The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • My Q&A
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. SEO and Digital Marketing Q&A Forum
    2. Categories
    3. Search Engine Trends
    4. Fetch as Google - removes start words from Meta Title ?? Help!

    Fetch as Google - removes start words from Meta Title ?? Help!

    Search Engine Trends
    3 3 264
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • bjs2010
      bjs2010 last edited by

      Hi all,

      I'm experiencing some strange behaviour with Google Webmaster Tools.

      I noticed that some of our pages from our ecom site were missing start keywords - I created a template for meta titles that uses Manufacturer - Ref Number - Product Name - Online Shop;  all trimmed under 65 chars just in case. To give you an idea, an example meta title looks like:
      Weber 522053 - Electric Barbecue Q 140 Grey - Online Shop

      The strange behaviour is if I do a "Fetch as Google" in GWT, no problem - I can see it pulls the variables and it's ok. So I click submit to index.

      Then I do a google site:URL search, to see what it has indexed, and I see the meta description has changed (so I know it's working), but the meta title has been cut so it looks like this:
      Electric Barbecue Q 140 Grey - Online Shop

      So I am confused - why would Google cut off some words at start of meta title? Even after the Fetch as Googlebot looks perfectly ok?

      I should point out that this method works perfect on our other pages, which are many hundreds - but it's not working on some pages for some weird reason....

      Any ideas?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • DougRoberts
        DougRoberts last edited by

        Looks ok to me. I did a search for (with the quotes) "Weber 522053 - Electric Barbecue Q 140 Grey - Online Shop"

        The Title was the full title as you described. I think tried doing a site: search on the the domain and the specific url and again saw the full title.

        Google can do some weird stuff tot he title if it thinks that that the title does not accurately reflect the content of the page or its relevance to the search query.

        This one is looking ok to me though.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • Linda-Vassily
          Linda-Vassily last edited by

          If you use the words Weber 522053 in the query, Google is likely to return the title with Weber 522053 in it, even if it doesn't return it that way for a different query, because Google sees that Weber 522053 is important to the querier.

          But this does show that Google knows what the intended title is and is shortening it for its own unfathomable Google-ish reasons. (I did notice that Weber 522053 is not visible on the page at all, so possibly that is what makes Google think that it is not important information to display in the serps.)

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • 1 / 1
          • First post
            Last post
          • Many meta descriptions ignored by Google
            vtmoz
            vtmoz
            0
            5
            119

          • Google Adding / Manipulating Page Meta Titles?
            Dr-Pete
            Dr-Pete
            0
            4
            202

          • Google is simplifying my meta titles. What does it mean?
            RobertFisher
            RobertFisher
            0
            5
            284

          • Does Google ACTUALLY ding you for having long Meta Titles? Or do studies just suggest a lower CTR?
            ClaytonJ
            ClaytonJ
            0
            3
            2.2k

          • Should I remove my keyword meta?
            underscorelive
            underscorelive
            0
            7
            192

          • Why is Google changing my title tags?
            journeybeyondtravel
            journeybeyondtravel
            0
            8
            5.4k

          • Google is changing my title.
            SanketPatel
            SanketPatel
            0
            5
            285

          • Can anyone help me to understand why specific key words are no longer searchable on Google
            rdominey
            rdominey
            0
            3
            446

          Get started with Moz Pro!

          Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

          Start my free trial
          Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz API
          • Moz Data
          • STAT
          • Product Updates
          Moz Solutions
          • SMB Solutions
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Digital Marketers
          Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Authority Checker
          • Link Explorer
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • Brand Authority Checker
          • Local Citation Checker
          • MozBar Extension
          • MozCast
          Resources
          • Blog
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Help Hub
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • How-to Guides
          • Moz Academy
          • API Docs
          About Moz
          • About
          • Team
          • Careers
          • Contact
          Why Moz
          • Case Studies
          • Testimonials
          Get Involved
          • Become an Affiliate
          • MozCon
          • Webinars
          • Practical Marketer Series
          • MozPod
          Connect with us

          Contact the Help team

          Join our newsletter
          Moz logo
          © 2021 - 2026 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
          • Accessibility
          • Terms of Use
          • Privacy