What is Danny Sullivan's explanation on Google's new update for generating web page titles?

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If you are one to notice the change of web page titles in Google live search results from last week and wonder what it is, you are in the right place. Last week, Danny Sullivan, Google's public Search Liaison, confirmed introducing a new web page title-generating system. And he also assures that this new system will be better than the previous one as it produces better working titles for the overall documents. Since web page titles are one of the foremost SEO strategies for enabling SERP ranking and visibility to the viewers, this recent change has created many buzzes in the industry. It is because the Google update will change a generation of the web page titles on search results.

Hence, check out about Google updating the way of generating web page titles in search results and their implications for better SEO strategies.

Why is the web page title important for Google search results?

Reviewing the listed web page titles is one of the significant ways people determine the relevant search results for their queries. It is why Google Search works double the time for providing the suitable titles for documents in their results for connecting searchers with the right content produced by the creators, businesses, publishers, among others. Hence, it is vital to use high-quality web page titles as they are critical to giving users a quick insight into the content of a result to be relevant for their queries.

Why is Google changing the web page titles?

Google generates the page titles entirely by automation, considering both the page content and the references to appear on the web. It intends to describe and represent all search results in the best way possible to explain their relation to the users' query. Google uses various sources, including descriptive information and publicly available, to create rich results based on the web page's markup. Hence, if it finds specific results having issues with the title, Google generates improved and relevant titles from on-page text, anchors, and other sources. It is why web page titles that are static, and regardless of the queries, get changed by Google for helping both the user and the site.

What is the new Google update for generating web page titles?

As explained above, so far, Google has changed only web page titles based on user queries. Now with Google confirming the new update for generating web page titles, it will happen again. Many from the SEO industry found Google's extensive documentation of the new system that produces titles working better for the entire document. To replace the web page titles, Google uses other texts that apply to the queries and texts within the links pointing at the pages. Mostly it happens when the HTML title does not describe the web page properly. For example, it may be too long or have no text, boilerplate text, or stuffed with keywords.

What is Google's Danny Sullivan saying about this new update for generating web page titles?

Danny Sullivan, Google's Public Search Liaison, confirms updating the web page title generation in live search results. He says that the previous change of titles based on queries will not happen anymore with this new system to generate web page titles by Google. He gives that because the new system will produce better working titles for the entire documents for describing them, irrespective of the specific query.

Sullivan also confirms going beyond the HTML text for creating titles for over a decade. And he says that the new system will make use of more such text, especially for enabling users to view them on coming to the web page visually. In addition, Google will use style treatments for the HTML 'H1' tags used by the site owners shown on the page to become large and prominent or within the other header tags.

What is Sullivan's explanation of using more than the HTML title tag text for web pages?

Sullivan explains the reasons for using more than the HTML title tag text for web pages as they do not adequately describe the content of the pages. It may be because they are too long, keyword stuffing, or have boilerplate text, or no text at all.

Sullivan further states that the design of this new update will produce more accessible and readable web page titles. Google may add helpful site names, and for others with long titles will select only its relevant portion rather than using all of it by truncating only the more useful parts of it.

Does this mean that there is no need to create unique web page titles?

Sullivan advises the site owners to focus more on creating high-quality HTML tags as the new update does not make optimizing them lose importance. Though Google is taking a novel approach for generating web page titles, creating unique web page titles is still worth the SEO effort for all site owners. It is because Google will continue to use the HTML title tags over 80 percent of the time.

Hence, it is not advisable to leave the title-creating work to Google alone. However, this new update produces titles that enable easy reading and are preferred by searchers compared to generating titles.

Is it possible to opt-out of the new Google update for generating web page titles?

Though Sullivan confirmed some time back that SEOs should have some option for preserving page titles, there is no opting out of this update. Also, it is not sure when Sullivan suggests an additional feature in Search Console to tell Google not to replace the HTML title tag for specific web pages.

The above facts and Sullivan's confirmation and explanation of Google's update on generating web page titles will surely help you continue creating unique web page titles for more traffic. As per Sullivan's words, even with the new update, Google still uses over 80% of the HTML tag titles with no changes.