Search Engine Optimisation for Title Tag & How it works & How it is crawled by Google, A lesson learned from my own portfolio website

Here is what I learned from Google’s Web Crawling algorithm over the years,

For the last three to two years, I have used ‘Design Portfolio | Mandar Apte’ as my title tag for my personal design portfolio website’s homepage, i.e. ‘Page Name | Website Name’. This is nothing more than to explain to people that they can get a complete insight into the website by just looking at the title on Google’s search result page.

But for the last few days, I got this result when I searched my name on Google. Yes, I was listed first when I searched for a name, i.e mandar apte,

But the result was something like this: ‘Mandar Apte: Design Portfolio’ instead of my curated title ‘Design Portfolio | Mandar Apte’. It seems Google altered my website homepage’s title tag on their search results. I was amassed, wondering why this should happen, and then I contacted Google support for the same.

mandar-apte-search-results-before

& I got this answer from them…

Google Web Search / Web Master Support Team: ‘The title of a search result is generally taken from the contents of the <title> tag for that page, which is the text you see in your browser’s title bar. Sometimes, when the <title> tag is not meaningful, or the page is not crawlable, Google may generate a different title in search results using other information, such as the anchor text of a link to that page or the Open Directory Project. A useful title is a short description of the page and is unique on each page of your site. For example, a page on your site containing contact information may use the title ‘Contact information – My Company’. In contrast, a page listing your products may be called ‘Products by My Company.’

More Use full links Here:
More advice on how to create good titles and descriptions,

Read Google’s blog post about page titles

Result & Conclusion

mandar-apte-search-results-after

It seems Google does tricks to alter your page titles if it doesn’t have enough information to display,

So now I have updated my title tag with my skill sets and my business location, and it goes something like this: ‘Design Portfolio | Mandar Apte—Graphic, Web & Animation Film Designer from Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.’

It seems that Google Search Algorithms has accepted this tag without any funny or functional alterations. My new title tag has also been reflected on the web.

I hope this web note helps new Google Webmasters.

Thanks & Regards
Mandar Apte

Published by Mandar Apte

Mandar is a Mumbai-based multi-disciplinary designer with UX/UI, Logo, Symbol, and Brand Identity design expertise. He currently runs his Mudrkashar Linguistic Apple iPhone, iPad, and Mac app business in the heart of Mumbai city.

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