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#1 2022-01-26 22:48:38

michaelkpate
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From: Avon Park, FL
Registered: 2004-02-24
Posts: 1,379
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Google and Page Titles

For this research, we examined a total of 80,959 title tags across 2370 sites from across the globe and compared them against desktop Google results. In our analysis, we found that Google rewrote 61.6% of the titles. This number generally agrees with an earlier study conducted by Dr. Pete Meyers using a slightly different methodology. To be fair, many of these Google rewrites are minor (while many aren’t) but 61% is still a very large number. – We Studied 81,000 Page Titles – Google Rewrote 61% Of Them

Interesting reading for anyone into SEO and Searchability.

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#2 2022-01-27 10:50:51

Bloke
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From: Leeds, UK
Registered: 2006-01-29
Posts: 11,250
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Re: Google and Page Titles

Interesting indeed. Thank you.

I’m not sure how closely Textpattern adheres to this:

to dramatically decrease the chance of Google rewriting your title, matching the H1 to the title tag seems to be an effective strategy.

but according to the docs the <txp:page_title /> tag adds a pipe and the site name on some page types. Whether that’s enough of a difference to warrant a title rewrite, I’m not sure. Maybe there’s an argument to be had that we alter the default separator character to a hyphen?


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#3 2022-01-28 07:50:42

Pat64
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From: France
Registered: 2005-12-12
Posts: 1,595
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Re: Google and Page Titles

Furthermore, maybe the <txp:page_title /> tag could add an option to include the section name (displayed just before the site name into the corresponding results):

<txp:page_title section="1" separator=" - " />

Article Title - Section Name - Site Name

Last edited by Pat64 (2022-01-28 07:52:59)


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#4 2022-01-28 08:57:04

colak
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From: Cyprus
Registered: 2004-11-20
Posts: 9,007
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Re: Google and Page Titles

I agree with Patrick that there should be options, but these options should not be set in stone. Admittedly, I would add the option to have the titles as we used to: Site Name: Article Title, but this is only because we have a very short Site name:)


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#5 2022-01-29 08:39:27

phiw13
Plugin Author
From: Japan
Registered: 2004-02-27
Posts: 3,058
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Re: Google and Page Titles

Looking through some of my templates, I never use the <txp:page_title /> tag, but build the content of the HTML <title /> manually to work around the lack of versatility in the <txp:page_title /> My page titles usually take the form of:

<title><txp:title /> - <txp:site_name /></title>

(replace <txp:title /> with <txp:section /> and so on where appropriate).

It always annoys me endlessly (understatement!) that obsession of G. to rewrite part page titles as given by the site, or to ignore the description meta tag ’cuz they don’t like the colour of it or something.

Last edited by phiw13 (2022-01-29 08:39:48)


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