What is a title tag?

In August, Google changed the way in which title tags in organic search are generated.

The title tag is an HTML code tag that allows you to give a web page a title.

It also appears in the top browser bar

And appears in the search engine results page (SERPS) in Google

What does this mean for my website? 

Well, Google is basically now doing its own thing. Whenever it feels like it. Instead of you writing the title tag and adding it into the meta data via your website content management system, Google will now rewrite the tag based on what it thinks the page is about. To determine that Google may use text from the title tag, page contents or links pointing to the page.

Holy Moly! Does that mean I don’t have to write meta titles anymore?

No! Hold your horses. Any new update from Google will take time to bed in and the industry needs to understand how it will affect search results. This will take time. The main concern is Google will not do the best rewrite and miss off key call to actions, trademarks, removal of phrases separated by & etc. All this might result in your click through rate % reducing from organic search results.

What should I do then?

Wait! But do keep an eye on your click through rate % over the coming weeks and check your results titles in SERPs to see if they have changed, particularly if you are a regulated industry like finance, pharma, medical. We wouldn’t want pesky Google misrepresenting you. You can log any issues on a Google form here.