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.
Google sets brand/domain name at the end of SERP titles
-
Hi all,
I am experiencing that Google puts our domain name at the end of the titles in SERPs. So if ia have a title: "See our super cool website", Google would show "See our super cool website - Betxpert.com" in the SERPs
Well. This is okay. Apart from the fact that i myself often put the brand name in the title AND the fact that Google mispells the site name. The brand is BetXpert with a upper case X...so when i get a SERP with "See our super cool website - BetXpert - Betxpert.com" I am annoyed
Any one out the know how to tell Google the EXACT brand name, such that they do not set a value the site owner does not want to have?
-Rasmus
-
Unfortunately, there's very little you can do to stop Google from rewriting titles. In some cases, if a title is too long or poorly matches frequent queries, tweaking it can help, but that's often not the case with them adding your brand name. I'm with Bill - I'd try to pin down if Google is pulling this from another source. If it's just coming from your domain, though, there may not be much you can do. There's no directive to tell them to stop rewriting, unfortunately.
-
I don't see any other possibility other than Google has taken the domain name and upper cased the first letter.
I don't have this brand name any where - not on the site, in the HTML or in webmaster tools.
-
Hi Rasmus,
DO check your blog / articles over as I see they all have the site name at the end of them. This is either being pre-filled or you have put this in yourself; I can't tell which.
If you haven't added this, then you need to see where it is being picked up from.
-Andy
-
Hi,
Thanks for the input. My site is not a wordpress - it is hand built PHP with hundreds of thousands of lines. I took the long way.
I will try and search for this. But it seems they have just taken domain name and set first letter upper case. One of our competitors i see has the same tendency in SERPs.
-Rasmus
-
Rasmus,
Google has been doing this (changing your title tag) for a while now. Google doesn't normally just "guess" your brand name or website name, they usually get it from somewhere. I would try to find out where they are getting it from and see if you can change it there. As Andy suggests, if it's your WordPress blog, then there is a chance that they're taking it from your blog's title, and you should be able to change it.
-
Hi Rasmus,
From what I can see, this only appears to affect your blog section and blog posts? Perhaps articles too?
I'm not sure what is powering your blog, but if it is Wordpress, or similar, then there is a setting where you can title your blog - this is normally your blog name and tends to get filled in when setting up and then forgotten. This problem then arises when you title a page and even though you haven't added the blog name in, it will be added automatically.
Does that make sense?
-Andy
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 school SEO tools / software / websites
Hey Mozzers, I am doing some research and wonder if you can help me out? Before Moz, Hubspot, Majestic, Screaming Frog and all the other awesome SEO tools we use today what were the SEO tools / software / websites that were used for aiding SEO? I guess we can add the recently closed Yahoo! Directory for starters! Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | RikkiD220 -
Does Google use dateModified or date Published in its SERPs?
I was curious as to the prioritization of dateCreated / datePublished and dateModified in our microdata and how it affects google search results. I have read some entries online that say Google prioritizes dateModified in SERPs, but others that claim they prioritize datePublished or dateCreated. Do you know (or could you point me to some resources) as to whether Google uses dateModified or date Published in its SERPs? Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | Parse.ly0 -
Does a KML file have to be indexed by Google?
I'm currently using the Yoast Local SEO plugin for WordPress to generate my KML file which is linked to from the GeoSitemap. Check it out http://www.holycitycatering.com/sitemap_index.xml. A competitor of mine just told me that this isn't correct and that the link to the KML should be a downloadable file that's indexed in Google. This is the opposite of what Yoast is saying... "He's wrong. 🙂 And the KML isn't a file, it's being rendered. You wouldn't want it to be indexed anyway, you just want Google to find the information in there. What is the best way to create a KML? Should it be indexed?
Algorithm Updates | | projectassistant1 -
Google is forcing a 301 by truncating our URLs
Just recently we noticed that google has indexed truncated urls for many of our pages that get 301'd to the correct page. For example, we have:
Algorithm Updates | | mmac
http://www.eventective.com/USA/Massachusetts/Bedford/107/Doubletree-Hotel-Boston-Bedford-Glen.html as the url linked everywhere and that's the only version of that page that we use. Google somehow figured out that it would still go to the right place via 301 if they removed the html filename from the end, so they indexed just: http://www.eventective.com/USA/Massachusetts/Bedford/107/ The 301 is not new. It used to 404, but (probably 5 years ago) we saw a few links come in with the html file missing on similar urls so we decided to 301 them instead thinking it would be helpful. We've preferred the longer version because it has the name in it and users that pay attention to the url can feel more confident they are going to the right place. We've always used the full (longer) url and google used to index them all that way, but just recently we noticed about 1/2 of our urls have been converted to the shorter version in the SERPs. These shortened urls take the user to the right page via 301, so it isn't a case of the user landing in the wrong place, but over 100,000 301s may not be so good. You can look at: site:www.eventective.com/usa/massachusetts/bedford/ and you'll noticed all of the urls to businesses at the top of the listings go to the truncated version, but toward the bottom they have the full url. Can you explain to me why google would index a page that is 301'd to the right page and has been for years? I have a lot of thoughts on why they would do this and even more ideas on how we could build our urls better, but I'd really like to hear from some people that aren't quite as close to it as I am. One small detail that shouldn't affect this, but I'll mention it anyway, is that we have a mobile site with the same url pattern. http://m.eventective.com/USA/Massachusetts/Bedford/107/Doubletree-Hotel-Boston-Bedford-Glen.html We did not have the proper 301 in place on the m. site until the end of last week. I'm pretty sure it will be asked, so I'll also mention we have the rel=alternate/canonical set up between the www and m sites. I'm also interested in any thoughts on how this may affect rankings since we seem to have been hit by something toward the end of last week. Don't hesitate to mention anything else you see that may have triggered whatever may have hit us. Thank you,
Michael0 -
Plural vs non-plural domain name
I'm sure this question has been answered and asked a 1,000 different ways but what would be the best domain name to use in the long term (2 years +)? The plural versions (examples.com) which has a decent domain authority and is ranking 1st in Google search results yet has less search volume or the singular version (example.com) that has no current SEO value for the search term that we'd like to target however the singular version of the keyword has a much higher search volume? so basically will it be better to have the exact match that has more volume or the plural form that has better rankings after 2 years of doing SEO for each domain? My guess is that using (examples.com) with the better domain authority and tightening the grip on its dominance in Google will still be more effective than having the exact match domain with more search volume for that keyword while performing the same amount of SEO even after two years. Any suggestions?
Algorithm Updates | | ydop0 -
Stars (Votes) in SERPS
Anyone seen these before? Small stars representing 'votes'? What's all this about?
Algorithm Updates | | MirandaP0 -
Why google index ip address instead of the domain name？
I have a website ,now google index ip address of it instead of the domain name,I have used 301 redirected to the domain name,but how to change the index IP to its domain name? And why google index the IP address?
Algorithm Updates | | frankfans1170 -
.Co Domains - Any thoughts?
Hi Guys I'm not sure which section this one belongs in as I didn't see a section for domains/tlds. I wanted an opinion on the future of .co domains. We own a gift company (www.xperiencedays.com), as well as a gift recommendation site (www.uniquegifts.net), and invested in a few gift occasion .co domains (www.birthdaygifts.co, christmasgifts.co etc). This was partly because they were cheap and easy to come by, but also with a hope that they soon gain some public recognition. My question therefore is whether anyone within SEOMOZ has an opinion on whether .co will be widely accepted, whether they will (as google claims) be treated as a non-country specific url, and early success stories you know of, and finally whether the recent news from Overstock to rebrand as O.co (http://www.overstock.com/guides/faqs-about-o-co) is the kick start that .co need. I realize that is more than one question
Algorithm Updates | | bigtimeseo2