The times when you devoted time and effort to write perfect titles and meta descriptions for your pages are gone. Sounds ridiculous? It shouldn’t! And why? Because Google totally ignores what your titles and meta description are, right Google?
Titles and meta descriptions were one of the most important on-page ranking factors. Back to 2009, Google announced that it won’t use the description meta tag for the ranking. However, relevant and catchy titles and meta descriptions are very essential for every web user. They help users decide what results in the SERP (Search Engine Result Page) to click on, i.e., they have a direct impact on a page’s CTR (click-through-rate).
No control, thanks Google.
Anyway, back to Google. Google has already announced that it might change the titles and meta descriptions according to a specific search query. In other words, Google is basically under no obligation to display exactly what you want them to display (what you wrote in your code or, e.g., in Shopify in the SEO section).
And that’s a huge problem, I assume. Actually, you have no control over what titles and meta descriptions will be displayed. Will they be totally different? Or will Google change just a few words? You don’t know. This is totally insane and wrong!
Even if you meet the requirements and recommendations for the titles and meta descriptions (e.g., the length, reflecting what’s on your page, using only one title tag and meta description on your page, and else), in many cases, they won’t display as you wrote them (proved with my clients).
Google just randomly (well, based on their super blackbox algorithm) will display, let’s say, “tailored” titles and meta descriptions. What if Google uses content you don’t want to be displayed with your brand? What if the content doesn’t make sense? What if you just want to have control over YOUR brand?
What else, Google?
Will be Google displaying only part of your content on your website to display “relevant content” to a specific search query? Or what else will come? If I’m an owner of a website (or use any other platform, such as Shopify for my store), I want to be able to decide how my brand will be displayed and what content will be displayed along my brand. I want to decide, not you Google. Sorry!