Google’s Page Title Update is Dynamic and Reactive to Changes

SEO

By Chris Barnhart Last updated Aug 26, 2021

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As more new information comes out about Google’s update to generating web page titles, we learn it’s dynamic and will react to on-site changes.

That means the replacement text Google chooses for page titles is not set in stone.

When you modify page’s HTML title tag, Google will take the updated text into consideration and react accordingly.

This is stated by Google’s Danny Sullivan on Twitter in response to a question from Lily Ray.

Ray asks how often Google will refresh its selected title for a page, noting that it’s common for news outlets to modify titles after publishing.

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Sullivan says he believes Google’s new title tag system is dynamic. Further, he reveals refinements have already been made and more are on the way.

“I’ll have to check by I believe it’s all fairly dynamic and reactively to changes. I’ll also reiterate what we said in the post. We’ve already made some refinements and plan more.”

Whether Google displays your revised title tag in SERPs will likely depend on its assessment of the text and how well it describes what’s on the page.

Google’s main piece of criteria for determining when to replace a page title is how accurately it represents what a user will find when visiting the URL.

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Should you notice Google replacing one or more of your page titles, it’s a good indication what you had didn’t adequately reflect the main content.

The good news is, if you’re not satisfied with Google’s choice of text, you can write a new title tag and possibly have that text displayed instead.

Considering how recently this update rolled out, and the fact Google is currently in the process of refining it, it’s not advisable to make many changes right now.

Lily Ray suggested as much in her ongoing coverage of the page title update, which Sullivan references in his reply on Twitter.

“I think you said elsewhere not advising people to start making a lot of changes. That’s good advice. As we said in the post, keep focusing on good HTML title tags as we do use them by far more than anything else. And the feedback in forums or elsewhere is useful…”

To Sullivan’s point, Google confirmed in its announcement over 80% of pages shown in SERPs will retain their original HTML title tag.