I’m going to call this a win for Google
Posted: Sat Dec 28, 2024 4:28 am
So, let’s look at what Google got right, at least in the context of Moz.com. (1) Removing double-ups Our CMS automatically appends our brand (“ - Moz”) to most of our pages, a situation that’s hardly unique to our site. In some cases, this leads to an odd doubling-up of the brand, and Google seems to be removing these fairly effectively. For example: While the CMS is doing its job, “Moz - Moz” is repetitive, and I think Google got this one right.
Note that this is not simple truncation — the additional text would have easily fit. (2) Those darned SEOs! Okay, I’m not sure I want to admit this one, but occasionally we test title variations, and we still live with some of the legacy of bahamas phone number database rebranding from “SEOmoz” to “Moz” in 2013. So, some areas of our site have variations of “ | SEO | Moz”. Here’s how Google handled one variety: While it’s a bit longer, I suspect this is a better extension for our Q&A pages, both for us and for our visitors from search.
. (3) Whatever this is… I have no idea what the original intent of this <title> tag was (possibly an experiment): While there’s nothing terribly wrong with the original <title> tag, it’s probably trying too hard to front-load specific keywords and it’s not very readable. In this case, Google opted to use the blog post title (from the <H1>), and it’s probably a good choice. Where did Google get it so-so? It may seem strange to cover examples where Google did an okay job, but in some ways these bother me the most, if simply because they seem unnecessary.
Note that this is not simple truncation — the additional text would have easily fit. (2) Those darned SEOs! Okay, I’m not sure I want to admit this one, but occasionally we test title variations, and we still live with some of the legacy of bahamas phone number database rebranding from “SEOmoz” to “Moz” in 2013. So, some areas of our site have variations of “ | SEO | Moz”. Here’s how Google handled one variety: While it’s a bit longer, I suspect this is a better extension for our Q&A pages, both for us and for our visitors from search.
. (3) Whatever this is… I have no idea what the original intent of this <title> tag was (possibly an experiment): While there’s nothing terribly wrong with the original <title> tag, it’s probably trying too hard to front-load specific keywords and it’s not very readable. In this case, Google opted to use the blog post title (from the <H1>), and it’s probably a good choice. Where did Google get it so-so? It may seem strange to cover examples where Google did an okay job, but in some ways these bother me the most, if simply because they seem unnecessary.