2nd Hand Domain.New Title Tag won't change

domain, title

[brett mifsud]

Hello everyone.

I have a unique problem and I require some expert assistance.

I purchased an existing domain through a provider when it became publicly available about 6 months ago(I am assuming the previous owner forgot to continue payment or something).

I have pointed the DNS server to my new server & uploaded a wordpress site, with all the meta data etc.

The problem is that the search engines are still displaying the results for that domain name as the old title of the site...not my new wordpress title.

so do a search and the title is (for example) "old real estate site", when it is supposed to be displaying "new real estate site".

Interestingly, the short description/tagline that the engines display is from the new site...just not the title. Argh!

Any ideas?

Thanks

[4crests]

Just takes time.
I have quite a few wordpress blogs that I assigned 2nd hand domains to. Some of them switched over within a couple weeks. Some took 9 months. They aren't too important to me, so i've never tried getting new links or asking google to add the sites or anything like that. I've just let them naturally switch over. They all seem to do it eventually.

[pageoneresults]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld brett mifsud!

Is it possible that title is coming from an ODP Listing?

<meta name="robots" content="noodp" />

[4crests]

not sure about misfud, but mine were from a godaddy free starter page, then did the wordpress domain mapping. It sometimes takes forever to switch over.

[kaled]

Some time ago, I effectively hijacked a page on my own website with a javascript redirect. During this period, changes to the title were not reflected in the SERPS. This being the case, I would check for pages that redirect to your domain home page, whether using javascript or a 301/302.

Kaled.

[brett mifsud]

Thanks everyone for the replies.
I am not a web developer, so I had no idea about the ODP listing. I did however take that advise and did some searching. I did track the title back to ODP and put in a change request form. – Hopefully they will accept. (They should, I described why I require the changes e.g. I am the new site owner).

In the interim, I added the <meta name="robots" content="noodp" /> to the header .php page. That should work as an interim solution.

Thanks again for all your help. Now its just a waiting game to see what happens.