Tired of Google changing your title tags ? I feel you! We spend time tweaking our page titles to optimize our SEO and improve click-through rates, and all that work gets thrown away by Google. How frustrating!
However, there are good reasons why the leading search engine should do this! Called Titlegate, the massive rewriting of titles displayed in the SERP aims to provide better consistency between the promise made by Google and the content offered by the website.
Considered a hot area for SEO , the page title influences not only SEO, but also the click-through rate ( businesses have lost up to 50% of their traffic! ).
I therefore invite you to discover this complete file on the affair of the reformulations of titles by Google and offer you 8 tips to remedy it !
Quick read: what you'll learn about TitlegateIn this comprehensive file on Titlegate , you will discover the following elements:
the percentage of title tags rewritten by Google,
Google's reasons and how they reformulate a title,
the impact of Titlegate on natural referencing,
8 tips to avoid rewriting your title tags.
To learn why and how to optimize your title tags, just read on!
Titlegate: 61% of title tags are rewritten by GoogleWhat is Titlegate - Google's Title Rewriting
The 2022 study by Zyppy [1] (updated June 2023) showed that 61% of titles displayed in the SERP are rewritten by Google . To ensure a consistent result, they analyzed no less than 80,959 title tags from 2,370 websites worldwide.
To conduct this survey , Zyppy based its findings on a previous study conducted by Dr. Pete J. Meyers [2] (marketing researcher at Moz) and research conducted by Alexis Rylko [3] (SEO technical director at IProspect). The former found a rewording rate of 83%, while the latter, based solely on major rewrites, obtained a result of 40%.
Furthermore, all of these researchers seem to agree on one point: the titles displayed in the SERP can vary depending on the query and the device used . Other factors, certainly such as search history or location, could also influence the title chosen by Google.
However, in the study conducted by Zyppy, 3 main factors for rewriting title tags were identified:
the length of the titles,
the use of brackets instead of parentheses,
the influence of the choice of separators
Other factors also appear to motivate Google to change the SEO titles displayed in the SERP. But before I explain all of these factors, I suggest you understand how Google chooses the titles offered in the search engine results pages.
How does Google generate the titles displayed in the SERP?Illustrative image: Google results
On September 17, 2021, Google published crucial information on its blog regarding the generation of titles displayed in the results [4] . Surprisingly, the Mountain View Giant announces figures that are largely different from those announced in the searches. Indeed, according to them, 87% of the titles displayed correspond to an HTML tag (title, H1 or H2).
However, Google provides important information in its article that helps us better understand the reasons for this reformulation of the title tag :
half-empty titles : To complement the title, Google looks at the information in the page content;
Outdated titles : Google automatically changes the title when the year displayed in it does not match the main title of the page (H1);
imprecise titles : when the title does not exactly reflect the content of the page, it is reformulated;
Recurring titles : If several of your pages have the same title tag, then Google will want to add information to clarify the topic being discussed.
Google then gives website owners some advice on how to improve their page titles. In addition to emphasizing the quality of the HTML tag and controlling the rewriting factors mentioned above, they suggest referring to their help page on title links in search results [5] .
Here are, according to the search engine, the 8 elements to consider in order to avoid rewriting titles :
ensure that each page of the site contains a title in the element ,
write a descriptive and concise title ,
avoid keyword accumulation ,
do not repeat text in the title,
add the brand name ,
clearly identify the main title (H1) ,
pay attention to page crawling prohibitions (robots.txt),
use the same language as in the main content.
The impact of titlegate on SEOSEO optimization on Google
As far as SEO is concerned, there is no reason to worry . Indeed, keywords added to the title tag are still taken into account by Google's algorithms . At first glance, the impact of Titlegate appears to be purely cosmetic.
However, the repercussions of this new display influence other parameters essential to your content marketing . Indeed, a reformulated title has the simple purpose of better informing the user about the content of the page presented. And this can have a significant influence on two fundamental elements of online commerce !
The click-through rate (CTR) is the ratio that indicates how often a user clicks on a link displayed in Google's SERP. It allows you to analyze the performance of your web pages on different keywords. Since the title is an essential element in making people want to click on a link, its automatic rewording can have a catastrophic effect on the CTR (I have observed a 50% drop in traffic on certain websites!).
The number of conversions is directly influenced by the click-through rate. In fact, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand that if your business pages experience a drop in traffic, then your sales will decrease!
Therefore, even if the SEO impact of Titlegate seems non-existent, you should absolutely take the time to properly optimize your Title tags so that they appear in Google's SERP! Discover 8 tips to achieve this without further delay!
8 solutions to prevent Google from changing your titlesGoogle SERP screenshot for SEOQuantum
Based belgium phone number data on the research conducted on Titlegate, you'll find that many factors strongly influence Google's title rewriting . Here's a summary of the best practices to follow when writing your title tags .
1. Match SEO Title and H1
It's very common for Google to use the H1 tag when rewording the title displayed in the SERP. This is most often the case when the title is deemed too commercial or its relevance is not optimal in relation to the content of the page.
Therefore, we recommend matching these two elements . However, this does not mean that they must be identical! Nevertheless, it would be wise to give the same type of information in both tags.
2. Choose keywords similar to Google queries
Google tends to rewrite a title that is too generic or irrelevant. This is often the case for home pages that too often have this simple term as the title. Indeed, this information does nothing to address the search query a user might be performing.
That's why we strongly recommend writing a title tag that matches the types of queries Googlers are searching for . To achieve this, don't hesitate to draw inspiration from the suggestions made by our semantic analysis tool !
3. Do not repeat keywords in the title
Repeating a word in a title is considered keyword stuffing by Google ! It has been found that titles that contain the same expression several times are more likely to be reformulated by the search engine.
