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?
-
I think you misunderstood me on "staying true to the page title"
If your website is about selling blue widgets and you page title is "blue widgets - johns widget corp" then you are "staying true to the page title" You are letting people and search engines know that this page is about blue widgets. Also "blue widgets - johns widget corp" is under 40 characters so this would not be the best example.
Your question was if you should change all your page titles to under 40 characters so that your entire page title would show. My answer / advise to you is; if you need more then 40 characters to properly describe your page then you should not change just so that all characters in your page title show.
-
But then every title would look cropped in search results. This seems quite silly.
Also, i completely disagree with you on "being true" to the page titles. For example a local company that sells blue widgets that is named johns widget corp, would rank much better if their title was "blue widgets - johns widget corp" than if it was simply "johns widget corp". If people followed your advice they would rank much poorer.
-
I don't think you should change all the page titles on your site to 40 characters or less just to conform to Google's new local SERPs.
The 40 character limit is what Google will show not what you are limited to use. The best advice I can give you is to be "true" to your page titles. If you need more then 40 characters to properly let search engines and people know what your pages are about then you should. Just don't add (stuff) an extra list of keywords to the end of your page titles.
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
-
Why are Google SERP Sitelinks "Not Working?"
Hi, I'm hoping someone can provide some insight. I Google searched "citizenpath" recently and found that all of our our sitelinks have identical text. The text seems to come from the site footer. It isn't using the meta descriptions (we definitely have) or even a Google-dictated snippet from the page. I understand we don't have "control" of this. It's also worth mentioning that if you search a specific page like "contact us citizenpath" you'll get a more appropriate excerpt. Can you help us understand what is happening? This isn't helpful for Google users or CitizenPath. Did the Google algorithm go awry or is there a technical error on our site? We use up-to-date versions of Wordpress and Yoast SEO. Thanks! search.png
Technical SEO | | 123Russ0 -
Exclude local host traffic from google analytics
I'm getting a lot of local host referral traffic from an unknown source.I want to get rid of this from my google analytics reports. I've tried this filter - but the traffic still appears. Filtername = local host Filtertype= custom Exclude = filter field referral Filter pattern (.?localhost.?) Any ideas ? thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | ThomasErb0 -
How many serp results for a domain.
I thought this one was carved into stone, max number of results from the same domain in SERP is... two. Or... three?! I was searching for some familiar keywords and found three results from the same domain, isn't that... unusual?
Technical SEO | | max.favilli1 -
Google adding strings to meta title in SERPs => Driving my client crazy!
Fellow Mozzers, I'm really baffled by Google's behaviour adding strings before my meta title in the SERPs.
Technical SEO | | TheReference
This behaviour seems random, but it mainly happens on queries that trigger the homepages (multilingual .com domain).
I'm aware of meta title guidelines concerning length, and I know that Google may insert strings if it thinks it could benefit the user.
But clearly their "aid" is not helpful at all... Client is really anxious to get this resolved and we're stumped on what could be the cause for this... Some examples: Query: https://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&pws=0&q=Ogone - Online payment gateway
Result title: en-gb - Ogone - Online payment gateway
Normal title: Ogone - Online payment gateway Query: https://www.google.at/#hl=de&q=Ogone Online Payment Service Provider
Result title: ogone.at - Ogone. Online Payment Service Provider & e-payment ...
Normal title: Ogone. Online Payment Service Provider & e-payment Deutschland
=> For longer titles it will just prepend strings, and leave out our piece of the meta title Query: https://www.google.nl/#hl=nl&pws=0&q=Support Ogone
Result: Support | Ogone
=> For very short titles, Google doesn't add anything, why does it so for the other results? I really don't understand why this happens. The titles are long enough (but not too long), no strange characters inserted. Please, please help. Thanks in advance! Nikolaas0 -
Google Analytics Annotation
Is there a way to add annotations to the GA visitors graph? There is a YouTube tutorial on how to do this but the comments suggest is has not be rolled out yet in the US and I can't get it to work. Best,
Technical SEO | | ChristopherGlaeser
Christopher0 -
Local Search: Technically optimised for Reviews & Stars, but not showing in SERPS
Hi, for over a year now we actively use schema.org into our yellow pages platform.
Technical SEO | | TruvoDirectories
Simultaneaously we managed to set up a review platform to attract more users to write reviews. We also monitor closely local search experts like (blumenthal and co 😉 ). So I learned in this post http://blumenthals.com/blog/2013/07/19/how-many-reviews-to-get-the-star-treatment-somewhere-between-4-and-5/ that it takes you 4-5 reviews to get the star treatment by Google. But at this moment, I cannot find any star treatment. For example on this listing http://www.goudengids.be/hollywok-kortrijk-kortrijk-8500/1/ you can notice the presence of 6 review (http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.goudengids.be%2Fhollywok-kortrijk-kortrijk-8500%2F1%2F) but in Google itself it is not displayed as such. So my question is: in your experience, are there any other parameters that will trigger the stars to appear?0 -
How should i knows google to indexed my new pages ?
I have added many products in my ecommerce site but most of the google still not indexed yet. I already submitted sitemap a month ago but indexed process was very slow. Is there anyway to know the google to indexed my products or pages immediately. I can do ping but always doing ping is not the good idea. Any more suggestions ?
Technical SEO | | chandubaba1 -
Google is keeping very old title tags in the SERPs for my site. How can I fix this?
Hi Around 6 months ago a site I work with changed its brand. One company became two. Despite changing the title when a new site went live around 6 months ago Google still picks up the old title for certain search results relevant to the old title. When a search result is relevant to the new title it shows that. It's very frustrating as we are trying to re-brand and do not want the old brand name showing for some very important search results. Thanks in advance for your help Paul
Technical SEO | | pauldoffman0