Google said it has added a new help document for the use valid page metadata and also added a new section to the title link help document with troubleshooting. These additions were made this morning, May 10, 2022.
New Troubleshooting Title Links
Google added a new section to the current title link help document – it is for troubleshooting common issues. The document says “here are the most common issues we see with title links in search results.”
The new content seems to be the “No clear main headline” of this troubleshooting section. Originally it was named “Avoid common issues with title elements” but Google renamed it to “Troubleshooting common issues” and added the “No clear main headline” section.
No clear main headline reads “When there’s more than one large, prominent headline, and it isn’t clear which text is the main headline for the page. For example, a page has two or more headlines that use the same styling or heading elements. If Google Search detects that there are multiple large, prominent headlines, it may use the first headline as the text for the title link. Consider ensuring that your main headline is distinctive from other text on a page and stands out as being the most prominent on the page (for example, using a larger font, putting the headline in the first visible h1 element on the page, etc).”
Here are those common issues (click to enlarge):
New Valid Page Metadata
In addition to the above change, Google also added a new help document for Using valid page metadata ensures that Google can process the HTML markup of your pages. Google tries to understand HTML even when it is invalid or inconsistent with the HTML standard, but errors in the markup can cause problems with your website in Google Search. For example, if you use an invalid element in the
, Google ignores any elements that appear after the invalid element.
Here is a screenshot of this page (click to enlarge):
Forum discussion at Twitter.