Google Showing false meta title in SERPs

Google.co.jp is showing only one keyword of title in search results

[crimsoni]

Hi,

We have about 40 Japanese words in our website's home page meta title, but Google.co.jp is showing only one keyword of title in search results when searching for 4 keywords related to this page and showing title correct for other list of keywords.

The same effect also found for our other website and for one competitor listed below it.

Does Google doing some kind research related to title display or its due to the some kind of error.

Google Webmaster tools is showing everything fine.

Please help me to find the cause of this issue.

Thanks

[anallawalla]

I think you are saying that an example page has a title tag of: "ichi ni san shi go roku etc". When a search is made in google.co.jp, the title tag in the SERP says, for example, simply "go" for that page.

If that is correct, then I think it would be a temporary glitch. Are other pages belonging to other companies showing a full title?

[crimsoni]

Google is showing same one keyword in title when searching for 4 different keywords. For many other keywords the title is coming correct.

The same is happening for our two sites and with one of our competitors.

[Robert Charlton]

crimsoni - Google has been altering titles for some years now, and in the past year has become increasingly aggressive about it. Google has been shaping titles from a variety of sources (including onpage text or inbound link anchor text) to return a title with vocabulary that fits the query. Often the altered title it will include text containing the query and possibly the company name.

Google's intention in doing this is to increase click-throughs. See this Sept 2010 thread in the Google SEO News forum as a start. (With WebmasterWorld site search, you can also find many other such discussions)....

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

We have about 40 Japanese words in our website's home page meta title...

Your title sounds like it's unusually long. Google.com displays roughly 64 characters of the title element, and the general advice is to limit your title element to roughly that length. It's also recommended to avoid using long strings of keywords in a title, since long keyword-stuffed titles generally don't motivate click-throughs, and they lack the focus needed for good onpage optimization.

Note this comment by tedster in the altered title thread, which seems to fit your situation....

...alterations seem to happen when titles 1) are overly short or 2) use multiple keyword strings rather than a grammatical title.

[tangor]

All above is excellent advice, but have to ask what "meta title" means. If in <title> then 40 words is too long. If in "meta" (content, description, copyright, etc.) then redundant and ignored by most search engines these days. My experience (last five years) has removed all "meta" from site and "title" (inside head) is EXACT to the page. At this stage of the game I'm not giving Google any leeway to "alter" my content since all I offer IS the content! ... which is what they show (altered) anyway!

[crimsoni]

Thanks Robert Charlton for your useful reply.

In Japanese word means character, Google shows 37 words in Title for Japanese Language.

Now I come to know the reason of title alteration: 'inbound link anchor text'.