Google changing Title in SERPs for certain keyword phrases

[nmjudy]

I haven't seen this mentioned in Google News, so I apologize if I missed it. Yesterday I did a 2 word keyphrase search in Google. The homepage of my site (www.domain.com) was showing in the #1 position, however, the link in the SERP was no longer the actual title of the page. The title had been changed by Google - not truncated - but almost as if Google was making a best guess over what the page was about. This page has not been changed in over 6 years. The Google cached version of the page still showed the true title.

Curiously, if you did a different keyphrase search, the www.domain.com page would show up - but with the title displayed correctly. I ran both scenarios through the multiple data center tool and all data centers gave the same results. I ruled out the possibility of a data center being out of whack. Depending on the keyphrase searched on, the homepage showed a different title in the SERPS.

Today, the page shows that it was updated as of August 14. Depending on what keyphrase you use to find the homepage, the SERP title is still different.

For giggles, I did a search just for a one word unique company name that happens to be a domain name. It looks like Google also changed THAT Title in the SERPs. 3 other tests with other domains gave the same results. Page titles have been changed. What do you think is going on? Is Google working on taking control over (site) titles - but only for specific keyword phrases?

[edited by: tedster at 11:38 pm (utc) on Nov. 27, 2008]

[nmjudy]

I just found another site in the SERPS that Google has forced a title change on. This time, the page is NOT a homepage.

[SteveJohnston]

hey nmjudy, I think what you've spotted and my Dmoz description point are related:
[webmasterworld.com ]

Perhaps the mods should combine these threads.

The title rewriting reminds me of the {keyword} setting you can use in Adwords to replace the title of your ad with the word searched for. This helps tends to help click-through rates.

I have spotted it going on in a number of places with client sites.

Are Google rewriting the SERPs entries, both Title and Description in a way that is designed to be more descriptive and less in thrall to the copywriting of site owners?

Steve

[cindyt]

I am seeing the same issue with certain key phrase searches bringing up results with titles that it looks like Google has changed. Does anybody know what is going on? This is really strange! This could have a huge impact on SEO research if the results we are seeing are being manipulated by Google to hide real titles. In one instance, a word was actually added that doesn't even appear on the page. In other instances, it looks like the real title is truncated. What up Google?!

[cindyt]

I think you are on to something there Steve. It looks like it might be partly DMOZ related but not entirely. I am seeing inside pages (not indexed in DMOZ) also showing with changed titles that do not necessarily contain the key phrase that was searched.

[nmjudy]

Steve-
Yes, I can see the relationship between DMOZ title and SERP title. If I search in Google for any keyword phrase included in the DMOZ title, Google SERP Title is changed to the DMOZ title. There are a couple though that don't follow that pattern. One site is not in DMOZ at all and Title is changed - wonder where Google is getting it from?

[Uber_SEO]

I've seen this on a site where I've changed the homepage title recently. Depending on the query I use, the Google SERP is displaying three different homepage titles for the site. One of them is the DMOZ title, one is the old title, one is the new title.

It doesn't look like a datacenter thing, so it would appear that Google is storing multiple page titles.