My homepage title and description in SERPs are not right

[mrez74]

I a site that in the SERPs it is showing the the tile of my site with only one keyword instead of the 3 that I have filled in with All In One SEO plugin. Also the description is messed up in the SERPs as well. It shows this information: "Try creating a post, and see if that solves your problem. #*$!xx.jpg".

For the title I have "KW1 | KW2 | KW3" but in the SERPs it just shows "|KW1". I did notice that the AIO SEO plugin needed updating and so I did that so see if it makes a difference. Another weird thing is when I click on the "Cache" link in the SERPs it shows date of October 22 and there is no content on the homepage except the following: "There’s nothing here. If there were posts in the database, you’d be seeing them. Try creating a post, and see if that solves your problem." But when I click on my site in the SERPs it is fine.

Is this Google or something happened to my hosting database? Should I wait for it to update to a newer date and see what happens or go into my hosting files to check for errors? Any suggestions?

[tedster]

Google currently is revising a lot of titles and description snippets. The algo tries to predict whether the text you provide will get good clicks, or whether their idea will improve it. Often they are changing titles that are just keyword lists rather than a grammatical description, and that's something you describe for your site.

However, it sounds like there may also be something wrong technically. The cached page you described is a strong indicator for that.

[goodroi]

historically google would sometimes use dmoz data to overwrite your title tag for the serps.

now they have several other situations that can trigger your title being rewritten for their serps:
-title tag is overly stuffed with keywords
-title tag is not unique & duplicated over many pages
-title tag is too short

[mrez74]

Ya I don't think it's that it's google that is causing this because why would my cache page of the homepage show that message when it has content on the hompeage. Any suggestions on where I should first start looking to troubleshoot?

[tedster]

Access your page with the "Fetch as googlebot" tool in your Webmaster Tools account. Then you'll know, for sure, exactly what googlebot is seeing right at this moment.

[mrez74]

Access your page with the "Fetch as googlebot" tool in your Webmaster Tools account. Then you'll know, for sure, exactly what googlebot is seeing right at this moment.

Well I did that and it came back as Success. Then I clicked on that link and the coding is fine and the way it should. But still in the SERPs it is messed up. Is this because it is showing the cache page back from October 22 and once the cache is updated it will show the correct information in the SERPs?

[Robert Charlton]

mrez74, see this current discussion on how and why Google might be changing page titles.

Google is testing altered page titles
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4206724.htm [webmasterworld.com]

[karamkshetra]

It is possible that Google is taking your Site Title and description from DMoz (ODP) or Yahoo! Directory. Try adding <meta name="robots" content="noodp,noydir" /> in the head of your page code.

[chrislloyd515]

@mrez74 did you have content on your site on October 22nd? And have you ever in the past either accidentally or through the AIO SEO plugin generated the incorrect title as you actual title?

[mrez74]

did you have content on your site on October 22nd? And have you ever in the past either accidentally or through the AIO SEO plugin generated the incorrect title as you actual title?

I have not changed the site since back in July. The content has been the same since then. I don't know why it shows the no content on October 22 for the cache.

[piatkow]

This just prompted me to check my SERPS and find that I am seeing my own title but content from DMOZ instead of my own content or description for certain search arguements.