How Google Chooses Your Page Title, AVIF Image Support & Link Counts for Content
SEO TL;DR #38 - 02/09/2024
Core Update
August Update Still Rolling Out
Google’s August Core Update is still rolling out, so a small reminder not to change anything drastic if you’re seeing drops, as ranking volatility is expected.
A recent poll by Barry Schwartz found that of 3,614 SEOs, 49% have experienced a downward trend since the start of the update, 28% have been up, and the rest are roughly the same.
Google recommends waiting at least one week after the core update has completed to assess if you’ve been noticeably hit by an update.
Content SEO
How Google Chooses Your Page Title
Many believe your website title is dictated entirely by the title or meta title you set at the page level. In around 80% of cases, this is true, but if your titles are spammy or if Google thinks there is other information on the page which is more relevant to the query - they will show that.
Take this result from Simply Baby for the term “twin pram”.
The actual title for the page is much longer, but Google has chosen to ignore most of it and only show the parts relevant to the keyword “twin pram”.
Google has now confirmed that it uses the following sources to automatically determine the title of your site:
Content in <title> elements
Main visual title shown on the page
Heading elements, such as <h1> elements
Content in og:title meta tags NEW
Other content that's large and prominent through the use of style treatments
Other text contained in the page
Anchor text on the page
Text within links that point to the page
WebSite structured data
So even if you’ve crafted a perfectly optimised page title, if the H1 is different (often the main visual title for the page), your titles may look radically different in search.
Ensuring your title, main heading, OG title and structured data are consistent is a good way to ensure that Google shows your best side in the results.
Technical SEO
Google Now Supports AVIF Image Format in Search
AVIF images can significantly reduce file sizes and improve your Core Web Vitals - particularly the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) metric.
Google has supported the WebP format for a while now, and while AVIF and WebP offer good compression, AVIF often provides better quality at smaller sizes. WebP is preferred for lossless images where maintaining the highest quality is key, but for most web applications, AVIF will give you a performance edge.
If I take this photo and compress it to WebP, I can save around 63% - taking it from 1MB to 369kB. Compressing it to AVIF takes it to 288kB - a 71% saving. Resizing it to a width more appropriate for my website, and the savings are in the 90s.
Switching to AVIF can make your website faster, helping improve user experience and potentially leading to better rankings. Adopting AVIF could give your site a competitive advantage as web performance becomes increasingly critical.
Technical SEO
Word Count and Link Quantity Don’t Affect SEO
For years, Google has been saying that word count doesn’t directly influence rankings, and now they've doubled down by saying the same goes for links.
Mueller clarified that focusing on link or word count isn't useful. His advice was to write for your audience.
Even if Google did count links or words, I’d still recommend writing for your audience. I have yet to meet anyone who counts words before reading content.
While word count is useful for grading quality at scale, it all depends on the topic. If you can get across your point in fewer words, don’t add a load of fluff because you think Google will reward you: quality and relevance are more important than arbitrary numbers.
To hammer the point home, here’s a screenshot from Search Engine Roundtable of all of the times Google have said this before:
