![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.greenfintech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/title-rewrites-1.webp\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nFor reference, here\u2019s the original <title> tag:<\/p>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.greenfintech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/title-rewrites-2.webp\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nYou may be feeling confused and more than a little frustrated after Google\u2019s recent title rewrite update, but why is Google rewriting title,s and what can we learn from it? I explored over 50,000 <title> tags to find out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Title rewrites by the numbers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
All of the data was collected from the MozCast 10,000-keyword tracking set on August 25, 2021, and compared to original title tags collected using Screaming Frog (we only attempted one collection, since these were third-party sites). Here\u2019s a brief rundown:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- 85,340 page-one results<\/li>
- 71,603 unique URLs<\/li>
- 57,832 <title> tags<\/li>
- 33,733 rewrites<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
You might be doing the math right now, realizing that 58% of the <title> tags we tracked were rewritten, and rushing to Twitter to express your outrage. Please don\u2019t \u2014 at least not yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First, there are bound to be quirks, like cached <title> tags that don\u2019t match the current site, sites that blocked or modified our requests, cloaking, etc. I suspect those cases are relatively rare, but we can\u2019t discount them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Second, \u201crewrite\u201d is a tricky word, because it implies a meaningful difference between the original version and rewritten version. Of this data set, over 13,000 <title> tags were over 600 pixels wide, the physical limit of Google\u2019s desktop display title. Over 7,000 showed simple (…) truncation. Google has been doing this for years. Here\u2019s an example from October 2011 (via the Wayback Machine):<\/p>\n\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.greenfintech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/title-rewrites-3.webp\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nAre these really \u201crewrites\u201d in any meaningful sense? To understand what Google\u2019s doing, and how it differs from the past, we need to dig deep into the unique scenarios at play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scenario #1: Simple truncation (…)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Google can only fit so much on one line. That limit has changed over the years, but the basic fact remains. In many cases, <title> tags are just too long, and that\u2019s not always a bad thing or necessarily spammy. Here\u2019s one example and its corresponding search result:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.greenfintech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/title-rewrites-4.webp\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nThis is a wordy <title> tag and we could certainly argue the merits of academic vs. marketing copy, but there\u2019s nothing inherently wrong with or spammy about it. It simply doesn\u2019t fit the available space, and Google has to account for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scenario #2: Complex truncation (…)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Even prior to the recent update, we saw a less common variant of this scenario, where Google would truncate a title and then append the brand after the \u201c…\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.greenfintech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/title-rewrites-5.webp\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nIn this example, Google truncated the tag with \u201c…\u201d but then re-inserted the brand. Note that the original pipe (|) was replaced with a hyphen (-).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scenario #3: Rewrite truncation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
More recently (and possibly beginning with the August 16th update), Google is truncating long titles without displaying ellipses (…) and, in some cases, taking the display title from other elements of the page. For example:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.greenfintech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/title-rewrites-6.webp\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nThis text actually appears in the middle of the <title> tag, but it\u2019s possible that it was extracted from somewhere else on the target page. I would argue that this is a pretty successful truncation that serves the search query (in this case, \u201cDodd Frank\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scenario #4: Keyword stuffing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
This scenario tends to overlap with 1-3 \u2014 sometimes titles are too long and have clearly been stuffed with keywords. I can\u2019t speak to anyone\u2019s motivations, but here\u2019s an example that seems pretty egregious:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.greenfintech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/title-rewrites-7.webp\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nMistakes were made, etc. Interestingly, this rewrite seems to be pulled from an\u00a0
<H2><\/code>\u00a0on the page, but an entire paragraph is wrapped in that\u00a0<H2><\/code>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThese are fun. Let\u2019s do another one:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.greenfintech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/title-rewrites-8.webp\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nThis reminds me of that joke, \u201cAn SEO walks into a bar, grill, tavern, pub, public house\u2026\u201d. In this case, it appears that Google is taking the truncated title from the primary\u00a0
<H1><\/code>\u00a0on the page. It\u2019s hard to fault Google for rewriting either of these examples.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThese extreme examples can be entertaining, but it appears Google has also made some significant changes around less-extreme situations where phrases are strung together with separators like pipes (|). Here\u2019s one example:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.greenfintech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/title-rewrites-21.webp\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nWhile this <title> tag does appear over-optimized, it\u2019s obviously a far less problematic example than the previous two. Google seems to be taking a dim view of pipes (|) in general with this new update. In our data set, over 10,000 titles with pipes were rewritten, and nearly 6,000 of those were below the pixel-width limit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In some of these cases, the original <title> tags simply appear to be reflecting the site\u2019s information architecture. Take this example from Zales:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.greenfintech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/title-rewrites-22.webp\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nWhile you could make an argument that echoing the site\u2019s IA isn\u2019t particularly helpful to searchers, there\u2019s nothing spammy or misleading about this <title> tag. It appears Google may be getting too aggressive with rewriting delimited phrases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scenario #5: Brand name added<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
For a while now, Google has been appending brand names to the end of display titles in some cases. Here\u2019s one example:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.greenfintech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/title-rewrites-9.webp\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nWe don\u2019t know exactly what signals Google uses to make this call. It could be a function of brand authority or based on measuring some kind of SERP engagement signals. In the case of a high-authority brand like WebMD that\u2019s only five letters long, this change may be beneficial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What about long brand names, though? Consider the example below:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.greenfintech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/title-rewrites-10.webp\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nHere, Google has exchanged a naturally-sounding and relevant title for a combination of the\u00a0
<H1><\/code>\u00a0content and the brand name. Unfortunately, the addition of the 27-character brand name severely limits the rest of the display title. Fortunately, across a few hundred brand name addition examples I reviewed, this appears to be a rare occurrence.<\/p>\n\n\n\nScenario #6: Brand name moved<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
One surprisingly common occurrence since the August 16th update is when Google takes a <title> tag with the brand name at the end and moves it to the beginning. For example:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.greenfintech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/title-rewrites-10-1.webp\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nHere, Google has moved the brand name to the front, followed by a colon (:), and has also shortened \u201cI.T.\u201d to \u201cIT\u201d. This version (with \u201cIT\u201d) is nowhere to be found in the page source.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On occasion, Google seems to be doing the opposite, and moving a brand name at the beginning of the <title> tag to the end of the display title. Here\u2019s one example:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.greenfintech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/title-rewrites-12.webp\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nUnlike the back-to-front move, I believe this example is actually a variant of scenario #3. Google appears to be truncating the <title> tag and appending the brand name to the end of it. The removal of the brand name from the front is probably an accident of truncation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Scenario #7: <Title> is too short<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Channeling a bit of Goldilocks, sometimes your <title> tag is too long for Google and sometimes it\u2019s too short. Here\u2019s an example from a recipe result:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.greenfintech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/title-rewrites-13.webp\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nThis one\u2019s an odd duck (pun intended) \u2014 in addition to appending the brand name, Google has expanded the title, and that exact phrase appears nowhere in any major page elements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here\u2019s an example where Google rewrote a brand-only <title> tag:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.greenfintech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/title-rewrites-14.webp\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nAgain, this was pulled from an\u00a0
<H1><\/code>\u00a0tag on the page. What\u2019s unclear is whether Google is rewriting these titles because they\u2019re too short or because they aren\u2019t particularly relevant to the query space. This brings us to Scenario #8:<\/p>\n\n\n\nScenario #8: Relevance issues<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
At this point we don\u2019t really know the exact trigger for a rewrite, but it does seem like some titles are being rewritten because they aren\u2019t a good fit to query intent. Sadly, dozens of pages in this data set still had some variant of \u201cHome\u201d as their <title> tag:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.greenfintech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/title-rewrites-15.webp\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nIn the majority of these cases, Google is rewriting the display title as the brand name. Of course, \u201cHome\u201d is also potentially just too short. Here\u2019s an example of a longer <title> tag where relevance might have come into play:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.greenfintech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/title-rewrites-16.webp\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nPutting aside the odd orphaned pipe (|) at the beginning, I\u2019d argue that this <title> tag is generic marketing copy that doesn\u2019t do much to inform searchers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scenario #8.5: Marketing lingo<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
That last case led me down a bit of a rabbit hole, and I\u2019m not sure if this is a sub-case of #8 or a separate phenomenon. There were about 700 cases in our data set where Google rewrote a <title> tag with the word \u201cBest\u201d in it to remove that word. Here\u2019s another example:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.greenfintech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/title-rewrites-17.webp\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nOnce again, Google pulled the\u00a0
<H1><\/code>\u00a0from the target page, but the rewrite and the original <title> tag share very similar intent and format. It\u2019s possible that Google is taking a dim view of superlatives like \u201cBest,\u201d but that\u2019s only a theory at this point.<\/p>\n\n\n\nNote that there were over 3,000 <title> tags in our data set where \u201cBest\u201d did not get removed, but some of those were contextually important, like \u201cBest Man Speech\u201d or \u201cBest Buy\u201d (the electronics retailer).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking of superlatives, here\u2019s an amusing one:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.greenfintech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/title-rewrites-18.webp\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nI think we can probably all agree that \u201cMust Do Super Fun Things to Do\u201d is pushing the envelope. Again, we can\u2019t really prove what specifically is triggering this rewrite, but the pattern here is interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We saw some similar patterns around marketing terms like \u201ccheap,\u201d \u201cofficial,\u201d and \u201c2021.\u201d Here\u2019s the kicker, though: in some cases, Google is taking <title> tags without superlatives and adding them back in. For example:<\/p>\n\n\n