so it's not something I'd concentrate on this moment.

          If you're talking about the snippet you posted... Well, it's pretty hard to say. There's mostly some meta for social media services in the picture.

          Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

          It is showing on the same line as the title tag. A better coder would have put the title tag on a line by itself like this:
          To be fair to the coder that's not really a big deal. HTML lines can be jumbled together for a number of reasons, and it should work just ok. The specs demand that the tags are closed (as they are in this example), not that there are line breaks.
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