Why are my homepage title tags different on Google?

Google has stopped showing the title tags for homepages within mobile search results, instead replacing them with the name of the site – which is generally your business name.

This new update of the search engine results page (SERPs) was recently rolled out across the mobile search results page for websites.

According to Google’s Search Central documentation:

“Currently, Google Search supports site names from homepages at the domain-level, and not at the subdomain (for example, https://news.example.com) and or subdirectory (for example, level.”

This means that if your website is on a subdomain, such as news.engageweb.co.uk, this new update wouldn’t be shown in search results and you would continue to see the title tag set on the website.

Google has also announced that it will be recommending all websites have WebSite structured data or schema added. This is due to the name field within the structure data telling the site name of the website to Google, allowing it to be pulled through as the main title within the SERPs. More info about what WebSite structured data is can be found here.

In the past, Google has considered WebSite structured data to be of little value as Google already knows that your website is a website. However, it now seems to be a recommendation in Google’s documentation.

If your website is built with WordPress and is using an SEO plugin like Yoast SEO or Rank Math SEO, these plugins automatically add WebSite schema to your website anyway, so you don’t need to worry about this. If you are using another platform, you might need to have a look at how to add structured data to your website.

If you are looking to grow your business online and are not sure where to start, have a chat with our team at Engage Web. We can discuss a wide range of digital marketing methods to help bring more traffic to your website and increase leads and sales.

• About
• Latest Posts

Jonathon Roberts

Jonathon lives and breathes marketing, boasting a degree in Business Management and Marketing Management and a diverse list of experiences both professional and voluntary. Having grown up in the thick of the digital and social media age, he has been quick to dive into online marketing and search engine optimisation in his career and spare time, spanning such fields as academics, local business and sport.

Latest posts by Jonathon Roberts (see all)

• Key takeaways from Google’s latest search reviews update - November 10, 2023
• Mobile-first indexing: what is it, and why has it taken so long? - November 3, 2023
• Google updates structured data understanding - October 31, 2023