Understanding the Google Title Tag Updates Algorithm
4 min read
Google has recently implemented changes that could affect how users see your content on search results pages. There could be a huge change coming to your Google page title. Google has acknowledged that the way it produces titles for search result listings has changed.
Your titles on Google search can make or break your search ranking. Titles, often taken as given by a search engine, determine what information users see on your pages, information that can include location, relevance, and content. Google has stated that it would no longer utilize the search query when creating these titles.
Need For Changing Titles
Titles can influence how people feel about your content. If your title is not relevant according to the search query, google will change it. Google updates its title algorithm several times a year, sometimes slightly changing the order of titles within a page and causing refreshes for users on other sites.
All these Google updates are user-centric. Google has made it clear that they will be moving to a mobile-first platform. Therefore, they want websites to post quality content and make relevant title tags. This means it’s much more important to get your content in front of potential customers and potential link visitors with the right title.
When Google changes the title element, it does so to provide a better user experience. Google may choose to modify the page title even if it is optimized for a variety of reasons. When Google feels that altering the title would improve the relevancy of the search results or user happiness, it may change the content automatically.
How Can I Know If My Titles Are Changing?
As it is a fairly new Google update, there is no official way to check it. You cannot analyze your title changes using any Google products. It is still not available in Google Analytics or Google Search Console.
However, you can use a third-party platform to check whether your website’s title is being changed by Google. Here are some of those tools which you can use:
- SEMrush
There is no particular option to check this option yet. But you can check for any changes by using the Position Tracking Tool. Enter your relevant keyword and click the SERP option. Here you can see the search results for any date and check whether Google has changed your title or not.
- Ahrefs
Go to your SERP history and go to Site Explorer. Here you can see results for organic keywords. You can use the filter to see only your site and then check for any title changes.
- Rank Ranger
Rank Ranger is a platform to check your ranking graph. Here you can enter your website URL and look for changes in the past.
- SISTRIX
This may be the best available platform to check for title changes. Go to SERPs and then to SERP-Snippets. There is a given option for title changes. Select it. Now you can see whether any changes were made in your title or not.
Can We Stop Title Changes?
Although Google firmly states that these changes won’t affect ranking, many site owners are making rapid changes. You cannot stop Google from making these changes. So, if you don’t want any changes to your website, post quality content. Make sure that your titles are not ambiguous, they are not too long or contain plagiarism. You can also use a title optimizer so that your title will stay relevant.
Should I Make Changes?
As of now, you don’t have to.
Search engine updates can be big news for your website. They are signals by Google to make sure website owners publish quality content. If your title has lost relevance with customers, or if it’s become confusing with recent changes to the web, this could signal potential problems that need to be addressed before your website shows up in search engines’ results pages.
These updates are rolled out to provide a good user experience and if you think that your title tags are relevant, you don’t have to make any changes. If they are relevant, catchy, and summarize your website’s content, they will not be changed by Google. However, it is your responsibility to optimize the title and meta tags.
Most people didn’t know what exactly these updates were how they will impact their website. So, in a hurry, they started making numerous changes to their content.
But on Google, every title update is given a number — the higher the number, the more important it is. If you want to learn more about such Google updates, we would suggest you go to a digital marketing institute in Lucknow.
In recent times, most of the updates by Google were all about users. There have been accusations that they don’t think about users but we can see they are making rapid improvements in this sector.