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Wondering if Google’s recent title/header change had any impact on rankings? The answer is a resounding no, according to the search engine.
The change, which was made on August 17th, impacted the titles that appear in search results and saw Google re-write existing titles created by site owners.
While it would appear the purpose of the change would be to affect rankings, Google’s John Mueller confirmed that, no, this is simply a display change that will not have an impact on rankings.
Oh, i have to read the whole question? That’s awkward. This just changes the displayed titles, it doesn’t change ranking or takes anything different into account. — 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) August 28, 2021
This is purely a display change. This is not meant to change rankings. It’s easier to separate things out for testing. That said, we make ranking changes all the time too, so I wouldn’t assume you won’t see ranking changes, it’s just that they’re not due to this :). — 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) August 29, 2021
This was previously confirmed by Danny Sullivan on August 26th, but his comments were less clear than Mueller’s.
Our titles, like anyone’s titles, are determined by the same system. There’s nothing special done for us. — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) August 26, 2021
The takeaway here is that when it comes to determining rankings, Google uses the content you create, not the title it generated for you. The title that appears in search results is for display purposes only. We’re glad to have this one cleared up!
