Google Changing Meta

[Christa Morgante]

Hi Everyone!

I have a very strange issue with one of my clients. Have you ever seen google trump meta data in a title tag with something they would rather see or found from old listings?

I am in the process of cleaning up some old/outdated citations from a name change a few years ago, and all is set-up & optimized properly for the new name on the back-end of the site, but Google seems to have change the title tag based off of the old business name. Take a look at the screenshot below.

2015-08-05_1034 - mwhtny's library

Was hoping to get anyone's input because i've never seen this before.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hey Christa, so I don't have to type, hunt and peck...

Could you provide a direct link to the query???

Google changes meta all the time but I want to ck a couple things out.

 

[Christa Morgante]

@Linda -- Yep, no problem! Didn't realize Google changed meta at all, so that's good know at least. Thanks for taking a look! Let me know if you need anything else.

https://www.google.com/webhp?source...&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=goldenberg law minneapolis

 

[Linda Buquet]

I did site search to see if they still had the old name anywhere.

Google must have something stuck in it's craw... err I mean database.

Check this: When I site search the old name, the home page shows up.
https://www.google.com/search?q=site:www.goldenberglaw.com+"Goldenberg+&+Johnson"&ie=UTF-8

Also DMOZ is pretty authoritative and still lists old name.

There are 477 results when searching for old name + local #.
And 5 for old name + 877 #.

So not sure if any of that plays in.

Here are a bunch of posts from Moz, Yoast and others, going back a few years about Google changing meta title in the SERPS: https://www.google.com/search?q=Google+changes+meta+title&oq=Google+changes+meta+title

Back when Google started doing it a few years ago, she got it wrong a lot. I remember a Dental office with a well optimized title get the title changed to "Contact Mary to schedule or cancel" (or something like that).

 

[Christa Morgante]

Thank you, Linda! I appreciate you taking the time to look into this. I'll check out some of those posts and update some of the major directory sites and aggregators with the new NAP -- I know a lot needs to be cleaned up. I just wasn't sure if that should have an affect on what Google pulls as far as the meta.

Thanks, again!

 

[jonfoulds]

I agree with Linda on this one. We recently took on a client where both the Title Tag AND Meta Description in the SERPs were pulled in directly from DMOZ. It definitely still holds authority, especially if the site hasn't been updated in awhile.

 

[HurricaneK8]

Does anyone know if you can still use the <META NAME="GOOGLEBOT" CONTENT="NOODP"> tag (you may need to hop into a time machine, or read Inside Google Sitemaps: More control over page snippets) to stop Google from pulling directly from DMOZ? Could help your situation if you're sure that's where its coming from.