Search results show wrong title and description

Google search results shows wrong title and description for root page

[draenog]

We manage a website that was underperforming in Google, and the index page was not showing on searches. When I finally found it, it had the wrong page title and description which probably explains the problem. The title was very simple - '#*$!x Guest House", instead of the SEO optimised title that is on the real page. Google cache shows the correct title and description. The displayed url is correct. We have managed this website for over 4 years and have never used the title displayed. Is this s form of page hijack? Any comments welcome!

[tedster]

Hello draenog, and welcome to the forums.

Is this by any chance your DMOZ title and/or description?

[draenog]

Yes it does partly. It matches the title, but not the description. DMOZ has [domain...] listed where Google uses www.domain (if that is relevant).

[marketingmagic]

something similar is happening with our site for one of 250 terms. Not sure why just this term is producing the results, but it is. The description is our description, but the title isn't.

The title is not our META title, not in the content onpage, not the DMOZ title, rather it was a title that some directory site was using for listing our site. Take the title being used in your case and sniff around in the 3 engines (and DMOZ). You'll find it buried in there somewhere.

Hope that helps.

[draenog]

Thanks for that. Having looked around it appears that the rogue Google description (which is not contained in any text on the real page) is the same as Yahoo Search and also appears in the text for pages on directories searchsight.com and directory.searchwarp.com. DMOZ is the only place I can find with the rogue title.