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.
Meta title not showing up correctly on SERP
-
We have an issue with some clients on a Wordpress CMS where title tags implemented on a Yoast SEO plugin for the Homepage are not coming up as we'd implemented them. However, the source code shows we'd implemented them correctly according to what we'd wanted.**For example, this is the title tag we implemented in the CMS:Towing Services Alberta | Jack's TowingSource code shows:Towing Services Alberta | Jack's TowingHowever, SERP results shows:**Jack's Towing | Towing Services Alberta This is not an issue with the rest of the other pages and there isn't a global template for our client's sites. It's perplexing that it's only happening on the Homepage and this is across for 3 of our clients' sites.Even more perplexing, recently we've noticed that SERP is only showing the client's business name as the title tag and this is across for 2 out of the 3 clients we'd mentioned above. Nothing has changed in the back-end.Would appreciate some insight on this issue!
-
A strange situation here also with https://locksmith24-7.nl/

I did not include Amsterdam in the meta titel but google is still showing this, how can this happen, any SEO EXPERT solutions for this?
-
Hi Gaston, LureCreative and Nigel, your responses and suggestions are much appreciated. We will test it out and hopefully be able to update on here what's the outcome!
-
Good advice. This is also better from an SEO point of view as the main Keyphrase is now at the beginning of the title. i.e. Towing Services Alberta is more likely to be searched for than 'Jack's towing'.
I would also experiment with putting two key phrases at the beginning with your name at the end. Which is what Google will often do if your name is missing.
so: Towing Services Alberta | Tow Service | Jack's Towing
This allows two contextually strong key phrases to be hoofed into the title. Frankly, I would put the phone number in the description, not in the title as it will not be searched for. Use the title only for keyword rich information that will be searched for, then flesh it out with a strong call to action in the description along with phone number.
Regards
Nigel
-
This is a common thing we see especially when your meta title is "(Keyword Phrase) | (Company Name)". Keep in mind that the Yoast plugin only "strongly suggests" the Meta Title to show up in Google's SERPs, but Google can alter it, and often will if they think it is too keyword heavy or if they want to put the business name first instead of last.
I would test "Towing Services Alberta | Jack's Towing | 888-888-8888" if the client is ok with having their phone number in, this would put the business name in the middle of the title, which in our experience makes it less likely to be changed in SERPs. If the client does not want their phone number in SERPs you may have to experiment with it.
To speed up the testing process, use Google Search Console's Fetch & Render tool and re-index the page to see Google change the result in their SERPs alot faster (usually). Hope this helps and best of success!
-
Hello Gavo,
How long has it been since the setting was applied in the yoast plugin? and how long has it been since you started seeing the wrong title in serp?
Would you please tellme in wich search engine (.com, or .co.uk or other) are you seing this issue?
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
-
Page Title Length
Hi Gurus, I understand that it is a good practice is to use 50-60 characters for the a page title length. Google appends my brand name to the end of each title (15 characters including spaces) it index. Do I need to count what google adds as part of the maximum recommended length? i.e.
On-Page Optimization | | SunnyMay
is the maximum 50-60 characters + the 15 characters brand name Google adds to the end of the title or 50-60 including the addition? Many thanks!
Lev0 -
Page Title versus H1 title
What's the difference between the Page Title and the H1 title? It seems like both summarize the page. Is it a wasted opportunity to make them the same? Should they be similar but slightly different?
On-Page Optimization | | amybethmegjo1 -
Snippet showing as domain name with apostrophe, instead of page title when searching for the domain name.
Hi, We have an issue with one of our websites, with the snippet dispaying differently in Google serps when searching for the domain or the website name rather than a search term. When searching for a search term, the page title shows as expected, but when searching for the site by the domain name either with or without the tld, it shows the snippet as the domain name with an apostrophe at the end. Domain is subli.co.uk Thanks in advance for any advice!
On-Page Optimization | | K3v1n0 -
Meta description for Privacy Policy?
Hello guys, Quick question about optimizing other pages on my woocommerce e-commerce store. Do I need to optimize pages like the cart page, checkout page, privacy policy, return policy, shipping policy, etc? Strictly talking about on page SEO for these pages, like meta titles, description. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | The_Kiwi_Man0 -
Can I add multi location business cities to homepage meta title or desc.?
I have a business with 6 locations (in the same state) but very different cities. We we expanded from one location with the city name in the URL we followed best practices to move to the new domain without the singular city name in the URL. We definitly took a hit on the organic side and I'm trying to figure out best practice for where to add geo info. Currently I have geo info: -In footer
On-Page Optimization | | beehiive
-Contact Page -On local page It's a WP site and each location has it's own page (ie. locations/geolocation_keyword). I know all other locations will take sometime but my concern is the hit we took on the original location that had geo-target URL. I guess really my question is simply can I include city names in homepage meta title and desc.?
and is there anything else I can do to bounce back organically on the original city faster?0 -
Correct .htaccess settings for canonical url?
I want to forward all urls to http:www.mysite.com but am a little confuse because I am getting duplicate content error: Pages with Duplicate Page Content as of Jan 15http://titanappliancerepair.com/ 1 duplicatehttp://titanappliancerepair.com 1 duplicatehttp://titanappliancerepair.com/index.html 1 duplicate*****************************************************************What should I put ion htaccess file so I can forwardhttp://titanappliancerepair.com/index.htmlhttp://titanappliancerepair.comhttp://titanappliancerepair.com/to http://www.titanappliancerepair.comor what is the correct way to do it?I'm confused because when I enter http://titanappliancerepair.com/ in browser it showshttp://titanappliancerepair.com so how can it be considered duplicate content?.Can someone help?I have godaddy and they have gave me this code to put RewriteEngine on
On-Page Optimization | | webbutler13
rewritecond %{http_host} ^coolexample.com [nc]
rewriterule ^(.)$ http://www.coolexample.com/$1 [r=301,nc]What is correct?0 -
Best Way to Use Date in Title
Hi, I do most of the current copy for our blog which you can find here http://appointedd.com/blog/ I believe having a regular blog structure with a mix of irregular ad hoc posts to go in around these. So, for this blog, I write an article on "Beauty Industry News" every week. Now, I don't want to use the same title for each post, so I've peen butting in the date after each one i.e. "Beauty Industry News - 24/04/13". Is this best practice or is there a better way of naming regular posts? Thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | LeahHutcheon0 -
How To Change Wordpress Category Title
My categories are indexed and I want to change the category page title. At present it just defaults to the category name but I want to set a different page title. For example I want the category to be 'Motor Cars' but I want the category page title to be 'Buy Motor Cars - New And Used'. How can I do this?
On-Page Optimization | | SamCUK0