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.
Google truncating or altering meta title - affect rankings?
-
I have a site that the title tag is too long and the title is simply the name of the site (I think they get it from ODP, not sure)
Anyway, the rankings for the home page have dropped quite a bit. I'm wondering if the change that Google makes affects rankings (i.e. name of site doesn't have all the keywords).
-
I have a site that the title tag is too long and the title is simply the name of the site (I think they get it from ODP, not sure)
Now if you believe that it is the ODP that is causing the trouble, you can add this Meta tag in the section of the pages -
However, if this has not been the case, it could be that the links that have been built are not in line with the existing title. And sometimes, Google changes the title itself if it feels that the title is not well optimized –
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.in/2012/01/better-page-titles-in-search-results.html
-
While I don't think anyone can say for sure if one specific thing like this could result in lower ranking, IMHO a truncated title is not generally going to be the culprit of rankings drop. However, I do think a truncated title can significantly lower click-thru rate on your organic listings, which could be a factor in rankings (i.e. higher click-thru rate could equal higher rankings).
I always encourage the sites that I SEO to adhere to Google's character limitations and make the most out of the organic real estate Google gives you. It's your chance to get someone to come to your site. If the title/and or description is truncated, it has less chance of being compelling, or containing the information that makes someone want to click through and visit your pages.
Hope that's helpful!
Dana
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
-
Does Page speed matter for google ranking?
We are not sure that page does matter or not for google ranking as I am working for this keyword "flower delivery in Bangalore" from last few months and I saw some website's google first page who have low page speed but still ranking so I am really worried about my page that has also low page speed. will my Bangalore page rank on google the first page if the speed is low and kindly suggest me more tips for the ranking best factors which really works in 2020 and one more thing that domain authority really matters in this year? as I also saw some websites with low domain authority and ranking on google's first page. Home page: Flowerportal Bangalore page: https://flowerportal.in/flower-delivery/bangalore/ focus Keyword is: Flower delivery in Bangalore, send flowers to Bangalore
Technical SEO | | vidi34231 -
Google SERPs Show Different Title
Hi Guys, Can anyone please help with my situation. My domain is www.greedybins.com.au. I had title setup in every pages differently, and it has been 2 months since I made the changes. I keep checking by using site:www.greedybins.com.au in search. So far, only 1 title that been show correctly in SERPs. I used SEO Yoast before, I changed to All In One SEO Pack plugin, the titles are changing, but still not accurate as I made it. Somehow Google altered it by itself. I have tried fetch and submit sitemap couple times from Google Search Console. Could anyone please advise?
Technical SEO | | ray.soms0 -
What punctuation can you use in meta tags? Are there any Google does not like?
So I know you can use dashes and | in meta tags, but can anyone tell me what other punctuation you can use? Also, it'd be great to know what punctuation you can't use. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Trevorneo1 -
Google not pulling my favicon
Several sites use Google favicon to load favicons instead of loading it from the Website itself. Our favicon is not being pulled from our site correctly, instead it shows the default "world" image. https://plus.google.com/_/favicon?domain=www.example.com Is the address to pull a favicon. When I post on G+ or see other sites that use that service to pull favicons ours isn't displaying, despite it shows up in Chrome, Firefox, IE, etc and we have the correct meta in all pages of our site. Any idea why is this happening? Or how to "ping" Google to update that?
Technical SEO | | FedeEinhorn0 -
Registered Trademark in a Meta Title or Content
I know that registered trademarks don't hurt SEO, however if the trademark is used in the middle of a popular search phrase (see below) will it hurt the site's chanced of getting ranked for this term. Example: Funkybrand® Shoes PS I found one brand that used the trademark Acuvue® contact lenses. thanks!
Technical SEO | | yanaiguana1110 -
Google is indexing my directories
I'm sure this has been asked before, but I was looking at all of Google's results for my site and I found dozens of results for directories such as: Index of /scouting/blog/wp-includes/js/swfupload/plugins Obviously I don't want those indexed. How do I prevent Google from indexing those? Also, it only seems to be doing it with Wordpress, not any of the directories on my main site. (We have a wordpress blog, which is only a portion of the site)
Technical SEO | | UnderRugSwept0 -
Why "title missing or empty" when title tag exists?
Greetings! On Dec 1, 2011 in a SEOMoz campaign, two crawl metrics shot up from zero (Nov 17, Nov 24). "Title missing or empty" was 9,676. "Duplicate page content" was 9,678. Whoa! Content at site has not changed. I checked a sample of web pages and each seems to have a proper TITLE tag. Page content differs as well -- albeit we list electronic part numbers of hard-to-find parts, which look similar. I found a similar post http://www.seomoz.org/q/why-crawl-error-title-missing-or-empty-when-there-is-already-title-and-meta-desciption-in-place . In answer, Sha ran Screaming Frog crawler. I ran Frog crawler on a few hundred pages. Titles were found and hash codes were unique. Hmmm. Site with errors is http://electronics1.usbid.com Small sample of pages with errors: electronics1.usbid.com/catalog_10.html
Technical SEO | | groovykarma
electronics1.usbid.com/catalog_100.html
electronics1.usbid.com/catalog_1000.html I've tried to reproduce errors yet I cannot. What am I missing please? Thanks kindly, Loren0 -
New (google) local SERPs has 40 character limit on title length
Should i change my all the page titles for pages that show up in local SERPs to reflect this new limit? Is there any benefit to leaving it at the old limit and having more keywords in there? Or would there be benefit to conforming to google's new standard and having shorter titles?
Technical SEO | | A Former User0