We are sure a lot of you SEO folks are already aware of the chaos in the industry regarding Google rewriting Title Tags. However, for those who are unaware, allow us to be the first ones to inform you about the buzz surrounding the issue for the past couple of weeks.
Google has recently rolled a testing algorithm where Google picks what Title Tag it wishes to display on the SERPs. Many SEO professionals are already unhappy about this new update about Google rewriting Title Tags. They are also curious to know if the recent change in Title Tags affects the current rankings of the website. Well, the answer is NO!
John Mueller – The search Advocate at Google, recently confirmed this in one of his Twitter interactions.
No
— 🧀 John 🧀 (@JohnMu) August 28, 2021
Kevin Indig – Director of SEO at Shopify asked, “If Google rewrites my title, does it take into account the keywords in the title when it measures the relevance of a page based on the new or old title?” which John replied, “No”. John further added, “It’s purely a display change. It’s not about changing rankings. It’s easy to sort things out for testing.”
This is purely a display change. This is not meant to change rankings. It’s easier to separate things out for testing. That said, we make ranking changes all the time too, so I wouldn’t assume you won’t see ranking changes, it’s just that they’re not due to this :).
— 🧀 John 🧀 (@JohnMu) August 29, 2021
Apart from this, Lily Ray – Senior Director, SEO & Head of Organic Research at Amsive Digital, also pointed out certain speculations surrounding the SEO industry. Many people have come to the conclusion that the change in Title Tags only resulted in H1 Tags switching to Titles. This is not true as Google stated, it does a lot more than that.
Below are some examples shared by Lily Ray in her recent tweets:
Here’s an example where Google Rewrites Title from the File Name of the Hero Image.
this one is fun – titile and h1 appear to be provided on page but the snippet appears to be using the file name for the hero image. I didn’t realize that was an attribute that Google might use in a snippet til today… pic.twitter.com/gc3JNRu9yt
— Jen Floyd (@JenFloyd08) August 20, 2021
An example where Google decides to show Different Title Tags on Different Devices
Another example of a title differing between desktop/mobile for the same URL.
Sorry it’s NSFW, Google is the one that chose to use the <h2> as the title to show in the SERP, not Snopes. 😉 pic.twitter.com/WjrnkX8tFw
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) August 30, 2021
Signs where Google shows Punctuations could also be a Factor for Rewriting Title Tags
Yeah, it definitely seems like punctation is sort of breaking/pre-emptively truncating titles in some cases. pic.twitter.com/LsEltDDF5O
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) August 30, 2021
This is not the first time where Google has decided to test the snippets on SERP. Below are some of the past alterations conducted by Google:
- Pixel Limit: The limit for how much content can be displayed within a Title Tag or Meta Description can vary from one device to another. There are still certain pixel limits that are followed by SEO professionals (often simplified to just ‘characters’). Google can sometimes make the pixel limit longer or shorter for each metadata element that is unknown.
- Meta Description Modification: According to a study conducted by Portent, where they examined search results for 30,000 keywords, it was found out that Google rewrites meta descriptions for pages over 71% on mobile devices and 68% on desktop. Google’s John Mueller shared three reasons why Google rewrites meta descriptions:
- The first reason is a poor use of a meta description that does not summarize the content present on the web page.
- The second reason is to accurately match the search query with the web page, especially when the content is missing a part of the search query.
- The third reason is when Google tries to match the search query with the content, but the match isn’t made in the meta description
So, the conclusion is that the titles written by you may still be taken into account by Google when it ranks results. So, don’t stop optimizing your titles just because of this change. Google constantly rolls out ranking changes to encounter rankings fluctuations; however, they will not be because of Title changes.
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