Google Rewrites Title Tags of Recruitment Sites?

Are you aware that Google rewrites title tags? If you’ve spent a significant amount of time and effort crafting the best page titles for your recruitment site, you know how frustrating this can be. However, a recent study showed that the search giant is indeed tweaking page meta titles behind our backs. 

So what does this piece of information mean for your recruitment site? Is there a way to stop the automatic changes from occurring? 

Google’s Unwanted Modification of Page Titles

As you know, title tags are a crucial ingredient of on-page SEO. They help search engines and your target audience understand what your web pages are all about, thus, increasing your click-through rates. They are also a prime location to incorporate your focus keywords to make your recruitment site more relevant and visible on search result pages. 

However, a recent Zyppy.com study revealed that Google changed 61.6% of meta titles from 2,370 websites. The search giant’s modifications on these page titles ranged from a single-word edit to a rewrite of the entire title tag. What’s more, Google will likely rewrite your page titles if they fail to meet certain standards, which we will discuss later. 

How to Reduce the Likelihood of Google Rewriting Your Meta Titles

The search giant confirmed that it is indeed changing page titles without our consent. Google Search Advocate John Mueller revealed that there’s still no mechanism that would prevent Google’s algorithms from automatically changing page titles and descriptions they deem below-standard. 

However, you might be happy to learn that there are ways to minimise the risk of the search giant rewriting your page titles. While these strategies are not guaranteed to work all the time, they can at least help ensure that your page titles would remain as you intended them to be. 

1. Limit your page title length to 50-60 characters

Even before the Zyppy.com study, it is common knowledge that Google rewrites title tags that are either too long or too short. After all, if the title is short, it won’t provide users with enough information to determine if a webpage is useful. On the other hand, if it is too long, it will be truncated to ensure it will fit in search result pages. 

Data showed that Google changed 99.9% of page titles with more than 70 characters and 96.6% of those with only one to five characters. Meanwhile, 39% to 42% of page titles with 51-60 characters were rewritten, showing what could be Google’s preferred title tag length. 

2. Do not add brackets or parentheses

Indeed, brackets and parentheses make your page titles stand out on search result pages. However, they could also increase the risk of Google changing your title tags. The study revealed that the search giant rewrote 77.6% of meta titles with brackets. Also, it removed the words in between the brackets in 32.9% of page titles. In comparison, 61.9% of title tags with parenthesis are rewritten. 

To stay on the safe side, we at Recruitment Traffic recommend that you avoid using brackets, parentheses, and other special characters in your title tags. This way, you can help ensure that your page titles won’t be modified without your knowledge or consent. 

3. Use dashes to separate titles

If you’re using a pipe (|) to separate titles, there’s a significant chance Google would rewrite your title tags. The study showed that the search giant changed 41% of pages titles that used pipes as separators, replacing them with a dash (–) in many instances. On the other hand, Google changed only 19.7% of title tags with dashes as separators, indicating its preferred title separator. 

4. Avoid using too many keywords

Adding too many keywords to your content, including page titles, is bad SEO practice. Not only can it make your recruitment site look spammy, but it can also hurt user experience. Also, inserting too many keywords increases your risk of Google rewriting your title tags. 

Besides overstuffing your page titles with keywords, you should also avoid the unnecessary use of brand names and using the same title for multiple web pages. For better SEO rankings, you should create unique meta titles and descriptions for each page. 

5. Match your page titles to your H1 tags

Creating matching headings (H1) and page titles can reduce the likelihood of Google rewriting title tags by 20.6%. This strategy can still be effective even if your title tags have other risk factors, such as pipe title separators. Therefore, try to match your page titles to your H1 tags as much as possible to ensure that Google will retain them. 

Craft Better Title Tags for Your Recruitment Site

With proof of Google modifying page titles that aren’t up to its standards, crafting better ones has become more challenging than ever. However, this doesn’t mean you should skip this SEO task entirely. Having unique page titles makes your web pages more visible while boosting your conversion rates. Therefore, continue crafting better title tags and consider the pointers mentioned above to minimise the risk of Google rewriting them. 

At Recruitment Traffic, we can help you with title tag creation and other crucial SEO tasks so you can benefit the most from the opportunities search engines can offer. Please speak with us, and our team of recruitment SEO specialists will create a plan tailored for your firm.