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Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
More like the actual content on the page.
[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 8:41 pm (utc) on Jan 20, 2016]
I can't say from this whether Google has started rewriting titles more often, as our two observations might suggest, or whether we're coincidentally seeing something that Google is now doing all the time.
[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 11:12 pm (utc) on Jan 20, 2016]
I don't recommend ignoring the title tags
Re-writing page titles is one of the worst things that google does. The author of the article chooses the title that best conveys what the article is about, then google's algorithm changes it to something that's less accurate, and sometimes even totally misleading.
joined:Nov 23, 2015
posts:46
votes: 25
If the author of a page writes a clumsy, unwieldy, keyword-stuffed title, it makes perfect sense for a search engine to use its own description
So some sites are unjustly demoted, whereas others are unjustly rewarded. And the overall final effect is that google's search results become worse, thereby just adding to searchers' difficulties in finding the information they want.
Titles aren't rewritten to conform more closely to what the page is about. They're rewritten to conform more closely to the search that brought up the page. Different search, different rewritten title.
shouldn't the rewritten title increase the likelihood of a clickthrough?
The content is the stuff between the <body> and </body> tags.
joined:Jan 20, 2016
posts:6
votes: 1
Glakes, the text between an HTML page's <head> and </head> tags isn't "content." The content is the stuff between the <body> and </body> tags.
Google modifying the title of a page is akin to the same spinning spammers do. Scrape, steal, spin, etc. Google respects authors rights no more than the same low lives that steal and mutilate our content for their own gain.
Years back I dropped "keywords" from any title UNLESS they were part of the actual title. I have relied on PAGE CONTENT (as in content is king) for serp insert and ranking, as that has always been what the USER seeks: Content. The title that fits is the title to use, and I keep those short and sweet.
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.
joined:Jan 20, 2016
posts:6
votes: 1
That's what should/could happen in the best possible world of search engine positioning.
It doesn't always happen that way though.