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.
Why isn't our complete meta title showing up in the Google SERPS? (cut off half way)
-
We carry a product line, cutless bearings (for use on boats).
For instance, we have one, called the Able, that has the following meta title (and searched by View Page Source to confirm): BOOT 1-3/8" x 2-3/8" x 5-1/2" Johnson Cutless Bearing | BOOT Cutlass
However, if I search for it on on Google by part number or name (boot cutless bearing, boot cutlass bearing), the meta title comes back with whole first part chopped off, only showing this : "x 5-1/2" Johnson Cutless Bearing | BOOT Cutlass - Citimarine ..."
Any idea why?
Here's the url if it will hopefully help: https://citimarinestore.com/en/metallic-inches/156-boot-johnson-cutless-bearing-870352103.html
All the products in the category are doing the same.
Thanks!
-
sometimes people write a meta title on meta description so its too long, there are free plug-ins, if you have a WordPress website where you can write the meta title and the meta description and often it shows if it's red, amber or if it's green, in terms of whether you have written a long enough or too long Meta title meta description
-
sometimes the meta title might be too long, we had this problem with a Bristol company we had to rewrite the meta titles using yoast SEO, to improve the organic seo.
-
Three methods using modules on your existing CMS of implementing the fixes. I use labels A, B & C three different configurations C is the least expensive I think all three of them would add a lot of value however you would be very safe using A or C
A)
**1) all-in-one with canonical **
2) JSON-LD
B)
1) Add a canonical tag to your site
https://addons.prestashop.com/en/url-redirects/22526-canonical-seo.html
2) open graph
3) JSON-LD
or
C )
1) Add a canonical tag to your site
https://addons.prestashop.com/en/url-redirects/22526-canonical-seo.html
2) This module offers structured data/JSON-LD Facebook and Twitter open graph tag redirects Site maps etc. a base SEO suite without a canonical tag found above.
This video is of the all-in-one module without the canonical tag unfortunately but it's the least expensive of the two.
I hope this wasn't confusing I would choose A or C it will really help your site.
All the best,
Tom
-
Very complete information. Thank you very much! I will first try simplifying the meta title, might be a bit too long now. See other competitors with the same meta title, just cutting out some of the later stuff we have.
Will go through this answer more in detail when back in the office tomorrow and see the other suggestions. Thank you once again.
-
I don't know how much it will help but if you remove the MFG prior to the part number it may help a little bit. It's a 30% chance but the reason I bring it up is when I google "MFG#: 870352103." exactly what you have on the page shows me the highlight what I have typed in however the part number is shown in addition but it is not highlighted.
I strongly believe this was done intentionally by Google for a better user experience.
Google tunicates and rewrites descriptions all the time. I don't think to have the part number in the SERPS is considered important to Google
Your meta description is a suggestion to Google. There’s no guarantee that it’ll actually be shown. So, if you don’t see your description, that means Google probably made something up for you. Perhaps it felt the meta description you created didn’t represent the content of the page, or is a duplicate, for instance. Here you’ll find all the possible reasons why your meta description doesn’t show.
very long part numbers are unlikely to give a clear idea of the content of the page, therefore, less likely to be displayed.
- Good descriptions are human-readable and diverse. Page-specific data is a good candidate for programmatic generation. Keep in mind that meta descriptions comprised of long strings of keywords don't give users a clear idea of the page's content, and are less likely to be displayed in place of a regular snippet.
- Use quality descriptions. Finally, make sure your descriptions are truly descriptive. Because the meta descriptions aren't displayed in the pages the user sees, it's easy to let this content slide. But high-quality descriptions can be displayed in Google's search results, and can go a long way to improving the quality and quantity of your search traffic.
- See https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35624?hl=en
- https://moz.com/blog/how-to-write-meta-descriptions-in-a-changing-world
- https://www.authoritylabs.com/title-tags/
- https://moz.com/learn/seo/meta-description
- https://kb.yoast.com/kb/my-meta-descriptions-arent-showing-up-in-the-search-result-pages/
I would look into implementing JSON-LD /schema on the page so you can edit your product number you can do this with the Screaming Frog it will show you the pixel with because character length is not always the same as the letter "I" use less space than the letter "H"
It is free for up to 500 URLs https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/
In addition, I have posted your page URL, description and it is still lacking a canonical tag I would add one.
the part number if search for will show up because that's what the user intends on looking for. In addition you do not want Google taking clicks from your website you want people to click on your site in order to find the part number you may want to change your content to make the part numbers a bigger part of the actual page content.
-
Page Url
-
https://citimarinestore.com/en/metallic-inches/156-boot-johnson-cutless-bearing-870352103.html
-
Title
-
BOOT 1-3/8" x 2-3/8" x 5-1/2" Johnson Cutlass Bearing [Length:53]
-
Meta Description
-
DURAMAX BOOT Cutlass Johnson Bearing, Naval Brass. Shaft Diameter: 1 3/8", Outside Diameter: 2 3/8", Length: 5 1/2", Thickness: 1/8". Weight: 1.8 lbs. 870352103 [Length:160]
-
Canonical
-
None
Google "boot cutless bearing, boot cutlass bearing"
https://citimarinestore.com/en/metallic-inches/156-boot-johnson-cutless-bearing-870352103.html
Google "cutless bearing"
https://citimarinestore.com/citiguide/johnson-cutless-bearings-your-complete-guide/
https://citimarinestore.com/en/136-johnson-duramax-cutless-bearings
Googling "870352103"
It could be that it's over 550 pixels
Try using https://metatags.io/ to add Open Graph tags to your products or Facebook twitter and other social media platforms
-
Page Url
-
https://citimarinestore.com/en/metallic-inches/156-boot-johnson-cutless-bearing-870352103.html
-
<title>BOOT 1-3/8" x 2-3/8" x 5-1/2" Johnson Cutlass Bearing</title>
To add JSON-LD
With
https://www.rankranger.com/schema-markup-generator (I used a Image from your page for the photo) https://citimarinestore.com/429-large/boot-johnson-cutless-bearing-870352103.jpg
Tested in https://search.google.com/test/rich-results?id=qjE-Sbw4lhzWGpK4hmYHqA
Add the MPN in JSON-LD****SKU is a retailer's own Stock Keeping Unit, which they use to keep track of inventory. This would be unique to each retailer. MPN is the Manufacturer's Part Number, which in the case of the DURAMAX BOOT Cutlass Johnson Bearing you mention would be 870352103
Hope this helps,
Tom
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
-
Old brand name being suffixed on Google SERP listings
At the end of some of our listings in Google search results pages, our old brand name is being suffixed even though it is not in our title tags. For context, we re-branded several months ago, and at that time also migrated to a new domain name. Our title tags have our current brand name suffixed, like "Shop Example Category | Example©". In the Google search results, but not in Bing nor Yahoo, about half of our pages have titles whcih instead look like this: "Shop Example Category | Example© - oldBrandName". The "dash" and the old brand name are not in our title tags, but they are being appended, even when our title tags are fairly long. For example, even with titles at 54 characters (421 pixels), the suffix is being appended. BUT, not with our longer title tags. We are actually OK with the brand name being appended if our title tags are on the shorter side, but would prefer that our current brand name be appended instead of the older one. I realize we could increase the length of all our title tags, and perhaps we may go that route. But, does anyone know where Google would be getting the old brand name to append onto the URLs? We've checked and it is not in our page source (the old brand name is used in our page source in some areas of text and some url paths, but not in any kind of meta tag). Per Google's guidance (https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-do-not-put-organization-schema-markup-on-every-page/289981/) we only have schema for the "Organization" on our home page, and not on every page. So, assuming this advice is correct to not add schema to every page, how can we inform Google of our current brand name so that it stops appending our old brand name on pages?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoelevated0 -
After hack and remediation, thousands of URL's still appearing as 'Valid' in google search console. How to remedy?
I'm working on a site that was hacked in March 2019 and in the process, nearly 900,000 spam links were generated and indexed. After remediation of the hack in April 2019, the spammy URLs began dropping out of the index until last week, when Search Console showed around 8,000 as "Indexed, not submitted in sitemap" but listed as "Valid" in the coverage report and many of them are still hack-related URLs that are listed as being indexed in March 2019, despite the fact that clicking on them leads to a 404. As of this Saturday, the number jumped up to 18,000, but I have no way of finding out using the search console reports why the jump happened or what are the new URLs that were added, the only sort mechanism is last crawled and they don't show up there. How long can I expect it to take for these remaining urls to also be removed from the index? Is there any way to expedite the process? I've submitted a 'new' sitemap several times, which (so far) has not helped. Is there any way to see inside the new GSC view why/how the number of valid URLs in the indexed doubled over one weekend?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rickyporco0 -
What's the best way to noindex pages but still keep backlinks equity?
Hello everyone, Maybe it is a stupid question, but I ask to the experts... What's the best way to noindex pages but still keep backlinks equity from those noindexed pages? For example, let's say I have many pages that look similar to a "main" page which I solely want to appear on Google, so I want to noindex all pages with the exception of that "main" page... but, what if I also want to transfer any possible link equity present on the noindexed pages to the main page? The only solution I have thought is to add a canonical tag pointing to the main page on those noindexed pages... but will that work or cause wreak havoc in some way?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau3 -
My site shows 503 error to Google bot, but can see the site fine. Not indexing in Google. Help
Hi, This site is not indexed on Google at all. http://www.thethreehorseshoespub.co.uk Looking into it, it seems to be giving a 503 error to the google bot. I can see the site I have checked source code Checked robots Did have a sitemap param. but removed it for testing GWMT is showing 'unreachable' if I submit a site map or fetch Any ideas on how to remove this error? Many thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SolveWebMedia0 -
Can't crawl website with Screaming frog... what is wrong?
Hello all - I've just been trying to crawl a site with Screaming Frog and can't get beyond the homepage - have done the usual stuff (turn off JS and so on) and no problems there with nav and so on- the site's other pages have indexed in Google btw. Now I'm wondering whether there's a problem with this robots.txt file, which I think may be auto-generated by Joomla (I'm not familiar with Joomla...) - are there any issues here? [just checked... and there isn't!] If the Joomla site is installed within a folder such as at e.g. www.example.com/joomla/ the robots.txt file MUST be moved to the site root at e.g. www.example.com/robots.txt AND the joomla folder name MUST be prefixed to the disallowed path, e.g. the Disallow rule for the /administrator/ folder MUST be changed to read Disallow: /joomla/administrator/ For more information about the robots.txt standard, see: http://www.robotstxt.org/orig.html For syntax checking, see: http://tool.motoricerca.info/robots-checker.phtml User-agent: *
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart
Disallow: /administrator/
Disallow: /bin/
Disallow: /cache/
Disallow: /cli/
Disallow: /components/
Disallow: /includes/
Disallow: /installation/
Disallow: /language/
Disallow: /layouts/
Disallow: /libraries/
Disallow: /logs/
Disallow: /modules/
Disallow: /plugins/
Disallow: /tmp/0 -
My landing pages don't show up in the SERPs, only my frontpage does.
I am having some trouble with getting the landing pages for a clients website to show up in the SERPs.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | InmediaDK
As far as I can see, the pages are optimized well, and they also get indexed by Google. The website is a danish webshop that sells wine, www.vindanmark.com Take for an instance this landing page, http://www.vindanmark.com/vinhandel/
It is optimzied for the keywords "Vinhandel Århus". Vinhandel means "Winestore" and "Århus" is a danish city. As you can see, I manage to get them at page 1 (#10), but it's the frontpage that ranks for the keyword. And this goes for alle the other landing pages as well. But I can't figure out, why the frontpage keep outranking the landingpages on every keyword.
What am I doing wrong here?1 -
After reading of Google's so called "over-optimization" penalty, is there a penalty for changing title tags too frequently?
In other words, does title tag change frequency hurt SEO ? After changing my title tags, I have noticed a steep decline in impressions, but an increase in CTR and rankings. I'd like to once again change the title tags to try and regain impressions. Is there any penalty for changing title tags too often? From SEO forums online, there seems to be a bit of confusion on this subject...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Felix_LLC0 -
How long does google take to show the results in SERP once the pages are indexed ?
Hi...I am a newbie & trying to optimize the website www.peprismine.com. I have 3 questions - A little background about this : Initially, close to 150 pages were indexed by google. However, we decided to remove close to 100 URLs (as they were quite similar). After the changes, we submitted the NEW sitemap (with close to 50 pages) & google has indexed those URLs in sitemap. 1. My pages were indexed by google few days back. How long does google take to display the URL in SERP once the pages get indexed ? 2. Does google give more preference to websites with more number of pages than those with lesser number of pages to display results in SERP (I have just 50 pages). Does the NUMBER of pages really matter ? 3. Does removal / change of URLs have any negative effect on ranking ? (Many of these URLs were not shown on the 1st page) An answer from SEO experts will be highly appreciated. Thnx !
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PepMozBot0