Lately, many experts have been wondering how Google’s new approach to generating search snippet titles affects rankings. According to the search staff, no way. These are completely different things.
So, John Mueller answered briefly: “No.” He explained that Google’s new approach is just a change in the display of titles. Rewriting titles does not change page positions.
Danny Sullivan, in turn, explained that title tags do count towards rankings, but how Google displays that content in the SERP is a completely different process. This happens after ranking.
Mueller also highlighted the importance of title tags during the last hangout for webmasters:
“I don’t know what the future will bring, but at least for now, we’re not saying that title tags are no longer relevant. They are still significant for search and ranking. Therefore, even if our systems rewrite something, this does not mean that the page is not relevant to what is indicated in the title tag. We continue to use this information in our searches. ”
NIXSolutions reminds that Google launched a new search snippet generation system last week. At the same time, the company did not initially announce this update, but officially confirmed it after mass messages from webmasters.
According to SearchEngines, the new system is dynamic and responsive to changes on the pages, and the main recommendation of the search engine remains the creation of quality title tags. In 80% of cases, the text from these tags will be used to form the title of the snippet.
Meanwhile, many site owners are complaining about bugs in the new system, and the industry has already dubbed this update “titlepocalypse” and want Google to allow site owners to prevent rewriting of their page titles.
As for the descriptions, they were not affected by the new system.