A Practical Guide to Why Google Rewrites Titles
Google's practice of replacing page titles in search results with text it considers more useful.
Samir Haddad
What is at stake
Teams often think their titles are broken when Google is simply choosing different text for certain queries.
The playbook
- Write concise, descriptive titles
- Match the title to the page's main heading
- Avoid boilerplate repeated across pages
- Put the distinctive words first
- Check which titles appear in search
Where it goes wrong
Avoid:
- Keyword-stuffed titles
- Identical titles across pages
- Very long titles
- Assuming rewriting means an error
The numbers behind it
| Measure | Figure |
|---|---|
| Sources | Google may use headings, link text or other page content |
| Reasons | titles that are too long, repetitive or keyword-stuffed are often replaced |
| Query dependence | different queries can produce different titles |
| Control | good titles increase the chance yours is used |
Getting outside help
When to hand it over: Bring in help when search listings misrepresent pages.
Where this comes from
- Google Search Central — Title links and meta descriptions
- Google Search Central — Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content
The figures and practices above come from the sources listed.
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