Has Google changed how it displays metatitles for business listings?

[Leithmarketing]

Our company now does not display the meta title for company specific searches for certain stores, but not all of them (yet).  Is this something new and are there any potential SEO ramifications or benefits?

[MonicaOConnor]

I don't know if I specifically understand what you are asking. Google hasn't changed the way it uses meta titles. If you have not specifically designated the meta title for your pages, your platform might pull information from the page to populate the title tag. Without seeing the actual page I can't be more specific than that.

[Leithmarketing]

We have set meta titles for all of our pages, but the result on the SERP for our business name does not show what we have in the meta title.  It just shows the name of our business.  I have not seen this before and wonder if this is a change to Google's algorithm and how (if at all) it impacts us...

[EricaMcGillivray]

It definitely sounds like something on your site. Can you share the URL or an example of a page where you're seeing this in the SERP in order to better help you? Thanks!

[Leithmarketing]

Yeah - when comparing Leith Honda versus Leith Toyota (same web providers), the SERP shows Toyota's meta title but for Honda just says 'Leith Honda'.  The URLs are www.leithhonda.com and www.leithtoyota.com.  When you do a Google search for Honda Dealer in Raleigh the meta title that shows in the SERP is what we have on the website.  Very odd...

[fabioricotta-84038]

I'm not able to replicate what you are saying. Google is showing the correct titles for me.

Any chance you upload a screenshot?

[max.favilli]

Google takes your meta-title as a mere suggestion, it usually show the proposed meta-title as “the” title in SERP but you have no guarantee.

If google finds your title is too short, over-used, poorly written, stuffed with keywords, or inadequate for the page content / searched query will sometimes create its own title.

[max.favilli]

I don't think it's all that odd. In fact I think google is doing a good job at trying to match what the user is looking for.

If I search for "leith honda" I am much probably looking for someone named leith related to “honda”, and if you look at the source html of the serp result for your business you will see you have put "leith honda" in a lot of places, image alt, href titles, page body... Google guess that “leith honda” is a better title, when compared to the meta-title of that page, sounds appropriate.

On the other hand when searching for “honda dealer in raleigh” the meta-title, which does contain the three keyword honda+dealer+raleigh sounds just right for what the user may be searching with that query.

[Leithmarketing]

I have attached the examples - Honda is not showing the meta title I have set up for them and Toyota is...

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[max.favilli]

If you want google to pick up the meta title you want you need to tweak your on-page optimization, as per my previous answer.

If you check both homepages, toyota and honda, with some keyword densitiy analyzer tools you will see differences, make changes till you convince google to accept your meta title.

One difference in those pages is pretty obvious once you scan it with a keyword density analyzer.