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Apologies if the question is a repeated one but I couldn't find a solution for this.

I have following HTML code on the home page of my website. 

<head>
<title>Sample title for illustrative purpose | example.com</title>
<meta name = "description" content = "Here is an example of what a snippet looks like in Google's SERPs. The content that appears here is usually taken from the Meta Description tag if relevant.">
<meta name = "keywords" content = "keyword1, keyword2">
</head>
<body>
<header>
<a href="https://www.example.com" class="navbar-brand">Home Page Link</a>
</header>
<h1>Sample Heading</h1>

SERP shows following result: enter image description here

Question: Why is example.com (the circled one in attached pic) is taken into account on SERP when it's not there in the title?

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  • 1
    I've never seen that before. Google has been known to rewrite or change titles to display in the SERPs. Are they doing the same for other search results for that query?
    – Stephen Ostermiller ♦
    Commented Mar 11, 2015 at 10:02
  • Yes, when I search with relevant keywords, regardless of the keyword "example" or "ex ample sample title" or something similar, it displays the same unwanted "example.com" in the beginning.
    – Harit
    Commented Mar 11, 2015 at 10:11
  • Well thanks. I watched this youtube.com/watch?v=NlJiLDn9-38#t=147 and it was something new to me.
    – Harit
    Commented Mar 11, 2015 at 10:24
  • 1
    "...purpose | example.com" - possibly a bit of an aside, but I wouldn't include the domain name in the title at all - even at the end.
    – MrWhite
    Commented Mar 11, 2015 at 11:08
  • Google doesn't necessarily take the title from the HTML Title tag. Sometimes they take it from sites like dmoz.org, sometimes it's based on the links coming into your site, sometimes it's based on how you link to that page internally on your site, and sometimes they just f### with it for fun. :)
    – TZHX
    Commented Mar 11, 2015 at 11:10

1 Answer 1

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This is a well known effect for those who experiment with using the pipe character (|) in title tag. I mention it here in an update: Pipes or colons in HTML title tags? which I should update again with new findings when I sort out my thoughts.

When the pipe character is used in a title tag, Google treats the tag as a keyword list. This does not work for other characters- it is a relatively new effect following a trend. If the domain name, either with or without the TLD, appears at the end of the list Google takes it as a branding signal and will place example.com : at the beginning of the title tag and remove the keyword from the end of the title tag.

For example: a title tag of cakes | chocolate | bunt | example should appear as example.com: cakes | chocolate | bunt. This works with or without the TLD if the last keyword matches the domain name.

If this is not what you want, you should remove your branding signal from the end of the list.

Branding a title tag is a good idea, but must be managed. If the title tag is short enough but not too short or weak in Google's eyes, Google will automatically brand your SERP link with your domain name with - example.com at the end of the SERP link. I made use of this effect for quite a while. Google feels that branding is a strong signal for improving click-through rates (CTR) in the SERP listing. And they are right.

But I can understand not wanting branding. I recently dropped my branding signals for the SERP list but cannot tell you there is a difference. I recently switched to using pipes for specific keywords and this works a charm. While I do not always recommend keyword loading title tags, recommending to choosing only 2-3 keywords at the most, if it is important to use keywords for competition, then I recommend using pipes. But this is limited to only signalling keywords, not for search so much, as market signals- What sites should you be compared to? For example, the keywords I used have nothing to do with returning users since these are not keywords that they use to find my site, but signal rather what market my site fits into.

For example, a title tag can be How to bake a German Chocolate Cake and the h1 tag and description meta-tag supports the title tag appropriately and are perfectly weighted and written. You will get searches for how to bake a german chocolate cake. But let's say you change the title tag to recipe | german | chocolate | cake | food | cooking, you will see that german, chocolate, cake will result in the same search results, but recipe, food, cooking will signal the market your site is in and may push your results up higher in the SERPs as a result. It is a result of semantics more than anything.

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