Warning! Google is now changing some preferred Title/Meta Descriptions in the SERPS

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sre94

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This happened to me this week. My CTR is really suffering as a result

This snipet on Algorithm changes by Matt Cutts may shed some light as to why this is happening:

"Snippets with more page content and less header/menu content: This change helps us choose more relevant text to use in snippets. As we improve our understanding of web page structure, we are now more likely to pick text from the actual page content, and less likely to use text that is part of a header or menu."

I have now put the title/meta descrip on my actual page. We will see if this makes a change

Interesting thing is, none of my competitors have been affected by this. Sometimes I wonder if I hit on a Google higher-up's girlfriend or something. It seems like they invent ways to screw me over
 
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This is stupid. Writing an meta description that entices users to click on the link was one of the good'old SEO techniques. And now they have switched to dynamic meta description? Screw Google.
 
They still use meta description if Gbot unable to identify a good block of text. However they do it for a couple of months.
 
Yup - happened to my site. My CTR went to hell after it so I played with all my H1, H2 etc tags and and tried to create a good, intriguing first paragraph (since this was the one displaying). Waiting for it to get indexed as we speak
 
My description has been fine, but my title has been incredibly ugly/dumb for two weeks now. It's not properly capitalized or anything, and I have no idea where Google is getting that Title from. I have not been able to change it. No matter what I do, it just stays like that.

Google really should just keep things simple and leave it alone. If people didn't want a specific description or whatever, they would just leave it blank.
 
Google is just looking for something to do.There is no benefit to the end user doing this and is probably going to cause some irrelevant sites to start ranking for the wrong keywords so the end user doesn't find what they're after.

Headers are there for a reason and to try and bypass that is very lame and pretty much tells me they as messing with it for something to do because there is absoutely no reason for it.
 
i am sure what they are doing has a reason. I am sure we are going to see something major updates to google within the next 3 months.
 
Wait... Does this mean that plugins like AllInOneSEO are useless now? So we're supposed to put all the stuff we'd NORMALLY put as a description at the top of the page as of now?
 
yeah one of my pages has a title with broken english that would horrify my old hs teacher into an early grave
 
*Sigh* It's game-changers like these that make you wonder if it's even worth it for people who are just starting out to get into SEO.
 
moeatwa said:
*Sigh* It's game-changers like these that make you wonder if it's even worth it for people who are just starting out to get into SEO.
Click to expand...

IM is an ever-evolving field be it for beginners or pros. One just has to accept that fact in order to really make it.

Cheers,
ytterium
 
moeatwa said:
*Sigh* It's game-changers like these that make you wonder if it's even worth it for people who are just starting out to get into SEO.
Click to expand...
Its actually MORE beneficial to guys in SEO. If things were static a company can pay a one time fee and boom they are ranked on page 1 forever. The fact that it changes helps US sell our services on a long term/contract basis.

I can see how it might piss off guys actually making money of websites, but for those doing SEO as a service, I say let the SE's changes daily for all I care.

:)
 
ytterium said:
IM is an ever-evolving field be it for beginners or pros. One just has to accept that fact in order to really make it.

Cheers,
ytterium
Click to expand...

Definitely agree. But once upon a time, not too long ago (like 2005), ranking a site was easy as setting up an auto-blog, Ultra-targeted PPC keywords were 5 cents a pop, and Panda wasn't suffering from bipolar disorder.
 
Getwhatchuwant said:
Its actually MORE beneficial to guys in SEO. If things were static a company can pay a one time fee and boom they are ranked on page 1 forever. The fact that it changes helps US sell our services on a long term/contract basis.

I can see how it might piss off guys actually making money of websites, but for those doing SEO as a service, I say let the SE's changes daily for all I care.

:)
Click to expand...

I agree with you...
 
UPDATE: The proper title and tag are showing once again. I submitted an index request via Webmaster Tools, which seemed to do the trick

The downside: my site slid down 2 positions

You really can't win with Google
 
Hint: don't do meta descriptions. They're not considered in Google's algorithm for SERP placement and are a waste of time. Let Google decide what snippet it wants to use, because it is typically generated to match the user's exact query and would receive a higher clickthrough ratio because it is more relevant to the user's query.

That is, of course, unless your content sucks and your actual content repulses the surfer away from your page.
 
phpbuilt said:
Hint: don't do meta descriptions. They're not considered in Google's algorithm for SERP placement and are a waste of time. Let Google decide what snippet it wants to use, because it is typically generated to match the user's exact query and would receive a higher clickthrough ratio because it is more relevant to the user's query.

That is, of course, unless your content sucks and your actual content repulses the surfer away from your page.
Click to expand...

I disagree. My CTR fell by 30% when Google changed my meta description
 
I've actually seen this with one of my G Places page. Strange that it was only for one physical location and not the next. It pulled broken English sentences from snippets within the page context.

Seems to be back to normal after going into G Places and resubmitting the existing info.
 
Guys - keep things simple.

1. Fill in ALL the metatags (Title, Description and Keywords).
2. Get something like SEOpresser and get your H1/2/3 tags plus KW density sorted (I use SEOpresser even on non-WP sites, just put the text into one of my WP sites to check it out).

Google may well do this stuff as described and it's probably an attempt to rank 'proper' sites with content as opposed to adsense blogs. Either way, if you do 1&2 above, you've got both bases covered.

#justsaying
 
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