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Google rewrites many page titles

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Re: Google rewrites many page titles

#91

Post by ren_engineer »

xg15 wrote: post #29

> Many site owners find that the titles they carefully craft almost all get rewritten. Yeah, I'm with Google on this one. I don't see many reasons why a site owner would spend extraordinary amounts of time to "carefully craft" page titles other than SEO and optimizing for clickbaitness. As a user, I'm fine with Google counteracting this.

Google isn't doing this for the user, they are doing it so Ads are more clickable than organic search, they want people clicking on Ads. I can guarantee they won't rewrite the clickbait ads written by marketers who are paying for space. The result is ads are more likely to be clicked

100% of the above the fold content is now ads on many search terms, Google is doing everything they can to squeeze more ad clicks, not provide the best information to their users

Re: Google rewrites many page titles

#92

Post by karaterobot »

fma wrote: post #83
judge2020 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding one of these examples: How to Fix a Broken iPhone Screen [Tested by Experts] - Phone Fixer -> How to Fix a Broken iPhone Screen - Phone Fixer Tested by Experts is obviously clickbait; nobody's going to say [Tested by novices]. Same for things like [Updated 2022] - there are tons of websites that superimpose [updated ] even if the article content wasn't updated.

If Google believes the site is being disingenuous by writing a click bait headline, then they should punish the site by decreasing their ranking, not reward it by keeping it high and rewriting a more fitting headline.

But if the title is spam, and the content is good (this is a big 'if'), the best solution would be to rewrite the title so that it's useful and keep the page at its original rank, based on the content. Ideally, Google would be able to handle all these different cases and just give me the best search results. Now, we all know that's increasingly less true, but in theory that's how it should work.

Re: Google rewrites many page titles

#93

Post by falcolas »

xg15 wrote: post #29

> Many site owners find that the titles they carefully craft almost all get rewritten. Yeah, I'm with Google on this one. I don't see many reasons why a site owner would spend extraordinary amounts of time to "carefully craft" page titles other than SEO and optimizing for clickbaitness. As a user, I'm fine with Google counteracting this.

If this were being done by a person, I might agree with you.

But it's not. It's being done by an algorithm which was carefully crafted to improve someone's chance for getting a promotion. It won't be maintained long term, yet it will continue to punish articles based on wholly arbitrary, biased, and opaque logic.

Re: Google rewrites many page titles

#94

Post by worldofmatthew »

edave64 wrote: post #79
ricardo81 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't say I agree. Google should be a neutral middle man providing the results as they are found. If they feel the title is not of their version of quality they should rank it lower. I'd prefer the version of title of several hundred million individuals rather than Google's aggregated version. They used to 'borrow' DMOZ titles before DMOZ became defunct. At least in that case it's another point of view on top of thei…

Google can't be a neutral middleman because everybody is trying to manipulate the search results. If everybody is clickbaiting their page titles, and Google just displays them as is, it makes their product worse.

The solution is not to re-title, the solution is to de-rank clickbait.

Re: Google rewrites many page titles

#95

Post by slater »

johnnyApplePRNG wrote: post #88

Speaking of rewriting titles... I noticed that HN reworte a self post title a few days ago. [0] Why is HN editing self post titles? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30053890

Mods frequently rewrite submitted titles, either cos it's not the same title used in the article, or because there's a better wording for the HN crowd ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Check dang's (HN mod) comments:

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dang

Re: Google rewrites many page titles

#96

Post by worldofmatthew »

xg15 wrote: post #29

> Many site owners find that the titles they carefully craft almost all get rewritten. Yeah, I'm with Google on this one. I don't see many reasons why a site owner would spend extraordinary amounts of time to "carefully craft" page titles other than SEO and optimizing for clickbaitness. As a user, I'm fine with Google counteracting this.

They should de-rank clickbait websites, as many of them qualify as webspam.

Re: Google rewrites many page titles

#97

Post by zerkten »

phreeza wrote: post #7

It's quite funny to me that people are running these kind of almost scientific experiments on a fully human-generated and in principle knowable system. The reason are understandable of course but it does seem like a waste of human energy.

This is tangential, but it could similarly be used to describe many support teams which staffed by non-technical folks, or are cut off from engineering for cultural, political, etc. reasons. It's a complete waste of energy, but for various reasons people get put in these situations and experiment instead of talking to an authority in another department, or getting an expert on their team. It can be sustained for a surprisingly long amount of time as well before someone gets called out on inaccuracies.

Re: Google rewrites many page titles

#98

Post by avivo »

xg15 wrote: post #29

> Many site owners find that the titles they carefully craft almost all get rewritten. Yeah, I'm with Google on this one. I don't see many reasons why a site owner would spend extraordinary amounts of time to "carefully craft" page titles other than SEO and optimizing for clickbaitness. As a user, I'm fine with Google counteracting this.

I agree in theory for SEO mills... but it can apparently go a bit overboard!

Concrete personal example:

- Title shown by Google: "Policymaking Beyond Corporate CEOs and Partisan Pressure"

- Original title: "Towards Platform Democracy: Policymaking Beyond Corporate CEOs and Partisan Pressure"

Rather large difference!

More details in another comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30087485 , but search term is just "platform democracy" (2nd result)

Re: Google rewrites many page titles

#99

Post by alisonkisk »

logifail wrote: post #86
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If we're going to start filtering all "obvious clickbait" then the search results are going to change fairly dramatically Isn’t this the intended effect?

> Isn’t this the intended effect? I hate clickbait as much as the next user, but using that technique to get users to click appears to have even become part of the core business model of previously prestigious outlets. Picking on the WaPo for no real reason: How the Washington Post pulled off the hardest trick in journalism https://www.cjr.org/public_editor/washington-post-fluff-news... An Open Letter to the Washingt…

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Re: Google rewrites many page titles

#100

Post by alisonkisk »

LightG wrote: post #74
judge2020 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding one of these examples: How to Fix a Broken iPhone Screen [Tested by Experts] - Phone Fixer -> How to Fix a Broken iPhone Screen - Phone Fixer Tested by Experts is obviously clickbait; nobody's going to say [Tested by novices]. Same for things like [Updated 2022] - there are tons of websites that superimpose [updated ] even if the article content wasn't updated.

Not obviously. If true, adds credibility. "Phone Fixer" sounds more scammy to me, lol

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