Why is Google rewriting the page title with '[3]' in the search results?

Question

Some of our pages in Google search are showing with a [3] in the title of the page. When this happens the title of the page is <page name> - [3]<domain name>. When it's not happening it's <page name> - <category> | <website name>

You can see an example:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=designmynight&oq=designmynight+&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i60l5.9033j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=designmynight+secret+bars

The meta data doesn't contain anything that seems to be causing this

<!-- Basic information -->
<title>Secret Bars in London | Hidden and Unknown London Bars | DesignMyNight</title>
<meta name="description" content="Secret Bars in London. We pick our recommended Secret London bars that are off the beaten track and hidden gems for a night out in London.">

<!-- Facebook App -->
<meta property="fb:app_id" content="540199202675802" />

<script type="text/javascript" src="//use.typekit.net/vrm1phl.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">try{Typekit.load({async: true});}catch(e){}</script>


<!-- Open Graph -->
<meta property="og:description" content="Secret Bars in London. We pick our recommended Secret London bars that are off the beaten track and hidden gems for a night out in London.">
<meta property="og:title" content="Secret Bars in London | Hidden and Unknown London Bars | DesignMyNight">
<meta property="og:type" content=""/>
<meta property="og:locale" content="en_GB" />
<meta property="og:site_name" content="designmynight.com"/>
<meta property="og:url" content="http://www.designmynight.com/london/secret-bars-in-london">
<meta property="og:image" content="//static.designmynight.com/uploads/2016/07/bootlegger-basement-secret-bar-london-optimised.jpg">

<!--  Item Properties -->
<meta itemprop="name" content="Secret Bars in London">
<meta itemprop="description" content="">
<meta itemprop="url" content="https://www.designmynight.com/london/bars/secret-bars-in-london">

In the Google Knowledge Panel we show as <[3]site name> as well. See the screen shot

Anyone come across this before or see anything obviously wrong?

Answer 1

It seems to have to do with duplication of words in the Title. I ran a screaming frog of your site and noticed many Titles have the same words repeated. Take a look at this search: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=designmynight&oq=designmynight+&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i60l5.9033j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=designmynight+mexican+and+tequila+bars

Some of your pages listed have the [3] in the Title and some do not. Every one that has the [3] has a Title that has repetition...for example "Mexican and Tequila Bars Manchester | Mexican and Tequila Bars in Manchester | DesignMyNight" & "Mezcal Bars London | Mezcal Bars in London | Design My Night"

Not sure why the Google algorithm is adding the [3] in these instances, but definitely it doesn't like your Titles that it sees with duplicated words or stuffed as the [3] doesn't seem to appear on non-stuffed Titles.

The example you gave originally doesn't have the exact duplication issue that I found in some of your other pages, but the algorithm may be a bit finicky as to what it thinks is stuffing.

Answer 2

There are a few reasons why google wont use you title tag,

For your site, it might be that google thinks that the title is keyword stuffed

Secret Bars in London | Hidden and Unknown London Bars

secret, hidden, and unknown are very similar terms.

https://moz.com/learn/seo/title-tag

Or Maybe the site was crawled previously with the same title tags

Best thing to do is to check Google Search Console.

Answer 3

If you will make your page content and meta relevant, you should not see this kind of issue.

You may like to try following and it should fix it.

Ensure you got rich content for the user. Also, make sure you got images optimised properly.

Meta Title & Description: Make sure you write the meta title & description close to the actual page content and also ensure the length is right.

You may like to turn off any third party plugin temporarily to ensure Google sees real authentic content.

Do this and leave it for few days till google re-crawls it and it should fix it.