John Mueller: Title tags "not the most critical part of a page"

[martinibuster]

When asked what the most critical part of a web page is, he answered:

More like the actual content on the page.

Read it on SERoundtable, Title Tags Not Critical [seroundtable.com]

File this with the hashtag, #CrapJohnMuellerSays

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 8:41 pm (utc) on Jan 20, 2016]

[timemachined]

lucy, I don't mind, only a c and p from google's stolen on page dictionary.

Yes G adds sitename to the right sometimes, I'm still trying to figure out if a wordpress error or G does it randomly. As I removed sitename for some reason years ago.

EG you need to go out and buy a bottle of 'google hate hooch', the company doesn't do everything correctly. I'm a customer, I wasn't pleased. G does user testing 1) for shareholder benefit 2) for customers benefit. Anyway, I circumvented their erroneous ways, corrected my own error - not that I received any warning in wmt and changed it back but if becomes the norm... probably still little can do about it.

Title should be sacrosanct - that's not a pleasure toy, shower.

[FranticFish]

@timemachined

Time will tell if users leave or learn to use quotation marks

Oh, I forgot to include that in my example! Makes no difference!

Searches in this format '*new [car brand and model]* [location]' (where * is speechmarks) returned in one case...
- 2nd, 3rd and 4th place: host crowded results with the string /used-cars/ in the url in each case.
- 5th place: title tag says 'used [car brand and model]' (the word 'new') occurs once or twice in the content
- 10th place: title tag, url and breadcrumb shown in SERP all have the word 'used' in them

[Walt Hartwell]

@fathom

So by default your claiming the core algorithm automatically changes at will, makes unilateral decisions like a brain... e.g. BrainRank is truly "the wizard of Oz".

No, I was stating we live in the "best of all possible worlds", which I thought was fairly obvious.

[fathom]

I'm glad it was so obvious. Sound like you're a fanboi too!

If I search for a brand and that brand isn't in the title element Google returns results based on the USER's Search Term.

Using your local reference if the searcher queried your location but you didn't have it in the title element it may then add that (if it is associated some how with the listing), for a better match to the USER's query which is better for you against your own judgment.

It has done that for snippets, especially when a Meta Description is completely unrelated to the query.

Thus I will agree "best of all possible worlds".

Course your response was to amplify:

I'm of the opinion there are quite a few shades of gray, meaning it is possible to have quality content and also perhaps not quite fully conform with rules not quite cast in stone.

Meta Data is still not content.

Even JohnMu points at that when stating the title is not more important THAN ITSELF! Obviously content can't be more important than content... Right?

[EditorialGuy]

Title should be sacrosanct - that's not a pleasure toy, shower.

OK, consider this: If a page title is "content" and is "sacrosanct," then why shouldn't Google do one of the following:

1) Omit pages with titles that don't meet Google's standards from the search results, or...

2) Consider the quality of page titles (readability, keyword stuffing, whether they look like they were generated automatically from a database, etc.) when calculating individual page rankings or sitewide Panda scores?

The alternative--expecting Google to swallow and spit out whatever titles you serve up, no matter how unwieldy, awkward, or SEO-driven they may be--hardly seems reasonable.

[aristotle]

The root cause of this problem is google's frustration due to its continuing inability to rid spam from its search results, even after all these years. Realizing that they can't get rid of the spam itself, they decided that they would at least try to get rid of the spammy page titles. The result is obviously unfair to innocent webmasters who use accurate titles, and it also makes it more difficult for searchers to find the information they want. But this is the price that google is willing to pay in order to strike a little blow against spammers.

Google's frustration with its inability to fight spammers is also what led to panda and penquin, as well as their decision to push big brands to the top of the results. In all of these cases, google penalized legitimate webmasters and lowered the quality and usefulness of their search results in order to lash out at spammers.

[fathom]

Unless you actually have an official Google statement to that effect, it seems the only frustration involved is some webmasters.

I find it odd that while you suggest Google only penalizes legit webmasters, it only seems to lash out at a few suggesting 95% of listings must be webspam or you exceeded your frustration level long ago.

[EditorialGuy]

The notion that title rewriting is a part of an anti-spam crusade doesn't make sense for two reasons:

1) Spammy titles aren't the only titles that are being rewritten.

2) No penalties are involved.

It's more reasonable to assume that editing page titles for presentation in search results is a function of the UI team, not the anti-spam team.

[timemachined]

Not spam, not a penalty? I beg to differ. It rewrote title and moved the article to second page.

I did too many changes to understand properly, to the single page I have discussed. I had brand and two variations of a two word phrase, with one word being the end of both. So "Topic Verb 'Brand x3 Words' Synonym1 Synonym2 Synend." Not only did I change the on page anchor link, the internal inbound kw anchor link but also removed Synonym2. Perhaps just doing the title change would have been enough - oh and I also Google fetched to see instant correction.

Incidentally, having been noticeably penalised for whichever of those three things and having corrected the possible reason, not only did the page in question move back from page 2 to 4th/5th but it now sits in 1st for the keyword phrase. It's never been first before now. Lesson, Goggle hates linking... or title text over 50 characters... or multiple synonyms - I knew the latter but conversationally it made sense in that order and makes verbal sense rather than being spam.

Either way, it only recently changed the title on that page in the last two weeks, so it's new. So is title rewrite connected to a spam algo, up to you to decide. I don't care, I rank first ner ner ner ner ner ha ha, I'm 1st what a palava.

[fathom]

I did too many changes to understand properly.

That's your answer. Assuming there is a penalty for "lack of understanding" as oppose to just lower ranks because other website owners have superior merits against your indecision doesn't sound like a positive.

[timemachined]

Well I was being British in suggesting that I did make a few changes but 1, it didn't move back up until changed the title and the synonym removed and 2, it moved up again and I'm in first for the phrase now.

So now I'll be more abrupt and in your style of rudeness and state, I have no doubt that there's a penalty against title as keyword spam (even if not considered full on spam), that rewrite is a clue and being pushed down a further clue and have now benefited from my profound and urgent decision making.as this was a recent change in G algo and has only occurred in the past two weeks, little else I could do other than make the changes recently.

How rude can a person be? Don't answer, I've figured that out.

[lucy24]

I was stating we live in the "best of all possible worlds", which I thought was fairly obvious.

Well, that will teach you to leave off the <fe> markup.

[tangor]

Anything that changes in a few weeks time makes me skeptical. If, however, that change remains after six months then it might actually mean something.

Otherwise, might just be a sandbox error in the algo, and we have seen way too many of those over the years.

Long term is what counts, not overnight.

[fathom]

Well I was being British in suggesting that I did make a few changes but 1, it didn't move back up until changed the title and the synonym removed and 2, it moved up again and I'm in first for the phrase now.

So now I'll be more abrupt and in your style of rudeness and state, I have no doubt that there's a penalty against title as keyword spam (even if not considered full on spam), that rewrite is a clue and being pushed down a further clue and have now benefited from my profound and urgent decision making.as this was a recent change in G algo and has only occurred in the past two weeks, little else I could do other than make the changes recently.

How rude can a person be? Don't answer, I've figured that out.

A manual review (a penalty) requires a reinclusion request to have an option to restore certain results.

PANDA (a penalty) which is a content oriented automated algorithm.

PENGUIN (a penalty) which is an over-optimization automated algorithm. Which hasn't re-RUN since December 2014.

While there are indeed others like EMD or Above The Fold they don't fit your posted specs.

Just because results change does not imply a penalty it merely means other page are better matches for the query.

Having insight isn't being rude, not wanting to learn and posting misinformation is IMHO being rude.

[timemachined]

So your explanation for an old url being rewritten, losing rank and then changes being made and fetch used a second time to enact instant change as G promised on penalised urls at a time when huge core algo changes are being undertaken, is? Coincidence? The URL was rewritten at a time of heightened algo activity. Not merely a drop in rank due to a better match.

Perhaps Panda was tweaked and to help webmasters see an ongoing penalty url rewrites occur and or Panda was tweaked as part of the core algo and this change occurred anyway and or Penguin is running as the core algo now and they're going to inform us some time after. "G has said it's not Penguin" Like they haven't understand previously. Perhaps they're slowly releasing the new Penguin attributes as would be expected for an individual algo being merged into a core which WILL happen this year. "Last July, Panda 4.2 was slowly rolled out... It was so slow people didn't believe it."

I think just maybe, if a website is currently suffering a current animal penalty which I believe this one is, that at the very least, this ongoing core update might have affected that slightly and seen these changes on that URL made. I actually don't know why it picked out that URL exactly but I've made similar edits to a dozen other pages - not that any of those urls got auto changed so I'm not expecting similar behaviour.

I wrote the following last night. With regards to the importance of title. Having just uploaded one article and searched on the target phrase which is along the lines of;

Brand Widget Field

Out of the top twenty results, I went in fifth (this morning, 2nd). 1 to 4 and 6 to 12 and 14 to 18, 20 have no mention of the brand in title, no mention of brand in url and only brand mention in displayed description. There are other relevant pages with keywords in title / url / on page.

A widget synonym is present in all the titles as is the field. Half have synonym of widget in url. The next similar page to mine is in 13th with brand mention in title and url, the next is 19th. I dare say they lack the content I have written.

The stand out aspect is that on two pages, only three are what I'd term are usual G historic results, with adwords correctly targeted titles being the obvious places to click. I wouldn't click on any of the other nine results on the first page if considering just the bold title.

I'd click on mine (or adwords) ha but that's partly good news I suppose. So based on these results, yes title not crucial to Google but crucial for webmasters. I'm not going to stop including detailed titles as evidently they will aid in CTR but I will reduce synonym use and again shorten urls more in line with the October mobile update. (You see I don't always react on the cusp)

Obviously, scientifically, unless run same manual reaction on more urls that were changed and knowing why those urls were auto changed, it could be a variety of reasons. At least two other users on here have experienced what I have, I may re-read posts and find out who they are and ask if they can try what I did.

I'm not an expert at this, I believe the site in question is suffering a current penalty. I just notice things occasionally. I knew something for a year and one in business SEO'r said to me, "you know I thought you was insane, turns out what you're doing is being recommended by another also..."

I'm not saying I'm right, I just notice things sometimes and that's what the forum is for. If it was based on substantial fact only, we wouldn't be able to reply to the January 2016 SERPS thread until at least July 2017 and with properly worked out case studies, tests, examples and comparisons gathered, but by then, it wouldn't matter. I'm going to be wrong more times than not. I just reported an automatic change and how I reversed it. Someone else experiencing the same might thank me, many others who think I'm cuckoo won't care either way, some might even berate me.

[fathom]

Going somewhat off-topic but when you re-write a URL you have to consider all the links that were to the previous URL. They don't just magically follow your lead automatically, Googlebot needs to re-crawl each linking page and that can take many months.

PANDA itself is about on-page content not page URLs.

[timemachined]

My mistake, meant to write 'rewrite title' not rewrite url.

"So your explanation for an old 'article title' being rewritten, losing rank and then changes being made and fetch used"

[fathom]

As tangor suggested earlier merely reviewing change over a few days or a few weeks is under-productive.

Six months would be ideal.

No matter, lower ranks on making a title change will NEVER be a penalty... You can't keyword stuff a title beyond 12 words. To attract a penalty you will need to do much more than that.

[timemachined]

Ok but I'm not waiting six months and losing sales just to get a more refined case study together. If G auto rewriting the title, pushing that article back down to page two or further wasn't a penalty then I guess it was G just doing it for fun and seeing how I'd react. Gee thanks for that G.

The ensuing reaction on my behalf was to change on page and internal link to page keyword anchor text and remove a synonym. G's reaction to that was to change the title rewrite back to original after second G fetch (it didn't on the first) and not only move page back to 5th but then put me in first for the phrase.

I recall a G rep stating that corrections made by webmasters would now be seen in real time rather than waiting for an animal to lick its coat and clean itself. So it wasn't a penalty and was just for fun, although the page got penalised with a G rewrite and moved down. I call that a penalty. As for live updates to compliment a webmaster's swift action to rectify, G obliged.

It's not about reviewing change, it's about taking action when its evident something bad occurred. I only wish I could rectify other problems as swiftly. And just so you understand, I didn't make the original title change, G did. I simply got it back. In your view, you seem to think it will revert back again to G's auto rewrite, if it does I'll let you know... in six months. Meanwhile I'm pleased I should make sales from the position, although admittedly, 3rd or 4th is probably a better place in this category and getting the final click.

If being moved down in ranks isn't a penalty after an automatic rewrite of title by the big G, I don't know what is. I certainly don't view G rewriting a title and the page moving down being a slap on the back and a congratulations for my superb efforts - if it is, G has a warped sense of humour and reward. Fair enough, if my titles started getting rewritten, pages all moved up and CTR went through the roof then well done G, who needs adwords after such a back slap! Your argument makes no sense.

[fathom]

I think we are discussing different things. In a previous post you wrote YOU did a title rewrite now you are sayng Google did it.

Any rewrite Google might do is likely based on better matching specific query which commonly induces a higher CTR. If a rewrite, the page isn't likely ranked for the rewrite but your original title.

[timemachined]

I'm sure I always stated G rewrote my title and I got it changed back by doing those three things. If it was as obvious as you are stating I wouldn't be concerned. The page in every aspect was in tune with the phrase it was supposed to be in for. In another thread I highlighted the rewrite, it was 'Topic Verb Brand x 3 words Synonym1 Synonym 2 Synend'

The rewrite was auto changed by G to 'Brand x 3 synonym1 synend' either from on page text string, on page anchor text link or referring internal link anchor text. If a rewrite is for the greater good, I'd argue as to whose, as the page moved down. I change it back by correcting possible penalty aspects and it goes up and ends up 1st - for the time being. It's a penalty as it's not 1st April.

Keyword distribution in meta title, meta description, meta keywords, % count of keyword phrase, taking into account thesaurus algo and using variable and associated keyword structure. And up until now, a keyword anchor link and variable keyword internal anchor link from related pages on site. Not overly crammed full of keywords as these are 1000+ word articles, related and on topic. I don't buy this "just write content" line from Google, it's ridiculous, you have to arrange it to a certain degree.

I am now discontinuing with keyword anchor text linking both on page and referring, cutting down use of multiple synonyms in titles and shortening urls further. From what I see at the moment, you could put "Elvis has some new shoes" in every title and it would rank for the content's main keyword with no accounting for title aspects.

This site is still in a wider penalty zone of that I'm sure, rumbling around in some animal's stomach waiting to be dispersed, so perhaps the rewrite is a part of an algo already being penalising the site or it is something else. Either way, for the time being, that page recovered. I'm happy to hear that you believe there are traffic boosting G angels going around re-writing titles for webmaster benefit but I got hit by title rewriting G'oblins and they do the opposite of your G'angels.

[EditorialGuy]

Re titles and penalties: We have no evidence that Google penalizes, downranks, or lowers the quality scores for pages with keyword-stuffed titles, but even if we did, so what? Rewriting titles and penalizing keyword-stuffed titles are two different issues. Google could change either policy tomorrow without affecting the other.

As I've said before, rewriting titles is about the UI, a.k.a. how search results are displayed. Google may append " -- Donald's Doughnuts" to my titles to differentiate my page about Vegamite-filled doughnuts from all the other pages that are titled "Vegamite-filled doughnuts," but that doesn't mean I'm being penalized for failing to include my sitename in the title.

[timemachined]

I'd fully accept your UI explanation if it actually made any sense but it doesn't. Why go through the effort to change a title to just serve up something similar albeit a little shorter? And if it's to do with UI only, why then push the page down when G took the effort of changing the title. Surely any change they make for my, theirs, the world's betterment means my page is now exceptionally more better off for their intervention?

It makes no sense. I've just given you evidence of a penalty but no, for some reason the explanation is UI with no purpose served. At least if it's an automatic penalty the reasoning is there to see.

Why did G rewrite the title, why did it then push the page down? Why did it let my original title come back after I made changes? Why did the page not only return but actually move up in rank after changes made? G's action was not for the benefit of UI. An intelligent UI also would not, not capitalise all the words in a title. As for your example, maybe, just maybe, they changed the policy yesterday and a keyword penalty for too many synonyms results in a visible rewriting of the title (so the webmaster understands to effect change) and the page ranked lower.

Please God find me someone else who has had a title rewritten in a similar fashion so we can test the turnaround haha

[EditorialGuy]

Why did G rewrite the title, why did it then push the page down?

Beats me. When Google rewrote the titles on a bunch of my pages for competitive queries by appending a site name, why did those pages remain no. 1 in the search results? (Or, in some cases, move up to no. 1?)

Again, Google can rewrite your titles whether it applies a penalty, downranking, lower quality score, etc. or not. And it can apply penalties, downrankings, or lower quality scores whether or not it rewrites titles. If Google's Search Quality team decides that keyword-stuffed titles should be dinged, that doesn't mean the UI team has to rewrite those titles (or vice versa). Different teams, different goals, different responsibilities.

[timemachined]

Fair enough, I removed another double synonym from a different article title (that didn't title rewrite but has moved down recently) and it's gone from 26th to 13th. It's not the actual page update and a refresh algo as I've refreshed content on this one before via on page text.

The title in G display hasn't changed yet - as per my change, considering G fetch but will leave it 24 hours and see if it does it by itself. Worried if I do G fetch it will jump to page one and get in first again ha. I'm on to something but I don't know what it is but you lot keep calling me crazy, I'm fine with moving up and being thought of as crazy.

I've made changes to a dozen more pages and keep checking to see if any movement, if wholesale upping on over 50%. I'll be doing search and replace and making entire site changes on every page ba'bye multiple synonyms. I'm sure it's not refresh algo as I've tried that before.

[mack]

Google is getting smarter. The title tag is us telling the search engine and the user what a page is about. In fareness the page should be able to do that by itself.

Recently my page titlew have been designed with users bookmarks in mind. Short, sweet and to the point.

Mack.

[Ramakant Digital]

Yes, Now a days Title is not critical part of webpage. If you have web page with rich content and suitable targeted keywords in content which is in trend, Then surely your webpage perform better than other and wise versa.

[JS_Harris]

I think I wrote about this a couple of years ago, lol. I found that, for Google, a page would rank just fine if you didn't have a title tag. The result is that Google chooses a title which is beneficial sometimes because the title is matched to the query. If you go this route however you have two things to consider

#1 - If it's not text on your page it can't be used as a title so a good amount of text is required

#2 - Not all search engines and browsers work like Google results, it's helpful to visitors to see a title in their tabs and bookmarks

[Nutterum]

I really don't get all the fuss about John Mueller comment. He is correct you know. If you have crap content, especially text, the title tag won't save you. In the same note if you have content for x and title for y, Google will probably either 1) rewrite your title in order to serve you on Page 1,2,3 or will sooner or later catch that you are trying to get into certain SERP medium in order to funnel traffic from keyword searches you can't easily qualify for with your website or landing page. No matter the case, the webmaster is to blame not Google and John Mueller gave the example of the website that has no title.

To give a practical example - having a plumber site that has no unique value compared to the rest of the plumbing services and writing "Cheapest Plumbing Service in Pasadena" as title and not ranking for the keyword is not a problem with Google, it's a problem that you are not the cheapest service and/or you are not in Pasadena.

[iwrconsultancy]

For a long time I've wondered why the title tag hasn't been deprecated. It's basically a leftover from very old HTML standards that has no real function today. At one time it used to be displayed in the title bar of the browser window. Many browsers don't even do that any more, or only display a short snippet in a tab. In any case it's not the page title as visitors would see things.

Having to maintain two titles on every page creates all sorts of problems for the webmaster, especially as the duplicated items easily get out of sync. Would it not be better to comply with HTML5 document markup semantics, and have a way if identifying the title of a page, within the body? (Which could default to the first H1 if not defined)