Google and the title tag (something new?)

[Gerardism]

I just happened to notice while looking for a local company and knowing all they had in their title tag was the word 'index', Google was displaying the first sentence from the first paragraph as the title in the results page.

I'm not sure how new this is, but interesting. Anyone else notice this before this latest update?

[telNform]

Can you post an example of this?

[Gerardism]

Here's the link.

The site is the 4th listing, and when you check the title in the coding, its only 'index' showing.

google title changed (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=greater+corner+brook+Board+of+Trade&btnG=Search)

I think I recall earlier this week doing the same search and seeing the word 'index' in the title on the results page.

[rustybrick]

I never saw anything like this before, but yet again, I never looked.

Nice to see!

[David Wallace]

That is all I see as the title in the SERPs - "index". I don't see the "first sentence from the first paragraph as the title in the results page". Are you sure you saw it correctly?

[rustybrick]

David, I captured some screen images at my blog http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/001551.html

I noticed it seemed to be something that is being tested by Google. Some people getting it, and some not.

[DarkMatter]

I see it with the first sentence as the title in the serps. I wonder whether there's an seo angle you could use this for.

[AussieWebmaster]

Must be beta testing autofills.... this could be great for people that are adding loads of content on a regular basis.

[Chris_D]

Geraldism - great catch!

Well done!

Chris

[hrih]

Actually, Google altered their algorithm in late November 2004. (algo 4 duplicated & spam content [penalties], linking schemes, classification, empty title tag, rating, & s.o) .

[Michael Martinez]

This kind of indexing has been noticed in Google for the past couple of years. Lacking a relevant title tag, Google will try to determine what the most relevant EMPHASIZED text on the page (with respect to the user's query) is, and substitute that. The phrase occurs on the page several times, and is therefore the most important phrase on the page.

Notice that none of the search results include that phrase in their title pages. If you search for that expression "greater corner brook board of trade" using quotation marks around the string, you'll find a total of 20 results.

This is a very non-competitive term, and Google is providing meaningful information about the page in its SERP.

No biggie, nothing new.

[AussieWebmaster]

This kind of indexing has been noticed in Google for the past couple of years. Lacking a relevant title tag, Google will try to determine what the most relevant EMPHASIZED text on the page (with respect to the user's query) is, and substitute that. The phrase occurs on the page several times, and is therefore the most important phrase on the page.

Notice that none of the search results include that phrase in their title pages. If you search for that expression "greater corner brook board of trade" using quotation marks around the string, you'll find a total of 20 results.

This is a very non-competitive term, and Google is providing meaningful information about the page in its SERP.

No biggie, nothing new. Michael you missed what this one is about. According to the post above and the info in the thread it is that now if you leave your title tag blank (or if it is index.html) Google does not use that in the list but rather finds terms from the page itself to fill it.

[Michael Martinez]

Michael you missed what this one is about. According to the post above and the info in the thread it is that now if you leave your title tag blank (or if it is index.html) Google does not use that in the list but rather finds terms from the page itself to fill it.

That is exactly what I was talking about. Google has been doing this for a couple of years for situations exactly like this. I know, because I accidentally left out a title tag on one of my pages and Google filled in appropriate descriptive text for me. I have long since fixed the page.

[Pushe]

Hello,

It`s not only if google can`t find relevancy in the title tag. Some times I see the title in the serps, sometimes I see the 1st few words from the first paragraph, and that is for the same keyword, the same page and even the same possition.

Any suggestions?

Pushe

[rustybrick]

Just to add. It is a very important distinction that some people see "index" and some people see the search phrase.

[sem4u]

Great find!

Hopefully there will be fewer 'untitled', 'index' and 'new page 1' title tags coming up in the SERPs. :)

[inlogicalbearer]

Hope Google will also replace the more than 500,000 page showing :
Welcome to Adobe GoLive * (http://www.google.com/search?q=Welcome%20to%20Adobe%20GoLive%20*&num=100&oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF-8) ;-)