Google is rewriting title tags in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).
Google has made a massive change that from a webpage it has started replacing the Title Tags with other relevant text in SERPs.
In Search results, Google is often replacing the title tag’s text with a page’s H1 tag.
It’s believed that Google makes small tweaks in SERPs to adjust titles, such as adding a business’s name to the end. But now Google is not attempting to tweak a small change but replacing titles with different texts from web pages.
Many SEO Professionals have recently started taking notice of this through several tweets mentioning a massive Title rewrite on Google.
Even though it’s been spread widely SEO professionals have come across it already still the state of a massive change of rewriting titles is unknown at this time.
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If we simply put it, it seems like Google may choose any relevant text from a webpage and display it as a Title in SERPs. Similar to meta description for a long time now, as to perfectly match a user’s query Google can constantly and forcibly adjust the description in the search section.
Impact on SEO of rewriting page title tags
At this point, it is impossible to conclude whether Google is rewriting title tags or not. It is also possible that this massive change of replacing Title tags will change to normal in the near future as Google is known to run A/B tests.
Contrary to the above statement, we might be seeing the first and foremost stage of the permanent stage of replacing the title tags by Google. However, for websites, it might prove to be a good change assuming this is how Google will rewrite the Title tags.
The enhancement in relevancy for searchers is the evidential goal of replacing/ rewriting titles. If that’s the case, the more relevant title is, the more compelling it would be for searchers.
Title Tag Rewrite Prevention Tips
While we have to follow Google’s unavoidable algorithm, we surely can find ways to help prevent Google from replacing Title tags.
Prevention ways are as follows:
1. Short & Relevant Title Tags
To prevent Google from altering titles keep them less than 65 characters.
2. Avoid stuffing of keywords
Accept that we all have done this i.e stuffed keywords to improve the rankings but when we add only appropriate keywords Google might not try to rewrite it as it was relevant in the first place.
3. Avoid Language Repetition
Avoid using Title tags that are generic, for example “Home” for the homepage. Google’s system is set to modify any boilerplate language.
4. Don’t miss including the Title tag
Google will surely generate a title tag for your webpage if you just forget it therefore make sure to include a Title tag to prevent Google from rewriting it.
Is this the Permanent Change?
As this is the initial stage of generating/rewriting titles, therefore, Google is open to feedback and suggestions and continues making changes for results optimization. As per reports, Google’s system will continue to use your originally written title tags and will only modify to deliver better titles that can be displayed for any query relating to a specific web page.
Conclusion
As of now, we can only conclude that Google’s massive change of rewriting Title tags will not change the scale of ranking SERPs. In fact, this change will prove to be compelling for searchers. Therefore, SEO experts need not to worry about this change unless there are reports of dropping in rankings through rewritten title text.
