Can Google display a diffrent page title?
-
Hi if I search google UK for the phrase car leasing, google returns my listing as
Car Lease Deals
However the same search on Yahoo or Bing bring back
Contract Hire | Vehicle & Car Leasing Deals | Car Lease Deals
this is the real page title. Why would this happen?
Thanks
Andy
-
Actually, Google often changes title tags, especially based on the query. They've been doing this for a couple of years now.
-
To add my experiance to this, it seems to happon more commonly when it feels your h1 or the serch term e.t.c. is more relivent to the search.
Depending on the search, it can harm or hurt. In terms of ranking for your keyword it shouldn't be a problem, but clickthrough wise it is more iffy.
-
Neither. Bad that you have less control over them, but potentially good that Google is showing something different, if it results in more clickthroughs. Unfortunately there is no way to test for that that I'm aware of, at least not while they're changing the title.
I'm not the type that recommends relying on Google to pick the best title for your page, but to be honest, "Contract Hire | Vehicle & Car Leasing Deals | Car Lease Deals" is fairly keyword heavy, and isn't that attractive to click on. A title like "Car Lease Deals" might do better in terms of clickthrough rates, but that's just my speculation.
Changing the title tags seems to be Google's answer to SEO-focused title tags that are packed with keywords, and I think it's a good thing for users. Hard to say for webmasters, but at the moment they don't give us any choice in the matter, since I don't believe they give us the option to turn it off.
This paragraph is speculation on my part: They're likely going to be changing the title based upon (A) things the user is looking for and (B) what else your page says. So if the user looked for "vehicle leasing deals", Google might choose to show that portion of your title tag. On the other hand, they might choose to show "Car Lease Deals" if that phrase is more common on the page and used in header tags, etc.
-
Hi Kane thanks for your speedy answer. Is this a good thing or a bad thing from my perpective.
Thanks
Andy
-
Wow nice! great info Kane, thanks for the link.
-
Yup, they've been changing title tags for at least a year now. Here's a Google Webmaster Blog post about it from Jan 2012:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/01/better-page-titles-in-search-results.html
-
To my understanding, no Google does not display titles dynamically, unless, of course the developer used Javascript or something. In any case it would be bad SEO practice and they wouldn't rank. My only guess would be caching maybe? Very odd indeed.
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
-
Duplicate website pages indexed: Ranking dropped. Does Google checks the duplicate domain association?
Hi all, Our duplicate website which is used for testing new optimisations got indexed and we dropped in rankings. But I am not sure whether this is exact reason as it happened earlier too where I don't find much drop in rankings. Also I got replies in the past that it'll not really impact original website but duplicate website. I think this rule applies to the third party websites. But if our own domain has exact duplicate content; will Google knows that we own the website from any other way we are associated like IP addresses and servers, etc..to find the duplicate website is hosted by us? I wonder how Google treats duplicate content from third party domains and own domains. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Can a page be 100% topically relevant to a search query?
Today's YouMoz post, Accidental SEO Tests: When On-Page Optimization Ceases to Matter, explores the theory that there is an on-page optimization saturation point, "beyond which further on-page optimization no longer improves your ability to rank" for the keywords/keyword topics you are targeting. In other words, you can optimize your page for search to the point that it is 100% topically relevant to query and intent. Do you believe there exists such a thing as a page that is 100% topically relevant? What are your thoughts regarding there being an on-page optimization saturation point, beyond which further on-page optimization no longer improves your ability to rank? Let's discuss!
Algorithm Updates | | Christy-Correll1 -
Ranking dropped with no page changes
My rank for a keyword went from ranking #1 to #22. The page grade for this keyword is A, there was no site structure changes. The only thing I can see is that tumblr and reddit and other sources are now listed for this keyword and it's difficulty went from the mid-low teens to 28%. However, even given that, I do not a see a reason for this keyword alone to fall so far. It was giving us a ton of traffic, in fact, most of our organic search results came from this term for nearly two months. And 2 weeks ago for no reason, we were pushed to page 3. Has anyone else had similar experiences how do you counter it, and what can we do?
Algorithm Updates | | mozmemberanon0 -
Google Rankings Dropped in Past Few Weeks
Hi All, I work for an online appliance retailer and over the past weeks, we've seen a drop in our google SERPs. This time last year we were ranking in the top 3 for our top converting key terms, but now we are ranking towards the bottom of the first page or even on the top of the second page with the big box stores now dominating for our key terms. Needless to say traffic for these pages has dropped off considerably. We still have quite a bit of traffic coming in for other key terms, but they don't convert as well. Is anyone else seeing the same thing? If so what are you doing to combat this? Do you have any suggestions? Thank you!
Algorithm Updates | | airnwater0 -
Why am i not ranking in the top 50 for the keyword 'cocktails' even though all my other cocktail related keywords are in the first 2 pages of Google???
I have checked the first 50 pages of google for my website www.socialandcocktail.co.uk using the keyword 'cocktails'. It is NOT to be found. However, if I search for other keyword combinations eg cocktail recipes, cocktail bars etc they are all in the first 2 pages! What is going on????????
Algorithm Updates | | cocktailboss0 -
Trying to figure out why one of my popular pages was de-indexed from Google.
I wanted to share this with everyone for two reasons. 1. To try to figure out why this happened, and 2 Let everyone be aware of this so you can check some of your pages if needed. Someone on Facebook asked me a question that I knew I had answered in this post. I couldn't remember what the url was, so I googled some of the terms I knew was in the page, and the page didn't show up. I did some more searches and found out that the entire page was missing from Google. This page has a good number of shares, comments, Facebook likes, etc (ie: social signals) and there is certainly no black / gray hat techniques being used on my site. This page received a decent amount of organic traffic as well. I'm not sure when the page was de-indexed, and wouldn't have even known if I had't tried to search for it via google; which makes me concerned that perhaps other pages are being de-indexed. It also concerns me that I have done something wrong (without knowing) and perhaps other pages on my site are going to be penalized as well. Does anyone have any idea why this page would be de-indexed? It sure seems like all the signals are there to show Google this page is unique and valuable. Interested to hear some of your thoughts on this. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | NoahsDad0 -
Google Rankings Jumping Around
Hi, Since January, the Google rankings for one of our sites has been jumping around. Sometimes it's on page 1, then it disappears and comes back around 1 month later. It's strange because it's only a small section of the site that it's happening to. Every other section of the site is doing really well. Just wondered if anyone else is having this problem, or has had it and can suggest any fixes. There are no technical issues, no changes have been made to the site, all I can think is it's Google messing around with their algorithm? Any help or advice would be much appreciated. Karen
Algorithm Updates | | Digirank0 -
CTR for Google Rankings
I run a local business, and I'm working on ranking for keyword + city. I currently rank on the first page for just about every keyword I'm working on, but only the top 3 for a little less than half. Because the search volume is so low for each keyword (for most cities Google doesn't have an estimated monthly search volume) the grand total of a few searches a month for each keyword + city combination is where I get my traffic. Although I seem to be getting consistently higher in the rankings, I am curious as to how much more traffic I can expect. I read somewhere that sites that are ranked number one are clicked 50% of the time, number two 20% of the time, number three 15% and from there on it goes down fast. Rank 7 and on is below 1%. Probably around 30% of my keywords are ranked between 7-10 and probably about 20% are ranked 4-6. Are the CTR numbers fairly accurate? I understand that there are a lot of influences on CTR, such as title/description, but generally is that somewhat accurate? If it is, I am missing out on A LOT of traffic. I am pulling about 800 unique visitors a month from Google. If I get in the top 3 for most of my keywords, can I expect significantly more traffic? I ask the question because there are many other things I could be doing with my time to help the business aside from SEO. I don't want to be working constantly on SEO if traffic is only going to increase very little.
Algorithm Updates | | bjenkins240