Danny Sullivan Looking To Fix Google Title Rewrite Issue

Expert SEO companies and site owners spend time writing title tags for their content, but recently, they noticed how Google would replace their titles in search engine results pages (SERPs). With SEO companies criticising the search engine’s new way of rewriting title tags, Google’s Danny Sullivan shared his suggestion on how Google could improve its title rewrites.

The SEO community believes that Google’s move on title rewrites in the SERPs last week was meant to improve the relevance of the content that the search engine shows its users.

The search engine company has yet to confirm if the incident is indeed a title rewrite update since they haven’t made an official announcement. Nevertheless, many Googlers have addressed the issue on Twitter, responding to concerns and questions about the changes.

Sullivan is aware that not everyone in the SEO community likes the idea of Google rewriting their page titles. In his tweet thread, he suggests a better way for Google to handle title rewrites.

He shared a way for people to have more control over their title tags. But first, he said he used to think that Google should have an “I-really-mean-it” tag to retain titles and descriptions. But after a long time of working for Google, Sullivan changed his mind. Now, he believes that many SEOs are most likely to get this wrong.

He added that it is common for SEOs to misunderstand why Google does not show descriptions for their web pages. And even when Google sends them an explanation, people tend to just block the search engine company.

Sullivan proposed that Google should offer the “I-really-mean-it” feature in a more limited capacity instead of having people use them on all web pages. For instance, SEO companies can choose to indicate problematic titles instead of Google making automatic choices. He also mentions that Google should include this update in their Search Console to help users indicate when they want to keep a specific page title in the SERPs.

What makes this feature different from a simple tag is that it would only be limited to 5-10 uses per website. Moreover, Sullivan suggested that Google should add an expiration period so that SEOs wouldn’t make any long-term mistakes. However, Google could also try to have some balance for when SEOs do not prefer their automatic title selection.

As for larger websites with millions of web pages, this feature may not be the best solution. However, Sullivan stated that the feature – if Google would make it a reality – is not meant for managing pages at scale. He said it is only for limited use cases when a site owner disagrees with the new page title that Google decided to show. The idea is to give the people limited choices for which page titles they could change or revert to their original state in case Google’s newly suggested title was not relevant or poorly written.

Google has never told the SEO community that they would provide them with a way to change the titles that the search engine already rewrote. However, if for some reason Google listens to Sullivan’s request, then there may be a way to override the search engine’s rewrites using a limited feature in Search Console.

But as for now, Sullivan’s suggestion is no confirmation that Google is working on anything regarding title rewrites.

What SEOs Can Do When Google Rewrites Page Titles

Page titles are crucial because they are the first thing users see when they type in a search query. These users could decide which link they would click on, so one’s title tag should be more accurate, engaging, and creative than their competitor’s.

Moreover, title tags describe the topic of the web page content, so they have a massive effect on which keywords the site ranks for and how well it ranks for them.

Google rewrites title tags because – like what many in the SEO community are speculating – they want to make it easier for users to get the information that they are looking for. Based on the user’s query, they could see different title tags for the same piece of content. Google could also rewrite meta descriptions to suit the query.

Now that Google has a new way of rewriting title tags, many SEOs may think that they have less control over how to portray their content in the SERPs. However, site owners and publishers should not rely on the search engine to create page titles for them or think they should be less involved.

One approach to this scenario is to create rich and well-optimised content for each chosen keyword. Google uses different snippets from the content to represent the page in the SERPs. Therefore, one should ensure that all of a page’s content is well-optimised for both primary and secondary keywords. Google will find new ways to improve how they represent content in the SERPs as they strive to serve their users.

Moreover, SEOs should pay more attention to their target keyword’s search intent. They should always have their user’s best interests in mind and optimise their content to match the search intent of the users.

By conducting better page optimisations for both primary and secondary keywords, as well as the search intent behind it all, Google can pull out great rich snippets from the content.

Work With Position1SEO Agency Today!

Here at Position1SEO, we can create interesting title tags and meta descriptions for each of your pages, ensuring that your site will catch your audience’s attention in the SERPs.

We are an expert SEO company that can create excellent content for your site users, portraying your brand in the way you want it to be perceived. Moreover, we can help you optimise your web pages and make your site ready to be crawled by Googlebot.

Other typical SEO tasks that we can do for you include:

• Google Search Console
• Website load speed
• Website accessibility
• Website performance
• Accelerated mobile pages

For more information about our services, you can call us on 0141 404 7515 or write to us at office@position1seo.co.uk.