On-page and content
How to fix title tag problems
The title tag is the line people read in search results, and the strongest single signal on the page about what it is for. Four things go wrong with it, and a site with one of them usually has two. Each is below, with what it costs and how to put it right.
Pages with no title
These pages have no title. The title is the clickable line in search results and the strongest single on-page signal there is. Without it, Google invents one from the page's content, usually worse than what you would have written.
What it is, and what it costs
<title> tag names the page in search results and browser tabs. A page with none forfeits its best chance to describe itself and to include the words people search for; Google's auto-generated replacement is a guess, and often an unhelpful one.How to fix it
Give each page a title of about 50–60 characters that describes what is on it, with the words someone would search for near the front.
- WordPress: set the title in Yoast or Rank Math per page, or via the post-type template.
- Shopify: fill the "Search engine listing" title for the product or page.
- Hand-coded: output a real
<title>from the page's own data instead of leaving it blank.
How to check your site
View source for <title>. Crawl the site to find every page missing one.
Related: title length, duplicate titles, and pages with two title tags.
Questions people ask
- Where does the title show up?
- In the search result headline, the browser tab, and when the link is shared. It is worth writing deliberately.
Titles too short or too long
These titles are too short to say anything useful, or long enough that Google cuts them off mid-sentence in results.
What it is, and what it costs
How to fix it
Aim for roughly 50–60 characters, with the important words first so nothing vital is at risk of being cut. Say what the page is and who it is for; skip filler like your brand name unless there is room.
How to check your site
Crawl the site and flag titles well under ~30 or over ~60 characters.
Related: pages missing a title, and duplicate titles.
Questions people ask
- Is 60 characters a hard limit?
- No. Google measures pixels, not characters, so it varies. 50–60 is a safe target that rarely gets cut.
Pages sharing one title
Search engines lean on the title to tell your pages apart. When two pages carry the same one, they end up fighting each other for the same searches, and anyone scanning your results sees the same line twice.
What it is
<title>) is the clickable headline of a search result and the single strongest on-page signal there is. A duplicate is when different URLs on your site output the same title text.Why it costs you
How to fix it
Give every page a distinct title, ideally built from a template plus its unique field.
- WordPress: Yoast and Rank Math both set title templates per post type. Use variables so each page differs (e.g.
%%title%% %%sep%% %%sitename%%) and override individually where a page needs it. - Shopify: titles come from your theme (
{{ page_title }}) and per-product/page SEO fields in the admin. Fill the “Search engine listing” title for pages that share one. - Hand-coded: stop hard-coding one
<title>in a shared layout. Generate it from the page’s own data, and write manual titles for cornerstone pages.
How to check your site
You cannot see duplicates from a single page; the whole point is they live on different URLs. Crawl the site and group pages by title; anything with a count above one is a duplicate. Google Search Console flags some under “Duplicate, Google chose a different canonical.”
What this looks like in practice
A directory shipped every city page as “Find a plumber | Acme”: 300 pages, one title. Rewriting the template to “Find a plumber in {city} | Acme” gave each page a distinct target, and the city pages started ranking for their own city.
Questions people ask
- How long should a title be?
- Roughly 50–60 characters, so Google does not cut it off. Put the words people search for first.
- Is a duplicate title as bad as duplicate content?
- It is a weaker signal but the same idea: two pages that look the same to Google compete instead of each standing on its own.
More than one title tag
These pages contain more than one <title> tag. Only the first counts; the rest are usually a sign that a theme and a plugin are both writing one.
What it is, and what it costs
How to fix it
Leave a single <title> per page. In WordPress, that usually means letting the SEO plugin own the title and turning off the theme's, so they stop both emitting one.
How to check your site
View source and count <title> tags.
Related: title length and duplicate titles.
Questions people ask
- Which title does Google use if there are two?
- The first one in the source. Do not rely on that; fix the duplication.
Does your site have this?
Check your site to find pages with no title.
See also
- How to fix meta description problemsThe meta description is the sentence under your link in search results. It is not a ranking factor, which is exactly why it gets neglected — and it is what decides whether anybody clicks the result you worked to earn. Three faults account for almost all of it.
- How to fix H1 heading problemsThe H1 is the visible heading that tells a reader — and a search engine — what a page is about before either goes any further. Three faults are common, and a template is behind most of them, which means one fix usually clears the whole site.
- How to fix a broken heading structureThe headings on these pages skip levels, for example an H4 directly under an H2. Screen readers use the heading outline to navigate, and search engines use it to understand how a page is organised.
- How to add alt text to your imagesImages on these pages have no alt attribute. Alt text is what screen-reader users hear instead of the image, what appears when it fails to load, and what puts your images in image search.