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 Doesn't Google Use My Title Tag and Meta Description?
-
Hi fellow Moz SEOs,
Need your URGENT help! We set an optimised title & meta description for our client websites. These titles are approved by our clients. Before somedays, they checked on Google, noticed the title & meta description were not the same.
Next moment, they notified me about this issue. The title & meta description looks fine when I checked the source code. So, why Google use title & meta description differently?
For example:
Title approved by client: Top Specialist Divorce & Family Lawyer - Yeo & Associates LLC
Google set our title: Yeo & Associates LLC: Top Specialist Divorce & Family LawyerTitle approved by client: Filing For Divorce Online in Singapore | DivorceBureau
Google set our title: DivorceBureau: Filing For Divorce Online in Singapore
Title approved by client: Halal Buffet & Bento/Packet Meals Event Caterer Singapore | Foodtalks
Google set our title: Foodtalks - Halal Buffet & Bento/Packet Meals Event Caterer SingaporeTitle approved by client: Child Care Centre in Singapore| Top Preschool | Carpe Diem
Google set our title: Carpe Diem: Child care Centre in Singapore| Top PreschoolEvery day, they are requesting me to update Google's title with their approved title. Also, asking me these questions.
Why did this happen?
Why didn't set their recommended title?Is there any way to set our approved titles? Please, help me to find the solution. ASAP
Thanks in advance!
-
Hi Jack,
Thank you so much for the detailed explanation. Yes, I'm aware of the "Clear Cached URL" option. But it's not changed anything. It's already more than 48hrs still results are same.
Regards,
Verz -
Hi Verv,
sorry this is happening to you. as Zack mentioned, if Google is simply showing an old title, then the pages or titles in google search console may be cached.
If these are brand new titles, then it's likely that Google either feels their title is more relevant or they think your title may be too long or 'spammy' for the industry you're marketing, like 'Top Specialty Divorce Lawyer in Singapore'. This is not uncommon actually. here's a good post on what else might be happening: https://www.authoritylabs.com/title-tags/
Your ranking for that actually looks pretty good from my end, so you may want to hesitate before just switching out a new title.
-
Hi there,
In Google Search Console, are you aware that there is a "Clear Cached URL" option in Removals, that allows one to "Keep URL(s) in Google Search results, just clear current snippet and cached version until the next crawl."? Here is more information, just in case it's helpful:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9689846#clear_cache_request (You may already be aware of this)
While I don't know for sure, I would merit a guess that a previous title and meta description are displaying on these pages, and Google needs to know to refresh them. (Even if that guess is not correct, this may resolve the issue, actually.)
Does this help at all?
Best,
Zack
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
-
Correct Hreflang & Canonical Tags for Multi-Regional Website English Language Only having URL Parameters
Dear friends, We have a multi-regional website in English language only having the country selector on the top of each page and it adds countrycode parameters on each url. Website is built in Magento 1.8 and having 1 store with multiple store views. There is no default store set in Magento as I discussed with developer. Content is same for all the countries and only currency is changed. In navigation there are urls without url parameters but when we change store from any page it add parameters in the url for same page hence there are total 7 URLs. 6 URLs for each page (with country parameters) and 1 master url (without parameters) and making content duplicity. We have implemented hreflang tags on each page with url parameters but for canonical we have implemented master page url as per navigation without url parameters Example on this page. I think this is correct for master page but we should use URL parameters in canonical tags for each counry url too and there should be only 1 canonical tag on each country page url. Currently all the country urls are having master page canoncial tag as per the example. Please correct me if I am wrong and **in this case what has to be done for master page? **as google is indexing the pages without parameters too. We are also using GEOIP redirection for each store with country IP detection and for rest of the countries which are not listed on the website we are redirecting to USA store. Earlier it was 301 but we changed it to 302. Hreflang tags are showing errors in SEMRush due to redirection but in GWT it's OK for some pages it's showing no return tags only. Should I use **x-default tags for hreflang and country selector only on home page like this or should I remove the redirection? **However some of the website like this using redirection but header check tool doesn't show the redirection for this and for our website it shows 302 redirection. Sorry for the long post but looking for your support, please.
International SEO | | spjain810 -
What's the difference between 'en-gb' and 'en-uk; when choosing Search engines in campaign set up?
Hi What's the difference search engine wise and which one should I choose, i presume GB since covers entire British landmass whereas UK excludes Ireland according to political definition, is it the same according to Google (& other engines) ? All Best Dan
International SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Google.ie returning more and more UK based results, why?
I have discovered the most infuriating issue with Google Search for Irish users and it seems to be getting increasingly worse in the last 2 years or so. This is not only frustrating as a business owner (in fact it could bring a business to its knees) but it is rage inducing as a consumer.
International SEO | | Secrets
Google knows the location where I am searching from and I'm using google.ie yet I still get just a small number of Irish websites usually followed by eBay and Amazon results then a never ending list of websites that are based in the United Kingdom. Now, I know the one thing that we all have in common is the use of the English language, however what we don't have in common is shipping costs. In order to slightly increase the number of Irish based companies I need to add in the phrase 'Ireland' to my search (on google.ie in Ireland) and this makes only a small difference. In fact, oftentimes Google seems to throw in the odd American or Australian site just to really wind me up.
It's completely absurd that Google rarely returns results for .ie websites or irish based websites when searching in Ireland. Many UK companies don't ship to Ireland (including many of the eBay and Amazon results). This is killing Irish businesses who have the products and cheaper or free shipping and many how are working damn hard on their SEO are still being passed up for companies that have nothing to do with our economy.... Why oh why is this happening.0 -
Poor Google.co.uk ranking for a UK based .net, but great Google.com
I run an extremely popular news & community website at http://www.onedirection.net, but we're having a few ranking issues in Google.co.uk. The site gets most of its traffic from the USA which isnt a bad thing - but for our key term "one direction", we currently don't rank at all on Google.co.uk. The site is located on a server based in Manchester, UK, and we used to rank very well earlier this year - fluttering about in position 5-7 most of the time. However earlier this year, around July, we started to fall down to page 2 or 3, and at the start of this month we don't rank at all for "one direction" on Google.co.uk. On Google.com however we're very strong, always on page one. We're definitely indexed on .co.uk, just not for main search term - which I find a bit frustrating. All the content on our site is unique, and we write 2-4 stories every day. We have an active forum too, so a lot of our content is user-generated. We've never had any "unnatural link building" messages in Webmaster Tools, and our link profile looks fine to me. Do we just need more .co.uk links, or are we being penalised for something? (I can't imagine what though). It certainly seems that way though. Another site, "www.onedirection.co.uk" which is never updated and has a blatant ad for something completely unrelated on its homepage, ranks above us at the moment- which I find quite frankly appalling as our site is pretty much regarded as the worlds most popular One Direction news and fan site. We've spent the last few months improving the page-load times of our site, and we've reduced any unneccesary internal linking on the site. Approx 2 months ago we launched a new forum on the site, 301'ing all the old forum links to the new one, so that could have had an impact on rankings - but we'd expect to see an impact on Google.com as well if this was an issue. We definitely feel that we should be ranking higher on Google.co.uk. Does anyone have any ideas what the iproblems could be? Cheers, Chris.
International SEO | | PixelKicks0 -
How to fix the duplicate content problem on different domains (.nl /.be) of your brand's websites in multiple countries?
Dear all, what is the best way to fix the duplicate content problem on different domains (.nl /.be) of your brand's websites in multiple countries? What must I add to my code of websites my .nl domain to avoid duplicate content and to keep the .nl website out of google.be, but still well-indexed in google.nl? What must I add to my code of websites my .be domain to avoid duplicate content and to keep the .nl website out of google.be, but still well-indexed in google.nl? Thanks in advance!
International SEO | | HMK-NL3 -
Country name displayed after domain name in google SERP
our online shop targets clients in the US and worldwide (same URL - no subdirectories - currency changes based on IP). when searching in google.ie or google.no for our site google displays in the SERPS "US" or "United States" after the URL for our site, but for most other US competitors it does not show the country in the SERPS. I deleted our google places listing 2 weeks ago, since I suspected it may be related, but no change so far. In google webmaster tools we have targeted the shop domain to United States, which may be another factor. Unfortunately we can not undo this setting since without it our google US ranking for the most relevant competitive keyword drops from position 8 to position 100+. Server location is in Germany which despite lots of US links and US contact info and USD currency appparently makes google think that the site is not targeting the US. Does anybody know what triggers the country name in the SERPS (google places or webmaster tools or other) and can give advice if there is any way to get rid of it.
International SEO | | lcourse0 -
Non US site pages indexed in US Google search
Hi, We are having a global site wide issue with non US site pages being indexed by Google and served up in US search results. Conversley, we have US en pages showing in the Japan Google search results. We currently us IP detect to direct users to the correct regional site but it isn't effective if the users are entering through an incorrect regional page. At the top of each or our pages we have a drop down menu to allow users to manually select their preferred region. Is it possible that Google Bot is crawling these links and indexing these other regional pages as US and not detecting it due to our URL structure? Below are examples of two of our URLs for reference - one from Canada, the other from the US /ca/en/prod4130078/2500058/catalog50008/ /us/en/prod4130078/2500058/catalog20038/ If that is, in fact, what is happening, would setting the links within the drop down to 'no follow' address the problem? Thank you. Angie
International SEO | | Corel0 -
Google US vs Google UK
I could have posted this somewhere else, but I cannot find it. So, I have keywords that rank well in Google US and many that do well in Google UK too. I thought all of my keywords ranking well in the US would also rank well the UK. I have figured out today that it is not the case. Why would I rank in the top 3 in the US and not even show up in the top 50 in the UK? It is very strange. Thanks for your help! I am not super new to SEO or web business. I have had a very good company that has been ranking well since 2004.
International SEO | | journeybeyondtravel0