Google Search Central updated a section of the developer support page that’s dedicated to supporting developers with how to change the site title that Google uses in the search results. The new section offers advice for troubleshooting troublesome title tags so that you understand why Google is changing the link titles.
Title Links Best Practices
- Make sure every page has a title tag.
- Write concise title tags that describe what the web page is about.
- Avoid keyword stuffing
- Branding phrases are okay until they become boilerplate.
- Use the Robots.txt correctly.
- Avoid boilerplate that is repeated across the site.
- Google sometimes uses what’s in the heading elements in the title links
Title links are generated by deriving raw data from the webpage itself as well as other websites which reference the web page.
Following factors that influence the title link
Other text contained in the page
Anchor text on the page
Text within links that point to the page
Content in <title> elements
Main visual title or headline shown on a page
Heading elements, such as <h1> elements
Other content that’s large and prominent through the use of style treatments
Google’s advice can be valuable for determining why Google is altering the title tags in the search results. The write-up is also valuable for helping authors craft quality content title tags that will keep from being briefly added to the search engine listings.