Google not using my meta description nor my meta title

[ClaytonJ]

I am with Andy, am guessing blind really.

Have you included your brand name in your title?  Because if you haven't google often goes looking for it, and then drags up the H1 or some copy from the relevant page as well. Often you end up with a random result.

But as said I am unclear on what is what as I do not understand the language. Usually you can do a bit of cross matching and try and see if their are alternates. That said sometime in its wisdom google reads the sites in a manner never contemplated. Do not give up though.

Hope this assists at some level.

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

Andy and John seem well on their way to helping you, but you should also read Dr Pete's article Why Won't Google Use My META Description? Unfortunately, Google can (and will) use what they want for meta tags, including pulling from the following sources:

1. META descriptions
2. On-page copy
3. Open Directory Project (ODP) data

Sometimes your meta descriptions will just become a mess of words and dates. It's a matter of Google showing users why they pulled your page as a result, noting portions or all of their query in your copy. That's fine, since it's Google pulling it, but it does take away from the great copy you wrote that you want your users to see.

When I search KBC in Google, I see the following results. Here's what I get when I search KBC.com. Are those matching up okay with descriptions that you want to appear?

Let me know, thanks so much!

[KBC]

SERP: Welke verzekeringen heb ik nodig als starter? - Kbc

SERP:
16 mrt. 2015 - Projectmanager Marketing, KBC ;vorige functie: Hoofd Cel Ondernemers ... Welke verzekering(en) heb jij als startende ondernemer dan echt nodig? ... Artikelopslaan; Verstuur via E-mail; Deel op LinkedIn; Deel op Twitter.

Especially the description that Google is showing is crap.

This is the url

https://ondernemen.kbc.be/artikel/verzekeringen/aanvullende-verzekeringen/startersverzekeringen.html

[KBC]

Thanks for your answer.

I don't manage KBC.com, only KBC.be, but at first sight it looks good.

Weird thing is, that we see this issue since we are switching to a new CMS (Adobe). Meta data (titles and desc) of http://ondernemen.kcb.be and http://new.kbc.be is not showing up like we want to. Is that a coincidence?

[ClaytonJ]

So your brand name is not listed in your title?

[KBC]

No, we should?

[KBC]

Didn't know that brand name should be in the title.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

I'm just trying to understand if what you are seeing is something that is causing you concern because it might have been hacked, or if it is just Google rewriting.

Can you translate into English with what you are seeing there and what you think it should say?

-Andy

[ClaytonJ]

In some cases you do not need brand in Title - but in this case it looks like google wants it. So perhaps try a title no more than 512 pixel long, with the brand included at the end. Then use Fetch for google to get it indexed asap.

In the interim, we can look at some more technical possible issues. As Andy indicates any translation would be of assistance and Patricks link is worth a good read - to cross check a few items.

[KBC]

I asked the techies (aka IT Dept) to add the brand name to all pages....

Hope this will help

[Dr-Pete]

Sorry if I missed this, but what search led to this result? Keep in mind that different queries will return different titles and snippets in SERPs. Google is taking more liberties than ever. It does seem like they're appending the brand "- Kbc", which is an increasingly common practice.

Usually, it's one of two things:

(1) They don't feel that the title/description are a good match to the particular search you're looking at. You could try to get other key phrases in the title/description, but often that ends up being overkill. It depends on how critical these searches are.

(2) They feel that the title/description are too long or too marketing-heavy. This can be tougher to pin down.

I'll be honest - this is happening more frequently, and there's no way currently to stop Google from doing rewrites. You can try to tweak things to be more to their liking, but you can't shut off the rewrites. If these aren't critical queries, there comes a point where it's effort poorly spent, IMO.