Titles & Meta Descriptions

Titles longer than the maximum display length in SERPs are fine. If titles are too long, Google will show the parts which are relevant to the query.

Google will change titles, if they are too long, or include duplication, on a per query basis. It might be a sign that you should improve your titles.

If you hreflang a set of pages, and canonicalise to one version, Google may show the different URLs but all with the title and description of the canonical version. However John advises against this configuration.

Google looks at the entire title tag, but only displays a rewritten title in search results which they think is relevant and fits into the space.

You can change titles, descriptions, canonical, noindex etc, using JavaScript like Tag Manager, then Google will take this into account when they render the pages, although John says it is no ideal.

If someone copies content from your site, they might rank above you, for example when the original page is missing a good title tag and the copy provides more context.

You can use the same meta description on multiple pages, but Google is more likely to generate a snippet from the page’s content.

Google will rewrite title tags which are keyword stuffed, or are duplicated across a lot of pages, and also to make them appropriate for the device.

Google ignores the title attribute in anchor links, but does use alt tags for images inside a link.

It’s fine to use multiple H1, or any other H tags on a page. They can help Google to understand the structure of a page. The hierachy of H tags isn’t important.