Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Save 36% now!
      Moz Pro

      Save 36% now!

      Sign up
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      Save 36% now!
      Moz Pro

      Save 36% now!

      Sign up
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing
      Moz API

      Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Home Page Title - Google Overriding my Title Tag

    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.

    Home Page Title - Google Overriding my Title Tag

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    title tags
    5
    8
    4412
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • Chris_Mc
      Chris_Mc Subscriber last edited by HayleyBowyer

      Hi,

      We have noticed our home page title tag has now been replaced by our brand name (by Google I'm assuming).

      We have also noted that the page is dropping off SERPS for our main keywords, I suspect they are related but ofc I cant be sure. I know the recent Google update has impacted titles but I wasn't sure if it would apply here.

      Has anyone any advice on this and/or having the same issue?

      We normally rank well for grass seed (UK search) https://thegrasspeople.com/

      I also noticed some strange mark up in our source code which seems to have been left behind by Sketch - we are getting this removed.

      <title>Combined Shape</title>
      <desc>Created with Sketch.</desc>
      

      Chris

      piotrstarzynski tir17 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • tir17
        tir17 @southwestfilm last edited by

        Hi @southwestfilm

        There seems to be a misunderstanding as the Page Title is matching the title tag of the code. Kindly check once again.
        e27d8fb0-fbde-4a67-a15c-eca19e1d1abd-image.png

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • AuroramediaUK
          AuroramediaUK @piotrstarzynski last edited by

          I have the same issue with my site - South West Film. The page title is Video Production Company Bristol - South West Film but Google replaces it with South West Film: Video Production Company Bristol. Not sure if it is hurting my rankings.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • southwestfilm
            southwestfilm @piotrstarzynski last edited by

            I have the same issue with my Joomla site South West Film which has the title tag as Video Production Company Bristol - South West Film but Google replaces it with South West Film: Video Production Company Bristol. Not sure if it is hurting my ranking.

            tir17 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Chris_Mc
              Chris_Mc Subscriber @tir17 last edited by

              Thanks for the advice.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • tir17
                tir17 @Chris_Mc last edited by

                Hey @chris_mc

                We all had noticed a similar issue but this is not something new. Just like Google decides what to show for a meta description tag from the page on a SEPR, similarly, it can even choose the most appropriate title to display on SERPs based on your page content.

                I would recommend adding quality content (About 600 to 800 words) which signals the crawlers what the page is about and include your primary and secondary keywords in the Page Title, Meta Description, Image Alt Tags, Headers, Content & Page URL and other important on-page avenues if feasible.

                These will provide great signals to the crawler and Googlebot will know and showcase the appropriate Page Title.

                Chris_Mc 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • Chris_Mc
                  Chris_Mc Subscriber @piotrstarzynski last edited by

                  @piotrstarzynski Thanks for the reply and link - we've asked the devs the same question, they are workling on the changes - they are just a little slow..

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • piotrstarzynski
                    piotrstarzynski @Chris_Mc last edited by

                    @chris_mc Title looks exactly the same as in code.

                    f87af6dc-01ef-43d5-9ce9-3ea6b0e3335c-image.png

                    You have some unnecessary/garbage things in code. For example why do you need title meta?

                    53edc566-d192-4ba7-9956-c5e7a684b816-image.png

                    Take a look here: developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/crawling/special-tags?hl=en

                    Chris_Mc AuroramediaUK southwestfilm 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • 1 / 1
                    • First post
                      Last post

                    Got a burning SEO question?

                    Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                    Start my free trial


                    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.

                    • See all categories

                    Related Questions

                    • Kevin_P

                      When Google rewrites a title tag, do you get the SEO impact for the original version?

                      title tags on page optimization on-page meta data meta tags

                      Let's say you're writing a homepage title tag like this: KEYWORD | BRAND and Google rewrites it as BRAND | KEYWORD From Moz and best practices, we believe that keywords closer to the beginning of a title tag may have more impact on search rankings. So, when Google rewrites the title tag, do you get the impact you would have made with the keyword being closer to the front? Or, does Google give you the impact you would have received with the keyword being at the end?

                      On-Page Optimization | | Kevin_P
                      0
                    • lucybish

                      Questions about putting 2-3 keywords in title tag.

                      keywords title tags

                      Hi there, what is the best way to decide the keywords to be used in title tag?

                      Web Design | | lucybish
                      0
                    • Wizkids964

                      Company Name in Home Page Title? If and Where?

                      My guess is you want to do the  {title} | {company name} format as I would suspect Google gives slightly more weight to the words at the beginning of the title?   (This is assuming your company name isn't a generic word or you are specifically trying to rank your home page for your company name when it isn't ranking well already) But what about cases where you have like 5 or 6 keywords that are really important and used in the title gives you like 50 characters and your company name pushed it up to like 65 increasing the chance Google will use some other source to list the name of your home page in the search results? Obviously one can experiment, but wondering what the general consensus is - long keyword title, or longer title with company name?  The company name can be included in the meta description and the domain name of the url displayed also gives the indication to the company.  But maybe the algo "respects" long itles that have company name more than ones without as then it looks more like a keyword stuffing title?  So many factors to consider.  Yes - on page SEO isn't just about the title, but for this thread I'm just talking home page title.

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Wizkids964
                      1
                    • friendoffood

                      Pages are Indexed but not Cached by Google. Why?

                      Here's an example: I get a 404 error for this: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.qjamba.com/restaurants-coupons/ferguson/mo/all But a search for qjamba restaurant coupons gives a clear result as does this: site:http://www.qjamba.com/restaurants-coupons/ferguson/mo/all What is going on?  How can this page be indexed but not in the Google cache? I should make clear that the page is not showing up with any kind of error in webmaster tools, and Google has been crawling pages just fine.  This particular page was fetched by Google yesterday with no problems, and even crawled again twice today by Google  Yet, no cache.

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | friendoffood
                      2
                    • ABK717

                      Is a 301 Redirect and a Canonical Tag on Uppercase to Lowercase Pages Correct?

                      We have a medium size site that lost more than 50% of its traffic in July 2013 just before the Panda rollout. After working with a SEO agency, we were advised to clean up various items, one of them being that the 10k+ urls were all mixed case (i.e. www.example.com/Blue-Widget). A 301 redirect was set up thereafter forcing all these urls to go to a lowercase version (i.e. www.example.com/blue-widget). In addition, there was a canonical tag placed on all of these pages in case any parameters or other characters were incorporated into a url. I thought this was a good set up, but when running a SEO audit through a third party tool, it shows me the massive amount of 301 redirects. And, now I wonder if there should only be a canonical without the redirect or if its okay to have tens of thousands 301 redirects on the site. We have not recovered yet from the traffic loss yet and we are wondering if its really more of a technical problem than a Google penalty. Guidance and advise from those experienced in the industry is appreciated.

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ABK717
                      0
                    • luxresorts

                      Duplicate Title tags even with rel=canonical

                      Hello, We were having duplicate content in our blog (a replica of each post automatically was done by the CMS), until we recently implemented a rel=canonical tag to all the duplicate posts (some 5 weeks ago). So far, no duplicate content were been found, but we are still getting duplicate title tags, though the rel=canonical is present. Any idea why is this the case and what can we do to solve it? Thanks in advance for your help. Tej Luchmun

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | luxresorts
                      0
                    • SharieBags

                      How Do You Remove Video Thumbnails From Google Search Result Pages?

                      This is going to be a long question, but, in a nutshell, I am asking if anyone knows how to remove video thumbnails from Google's search result pages? We have had video thumbnails show up next to many of our organic listings in Google's search result pages for several months.  To be clear, these are organic listings for our site, not results from performing a video search.  When you click on the thumbnail or our listing title, you go to the same page on our site - a list of products or the product page. Although it was initially believed that these thumbnails drew the eye to our listings and that we would receive more traffic, we are actually seeing severe year over year declines in traffic to our category pages with thumbnails vs. category pages without thumbnails (where average rank remained relatively constant). We believe this decline is due to several things: An old date stamp that makes our listing look outdated (despite the fact that we can prove Google has spidered and updated their cache of these pages as recent as 2 days ago).  We have no idea where Google is getting this datestamp from. An unrelated thumbnail to the page title, etc. - sometimes a picture of a man's face when the category is for women's handbags A difference in intent - user intends to shop or browse, not watch a video.  They skip our listing because it looks like a video even though both the thumbnail and our listing click through to a category page of products. So we want to remove these video thumbnails from Google's search results without removing our pages from the index.  Does anyone know how to do this? We believed that this connection between category page and video was happening in our video sitemap.  We have removed all reference to video and category pages in the sitemap.  After making this change and resubmitting the sitemap in Webmaster Tools, we have not seen any changes in the search results (it's been over 2 weeks). I've been reading and it appears many believe that Google can identify video embedded in pages.  That makes sense.  We can certainly remove videos from our category pages to truly remove the connection between category page URL and video thumbnail.  However, I don't believe this is enough because in some cases you can find video thumbnails next to listings where the page has not had a video thumbnail in months (example: search for "leather handbags" and find www.ebags.com/category/handbags/m/leather - that video does not exist on that page and has not for months.  Similarly, do a search for "handbags" and find www.ebags.com/department/handbags.  That video has not been on that page since 2010. Any ideas?

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SharieBags
                      0
                    • PaulRogers

                      Should I prevent Google from indexing blog tag and category pages?

                      I am working on a website that has a regularly updated Wordpress blog and am unsure whether or not the category and tag pages should be indexable. The blog posts are often outranked by the tag and category pages and they are ultimately leaving me with a duplicate content issue. With this in mind, I assumed that the best thing to do would be to remove the tag and category pages from the index, but after speaking to someone else about the issue, I am no longer sure. I have tried researching online, but there isn't anything that provided any further information. Please can anyone with any experience of dealing with issues like this or with any knowledge of the topic help me to resolve this annoying issue. Any input will be greatly appreciated. Thanks Paul

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PaulRogers
                      0

                    Get started with Moz Pro!

                    Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                    Start my free trial
                    Products
                    • Moz Pro
                    • Moz Local
                    • Moz API
                    • Moz Data
                    • STAT
                    • Product Updates
                    Moz Solutions
                    • SMB Solutions
                    • Agency Solutions
                    • Enterprise Solutions
                    • Digital Marketers
                    Free SEO Tools
                    • Domain Authority Checker
                    • Link Explorer
                    • Keyword Explorer
                    • Competitive Research
                    • Brand Authority Checker
                    • Local Citation Checker
                    • MozBar Extension
                    • MozCast
                    Resources
                    • Blog
                    • SEO Learning Center
                    • Help Hub
                    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                    • How-to Guides
                    • Moz Academy
                    • API Docs
                    About Moz
                    • About
                    • Team
                    • Careers
                    • Contact
                    Why Moz
                    • Case Studies
                    • Testimonials
                    Get Involved
                    • Become an Affiliate
                    • MozCon
                    • Webinars
                    • Practical Marketer Series
                    • MozPod
                    Connect with us

                    Contact the Help team

                    Join our newsletter
                    Moz logo
                    © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                    • Accessibility
                    • Terms of Use
                    • Privacy

                    Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.