Catalyst - 7:06 pm on Jul 30, 2012 (gmt 0)

Google has been changing title tag to business name in LOCAL search for over a month now. (Only in certain positions) I blogged about it maybe 1 1/2 months ago.

There are 2 diff algo changes that happened fairly recently that affect titles in SERPS. Can't remember what the algos are called.

She's been re-writing SERP titles for awhile now. BUT in local she started changing to business name, oh maybe almost 2 months ago.

What's odd - if you do a local search for City + Keyword, normally the A listing will get their title tag.

So just increase rank to #1 and you'll get your title back. ;-)

B, C and sometimes D - she is TRYING to get the business name by scraping from the web site and SOMETIMES gets it wrong. I shared a couple examples where on one listing instead of name, she just showed initials and another she just used a single keyword "Dentist." Or I've even seen cases where she is TOTALLY wrong a scrapes a couple words that aren't even on the site. So instead of title tag OR business name, she displays something bogus like "Register Here."

Then the E, F, G listings usually she's pulling the name right off the Google+ Local page.

Linda