Google appending home page's title to all page titles

[MarkOly]

I just noticed that Google is appending my home page's title to the end of every one of my other pages titles.

Say my home page's title is "Keyphrase-1". The title for widget-a page, which should appear as "Widget A", is appearing as "Widget A - Keyphrase-1".

It looks like Google is assuming that the home page's title is the name of the website, thus appending it to every page title. Does anybody know how to fix this?

[Robert Charlton]

If the home page's title is also the company/ brand/ or domain name, Google will often add that to the keywords. If the list of keywords is a long one, Google may delete some of the superfluous keywords in the list to make room for the company name.

This thread is one of many that discusses Google's title rewriting....

Google is now rewriting all my page titles
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4480232.htm
[webmasterworld.com]

The rewriting patterns have evolved a bit over time, but the above thread, from just about a year ago, describes what I'm seeing as current behavior.

I suggest using Google to search webmasterworld.com for more threads on the topic, using searches like...

[google rewriting page titles site:webmasterworld.com]

[MarkOly]

Thanks Robert. It looks like I have my work cut out for me. This looks like kind of a fleeting issue. I'll start reading...

[Alex997]

I have | <company name> at the end if all my titles anyway but I have noticed that 50% of my pages now use - instead of |. This is spreading rapidly.

I see Google is also changing all the titles to match the H1 for the page and no longer letting you specify your own title.