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Are you tired of Google changing your title tags? I understand you ! We spend time tweaking our page titles to optimize our SEO and improve click-through rates, and all that work gets thrown away by Google. How frustrating!
However, there are good reasons why the leader in search engines should do this! Called Titlegate, the massive rewriting of titles displayed in the SERP aims to provide better consistency between the promise made by Google and the content offered by the website.
Considered a hot area in SEO, the title of the page influences not only SEO, but also the click-through rate (companies have lost up to 50% of their traffic!).
I therefore invite you to discover this complete file on the matter of reformulations of titles by Google and offer you 8 tips to remedy it!
Titlegate: 61% of title tags are rewritten by Google
The study conducted in 2022 by Zyppy showed that 61% of the titles displayed in the SERP are rewritten by Google. To ensure a consistent result, they analyzed no less than 80,959 title tags from 2,370 websites around the world.
To carry out this investigation, Zyppy relied on a previous study conducted by Dr. Pete J. Meyers[2] (marketing researcher at Moz) and research work carried out by Alexis Rylko[3] (SEO technical director at IProspect). The former found a reformulation rate of 83%, while the latter, based only on major rewrites, obtained a result of 40%.
Moreover, all of these researchers seem to agree on one point: the titles displayed in the SERP may vary depending on the request and the device used. Other factors, certainly such as search history or location, would also be likely to influence the title chosen by Google.
Nevertheless, in the study conducted by Zyppy, 3 main factors for rewriting title tags were identified:
- the length of titles,
- the use of square brackets instead of parentheses,
- the influence of the choice of separators
Other elements also seem to motivate Google to change the SEO titles displayed in the SERP. But before presenting all of these factors to you, I suggest you understand how Google proceeds to choose the titles offered in the search engine results pages.
How does Google generate the titles displayed in the SERP?
On September 17, 2021, Google published on its blog crucial information regarding the generation of the titles displayed in the results. Surprisingly, the Mountain View Giant announces significantly different numbers than those reported in the research. In fact, according to them, 87% of the titles displayed correspond to an HTML tag (title, H1 or H2).
However, Google transmits in its article important information which makes it possible to better understand the reasons for this reformulation of the title tag:
- half-empty titles: to complement the title, Google examines the information in the content of the page;
- obsolete titles: Google automatically changes the title when the year displayed in it does not correspond to the main title of the page (H1);
- imprecise titles: when the title does not accurately reflect the content of the page, it is reformulated;
- recurring titles: if several of your pages have the same title tag, then Google will want to add information to clarify the subject covered.
Google then gives advice to website owners on how to improve their page titles. In addition to insisting on the quality of the HTML tag and the control of the rewriting factors mentioned above, they suggest referring to their help page dedicated to title links in search results.
Here, according to the search engine, are the 8 elements to consider in order to avoid rewriting titles:
- ensure that each page of the site contains a title in the element <title>
- write a descriptive and concise title,
- avoid the accumulation of keywords,
- do not repeat text in the title,
- add the brand name,
- clearly identify the main title (H1),
- pay attention to page crawling bans (robots.txt),
- use the same language as in the main content.
The impact of titlegate on SEO
As for natural referencing strictly speaking, there is no reason to worry. Indeed, the keywords added in the title tag are always taken into account by Google algorithms. At first glance, the impact of Titlegate appears to be purely cosmetic.
However, the repercussions of this new display influence other parameters essential to your content marketing. Indeed, a reformulated title has the simple purpose of informing the user as best as possible about the content of the page presented. And this can have a significant influence on two fundamental elements of online commerce!
- The click-through rate (CTR) is the ratio that indicates how often a user clicks on a link displayed in Google’s SERP. It allows you to analyze the performance of your web pages on different keywords. As the title is an essential element to make people want to click on a link, its automatic reformulation can have a catastrophic effect on the CTR (I observed a 50% drop in traffic on certain websites!).
- The number of conversions is directly influenced by the click-through rate. Indeed, you don’t need to be a great scientist to understand that, if your commercial pages experience a drop in traffic, then your sales will decrease!
Therefore, even if the SEO impact of Titlegate seems non-existent, you should absolutely take the time to properly optimize your Title tags so that they appear in the Google SERP! Discover without delay 8 tips to achieve this!
8 solutions pour éviter que Google change vos titres
Based on Titlegate studies, you discover that many factors strongly influence Google’s rewriting of titles. Here is a summary of the good processes to put in place when you write your title tags.
1- Match SEO Title and H1
It is very common for Google to use the H1 tag when reformulating the title displayed in the SERP. This is most often the case when the title is considered too commercial or its relevance is not optimal in relation to the content of the page.
Therefore, we recommend that you match these two elements. However, this does not mean that they must be identical! Nevertheless, it would be wise to give the same type of information in these two tags.
2- Choose keywords similar to Google queries
Google tends to rewrite a title that is too generic or irrelevant. This is often the case for home pages which too often have this simple term as a title. In fact, this information does not respond in any way to the search that an Internet user could carry out.
This is why we strongly advise you to write a title tag that corresponds to the types of queries made by Googlers. To achieve this, don’t hesitate to take inspiration from the suggestions made by our semantic analysis tool!
3- Don’t repeat keywords in the title
Repeating a word in a title is considered keyword stuffing by Google! It is thus observed that titles presenting the same expression several times will have a greater tendency to be reformulated by the search engine.
For an optimal strategy, you should therefore favor the use of synonyms and variants in your titles. This is all the more essential if the name of your company is added to the title and it includes a main keyword.
4- Avoid interest-free and boilerplate formulas
To illustrate this point, I suggest you take the following example: “ Best pet shop in France ”. Not only could this title be written by all businesses in the sector, but it also has a purely marketing objective that could mislead the reader.
As this type of title tends to be revamped by Google, you should only use them if they are completely relevant to the content offered by your page. Because, even if these texts are not necessarily bad, they will only be displayed if they correspond to the information you provide!
5- Use the right title separators
In order to structure a title, it is common to use separators (“-”, “|”, “/”, “>”, etc.). However, according to the study conducted by zyppy.com, it seems that Google does not like them all! As a result, most titles including separators are reworded!
However, a separator seems to be more appreciated than the others in the SERP. Therefore, we recommend that you use the hyphen (“-”) when you want to separate the content of your title tag.
6- Favor parentheses rather than brackets
Aside from separators, another technique for dividing a title and highlighting information is the use of (parentheses) and [brackets]. Once again, analysis of thousands of Google SERP results showed a difference between these ways of doing things: 77.6% of titles with brackets were rephrased, compared to 61.9% for those with parentheses.
This is why the recommendation on this subject is obvious! If you absolutely want to insert an element of this type in your title tag, use parentheses!
7- Do not divide the title tag into sections
Based on points 5 and 6, you will certainly have understood that by dividing your titles you increase the chances that Google will reformulate them. Therefore, a title containing only one sentence is certainly the best way to see it appear as is in the SERP!
8- Check the length of the title tag
With over 95% rewriting rate, titles that are too short or too long are those that are most often rewritten by Google. It goes without saying that your priority is, above all else, to ensure that you offer a title of ideal length!
According to experts, the best way to avoid reformulation is to enter a title tag of between 51 and 60 characters. Indeed, during the analysis of more than 80,000 titles displayed in the SERP, it is in this margin that there were the fewest reformulations carried out by Google.
Conclusion
More than half of the titles displayed in the SERP do not correspond to the title tags of the pages offered! Even if the rewriting of titles by Google has no direct influence on SEO, a decrease in click-through rate and conversion is to be expected.
Titlegate therefore has many negative repercussions on the activity of websites and their profitability. To prevent the search engine from reformulating your titles and thus losing up to 50% of your traffic, I remind you of the 8 tips for optimizing the title of your pages:
