Regarding Google Title 'Width' and changing Meta Titles w/o Penalty?
-
A vast majority of pages on my site are now too wide (the character count was fine prior to the March update).
I want to go through and update them so they display properly and are not too wide.However, I am concerned, as my understanding was that changing Meta Titles is dangerous and can have a negative effect on your rankings and can cause real issues. Is this an opportunity to change my Titles all-together without any kind of penalty? Or can I only trim the end part?
In summary:
1. Can I edit all of my Meta Titles without affecting my rankings?
2. If no, how do I edit them properly to fit within the proper width and not cause any issues?
3. If yes, I can go through and change all my Meta Titles to whatever extent and optimize them to reflect latest best practices? There are changes I wanted to make to all my meta titles but I've been afraid to... due to fear of rankings drops etc
Any help with this would be greatly appreciated
-
There's no one-sized-fits-all answer to this, I'm afraid. Any large-scale change to a site carries risk, and could even look like over-optimization. Even if it's a great, high-quality change, Google may re-evaluate the site, and you could easily see short-term ranking fluctuations. Long-term, you very well might improve, but there is definitely short-term risk.
As Kevin said, my recent post explains the new width guidelines - it's not as simple as one number. I also don't think that falling outside of these guidelines is the kiss of death. It could impact CTR and I wouldn't make a habit of it, but some titles are just naturally longer than others.
It really depends on what the before and after look like, how big your site is, how authoritative your site is, and a lot of things that are hard to dig into on a Public Q&A. Personally, I'd say test it - pick the pages where the change has the most value and the current titles are long and try changing a group of them. See how it goes. Doing it in phases and measuring can help you get a better handle on things and even help you tweak the changes as you see what works and what doesn't.
-
Dr. Pete had a great blog post on it: http://moz.com/blog/new-title-tag-guidelines-preview-tool
Bottom Line - Write compelling titles (that reflect the landing page) for your audience within the constraints presented in Dr. Pete's blog.
-
You won't get a penalty from changing them, however a rankings drop is entirely possible. Try to keep your main keywords in each title and you should be fine.
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
-
SEO results/title tags/desktop vs. mobile
I am trying to figure out why my title tags comes up different between desktop and mobile search results. Desktop returns my title tag as written, but on mobile I get something completely different. It's related to the site, but not anything I can read, as coded in the site (i.e. not the title tags, meta, or anywhere else). Has anyone else experienced this? My title tag is 64 characters - I know it's a little bit over, but would that cause such a weird issue as a completely different title in the search results?
On-Page Optimization | | tallyhodesign0 -
Google Indexing Wrong Title
Hey guys ! I have a wordpress website and also yoast seo plugin . I've set up a meta title which is : TV Online | Assistir Filmes| Notícias | Futebol |GogsTV . (I checked on some free tools to see , and they also show up this) but .... google is showing this : GogsTV: TV Online | Assistir Filmes| Notícias | Futebol . Seems they are trying to show my brand name first instead of my main keyword . I'm not sure why it doesnt indexes as i want ... Does anybody know how can i fix this . Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | tiagosimk0 -
Title Tags
Say you have a client that specializes in Driveways and you have multiple keywords within one locations. So for instance the keywords are Driveway company, Driveway installers, driveway repairs etc.. How would you set it up? San Diego Driveway Company, San Diego Driveway Installers, San Diego Driveway repairs or San Diego Driveway Company, Driveway Installers, Driveway repairs
On-Page Optimization | | benjaminmarcinc0 -
Prices in title tag
At our ecommerce site adwords ads generally perform a lot better when the product price is included in the ad title. Does anyone here have any experience and data on CTR with including product prices in title tags of product / category pages?
On-Page Optimization | | ese0 -
How long does it take Google to index new title tags and meta descriptions?
Hi, I have launched a website ( www.bookkeepingking.com )and would like Google to reflect the latest title tag changes in its results. How long does it typically take to happen? I believe this might be one reason why the site may not be generating any search traffic yet, even though I haven't yet begun any link building yet. A couple of notes: When I enter site:bookkeepingking.com in the search box, the pages show up, but with the old/default title and meta descriptions. I am using the Yoast for SEO plugin I have resubmitted the XML map - Yoast created 2... /page-sitemap.xml and /post-sitemap.xml The changes were made about 1 week ago. WMT says that there are zero errors. Is there something I may have missed? Or do I just need to give it more time? Thanks in advance for your help. Erin
On-Page Optimization | | HiddenPeak0 -
On-Page SEO Priorities: Title's, Anchor Text or Meta data?
**Any suggestions for prioritized on-page SEO work? Relative weights of importance? ** **What is most important from highest to lowest? ** MetaTag Descriptions? Titles? Anchor Text? Alt Text - for images? Anything else? We might not be able to do everything at once like I desire ......but I do feel we should at least get the ball moving in the right direction. I am looking for ideas or suggestions on what to prioritize for a little bit of on-page SEO work on our website. I personally feel that SEO is pretty important but I am a novice. I have been reading this site the past week and want to convince my webpage guy that on-page SEO is important and that we should at least do a few things and gradually get the work done. Rightfully so our #1 priority is to redesign our landing pages (they are bad) . I also think we should do a little On-Page work concurently. (Lack of on-page SEO is also preventiing me from successfully submitting and being accepted by Dmoz, Yahoo, BOW etc) He is mainly a back engine guy and does a very good job with that. If I were to TELL him to do a few prioritized on-page SEO things what would you suggest? He did do something on the home page at my suggestion but that is all to this point. We have over 400 pages indexed with very little on-page SEO on them. Thank you, UtahTiger
On-Page Optimization | | Boodreaux0 -
20 x '400' errors in site but URLs work fine in browser...
Hi, I have a new client set-up in SEOmoz and the crawl completed this morning... I am picking up 20 x '400' errors, but the pages listed in the crawl report load fine... any ideas? example - http://www.morethansport.co.uk/products?sortDirection=descending&sortField=Title&category=women-sports clothing
On-Page Optimization | | Switch_Digital0 -
Dynamic title
Hey folks! Newbie here, tried searching for it, but couldn't find a definite answer. I run a large video sharing site and recently started battling the duplicate title and meta description tags issues GWT reported. Here's an example: 2 different members upload a video described as "My BMW". Since the site is running on templates, both videos have the same meta title and meta description. Everything one the page is different, except the meta title and description. The only way I can make it unique is to insert the current VIEWS count in the meta title and description and they would look like this: Video 1 meta title/desc - My BMW video in Cars category | X views Video 2 meta title/desc - My BMW video in Cars category | Y views The problem is that the value of X and Y is changing all the time! Does this matter? Sincerely, H.Marinov
On-Page Optimization | | mlqsko0