Google is putting brandname: in title tag

[donnieath]

Hello, I was wondering why this is happening? In html for example the title tag is something like this:

keyword 1 | keyword 2 | Brand name. Title is 67 characters..

When I search in google, I see the site but it shows brandname: keyword 1 | keyword 2

Is this bad? does this mean that google doesn't like the title tag that is in the html? I tried looking it up on google, but they were outdated and I honestly didn't really see an answer to what it means when this happens.

Does the brandname: affect rankings?? Have any of you dealt with this, or noticed this?

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

Google will change your titles based on what they feel is the most suitable for search. Same with meta descriptions and so on.

Here is a great write up from SocialMediaToday on the subject. Optimize titles the best you can and abide by best practices / your important keywords / queries, but know that Google will sometimes take the reigns and change your titles based on what they feel is best. Google loves branding and this is further proof!

Let me know if this helps! Good luck!
P

[becole]

Donnleath, I wouldn't worry too much about this. In fact, Google has been rewriting title tags for about 3 or 4 years, now.

Google, for whatever reason, has decided to rewrite your title tag for you if the one you're using better matches the actual search query being used by the searcher. It's quite possible that if your home page, for example, ranks for one search query they will rewrite it but for another search query they won't rewrite it.

Google will use, from time to time, your brand name, company name, and even elements of your site's navigation to rewrite your title tag. I've seen them take internal links from a site's navigation and breadcrumb trail and use those words in the title tag.

In your case, what you need to decide is if the title tags that Google is rewriting are better or 'worse' for your searchers. If they're worse, then you might consider looking at your site's navigation and breadcrumb trail to see if there's something that you can fix on your site to maybe influence Google to rewrite them another way.

If you see that Google is rewriting ALL of those title tags, though, on all pages, then you might want to take a look at your site's title tags and see if they do need to be rewritten, taking what Google is suggesting, into account.