Title displays differently depending on search query?

[activitysuper]

Hi,

I have seen this a few times but maybe someone can shed some light as to why this happens?

If I search for a generic keyword im targeting in the title tag it shows the actual title tag placed in the code.

But if I search for the brand name, the title tag changes to show just the brand name, so completely different to the default title tag.

Any ideas why it does this? And is this bad, is Google saying the content on the site is not relevant and therefore decides to change it?

Cheers

[Bryan_Loconto]

Perhaps google is pulling different versions of your site.. Do you have a url of www.homepage.com and www.homepage.com/index

Try running your site here: http://www.virante.org/seo-tools/duplicate-content

[activitysuper]

I have redirects on for the root domain.

Google has only indexed one version of the root.

Thanks for trying to help problem solve though.

[edwardrj]

If your title tag is too long, its also possible that Google is displaying a truncated version of the tag with the emphasis on the matching keyword.

Does the tag actually change or does Google just display a different part of it?

[SanketPatel]

Hi,

Hope below link help you out from Google webmaster central:

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.in/2012/01/better-page-titles-in-search-results.html

[activitysuper]

Thanks.

Seems Google will change the title tag to increase CTR, so that's why Google is switching generic tag for brand only tag when a brand name search is performed.

Makes sense.