SEO Title showing properly on Mobile but not Desktop

#519463
  • Resolved Ryan

    2 years, 10 months ago

    Rank Math free

    Hello!

    This issue started about 14 months ago. I use the Yoast SEO plugin (currently) to optimize my SEO Title that shows up in Google. I am reaching out because I think I need to switch to RankMath. Yoast seems glitchy and their support is standoffish.

    A year ago I worked with Yoast, Divi, and a web developer to solve the issue but they all said that everything was set up correctly and Google had simply decided to show their own title instead of mine. I was told to change some of my SEO titles and wait.

    Now, over a year later, my titles are still not showing up properly. Here is what I am seeing.

    I checked the source code for the page https://www.ryanandalex.com/board-games-for-couples/ and noticed the following title:

    <title>22 Award-Winning Board Games For Couples. Best Date Night EVER</title>

    “22 Award-Winning Board Games For Couples. Best Date Night EVER” is the SEO Title that I specified in Yoast.

    So this confirms that Yoast is outputting the right title. However, if you search “Board Games for Couples” you’ll see our page near the top of Google and a different title shows up:

    Board Games For Couples – Ryan and Alex Duo Life

    “Board Games For Couples” is the title of the post.

    I understand that there are various reasons why Google would use a different title on the search results.

    Perhaps Google’s cache of my site is outdated, or maybe Google just ignored the title I created. But, I have reindexed and recrawled the site several times in the last year.

    I also understand that while Google typically uses the title and meta description from the metadata for indexing, this is not always the case. The title and meta description I enter in Yoast is only a suggestion.

    However, there are several things happening that make me believe this is a bug on my end rather that Google deciding to show a different title.

    First, it’s not one but ALL of my SEO titles that are affected.

    Second, they all changed at the same time (about 14 months ago).

    Third, and most suspiciously, ALL the correct SEO Titles show up on mobile and ALL incorrect titles show up on desktop.

    The SEO Titles are perfect on mobile, 100% of them are like this:

    See attachment #1 Mobile SEO Title: https://imgur.com/a/ovOs01D

    But on desktop, 100% of them are like this:

    See attachment #2 Desktop SEO Title: https://imgur.com/a/ovOs01D

    Doesn’t this seem strange to you? Why would Google decide to rewrite ALL my SEO Titles on desktop but leave ALL of them exactly as is on mobile?? This doesn’t add up to me.

    Right now my main suspect is my theme, Divi by Elegant Themes, or the Yoast plugin.

    If you have seen anything like this or have some advice, I would very much appreciate it. Do you think your plugin can help resolve this??

    Thanks in advance for you support.

    Best,
    Ryan

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)
  • Rank Math

    2 years, 10 months ago

    Hello,

    Thank you for contacting the support, and sorry for any inconvenience that might have been caused due to that.

    1. First of all, we are assuming that you have already changed the SEO Meta Title and Meta Description with the help of Rank Math:

    Add a Meta Description in Classic Editor: https://i.rankmath.com/dhECkg
    Add title and description in Gutenberg: https://i.rankmath.com/ZO21Cd

    2. Then, ensure that this is the setting in the Schema tab if Schema Markup module is enabled on your website:
    https://i.rankmath.com/pG0pcS

    To reiterate, the Schema title must show %seo_title% and the description should show %seo_description% – this will ensure your SEO title and SEO Description that you set up via Rank Math can also be used for your schema details:

    3. The next step is to check if your title/description is properly set up in the page source:
    https://i.rankmath.com/HwXR1o

    You can use this tool for the same as well: https://www.heymeta.com/

    4. If it matches your settings, then you must check if Google has seen the changes already or not.

    For that, please check when the Google cache was updated for that page:
    a. https://i.rankmath.com/9q6X0H
    b. https://i.rankmath.com/R8N0Uh

    If the cache date is from before adding the new meta description, then you just have to wait for Google to re-crawl and re-index the page with the new info. If the date is after you made the changes, then you just have to wait it out and there is no further input needed from your end.

    Do note that if everything’s fine and Google still decides to show a different meta title/description for your search keyword, there is nothing you can do as Google sometimes ignores the custom meta info altogether and show something from the page’s content that matches the search intent better.

    Here are some of the common reasons Google might not use the meta description you provided:
    – The meta description is not relevant or useful (ie, just a collection of keywords).
    – The exact same meta description is provided across a large number of pages.
    – The meta description doesn’t match what the user is searching for, but other content on the page does.

    There is a whole article dedicated to this on SearchEngineJournal:
    https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-offers-suggestions-for-avoiding-meta-description-rewrites/359884/

    Here is an example showing Google changes title depending on the keyword used:
    https://i.rankmath.com/oT6VQe
    &
    https://i.rankmath.com/Mrhb0x

    The best you can do is optimize your meta tags to try and match the intent of the search/keyword.

    Hope that helps. If you have any further question(s), please let us know.

    P.S. You can check the above things on Yoast as well.

    RankBot

    2 years, 9 months ago

    Hello,

    Since we did not hear back from you for 15 days, we are assuming that you found the solution. We are closing this support ticket.

    If you still need assistance or any other help, please feel free to open a new support ticket, and we will be more than happy to assist.

    Thank you.

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)

The ticket ‘SEO Title showing properly on Mobile but not Desktop’ is closed to new replies.