SERP Title shows up-with-dashes

[BWallacejr]

Occasionally I see the our 'listings' on Google where the Title line shows up with dashes... like

sony-professional-hard-drive - TapeandMedia.com

It appears to be the URL shortened and rehashed.  This example was after I searched for "Sony PSZ-HA1T"  without the quotes.  The title for this page is <title></span><span class="html-tag">Sony 1TB Professional Portable External Hard Disk Drive (PSZ-HA1T)</span><span class="html-tag"></title> and the url is http://www.tapeandmedia.com/sony-1tb-professional-portable-hard-drive.asp

Link to image: http://i.imgur.com/FmvAn6c.jpg

Other searches (like "Sony 1tb PSZ-HA1T") yield normal looking SERP Titles

Does anyone know why this happens and what I can do to avoid this?

FmvAn6c.jpg

[BradyDCallahan]

Ha, no worries. Somehow it happens all the time! Good luck in solving your SERP title issue!

[BWallacejr]

Ooops!  I'm very sorry about that Brady.

[BradyDCallahan]

Barry?

[Giovatto]

Looking at this again, It could also be due to the fact that part of the keyword searched for (PSZ-HA1T) appears at the very end of your title tag and would likely not show up in SERPs (due to your title tag being too long).

Try reworking it so this keyword would appear in the first ~512 pixels.

You can use this Moz tool to see a preview. http://outdoorsrank.com/blog/new-title-tag-guidelines-preview-tool

[BWallacejr]

Hi Giovatto - Thank you very much for the help.

[BWallacejr]

Hi Barry - Thank you very much for the help.

[metafser]

Got it now ! Many times i saw that kind discussion. Most of the optimizers said, Google re-writed it  for showing result on user. I think, Your keyword and your topics is vey close but your title tag is not good enough for that keyword. Thats why google re-write your title. Without it i have no experience with that kind of problem . I am also thinking that, is it conflicting with shema ? May be Its not good thinking. I am helpless

[Giovatto]

The most likely explanation of why your page's title was changed is because it doesn't mention your company/website at all. Google may have thought that the title was misleading and may cause searchers to think they are visiting a website that is official endorsed by Sony. Try adding some branding to the end of your title tags like Google did for you in the example. Something like "- Tape and Media" or " - TapeandMedia.com" to avoid that kind of confusion.

[BWallacejr]

Hi tafser,

Thanks for the response.  I tried the search on other computers and saw the same result. The title varies by what you search for.  If you don't mind, please try searching for:

Sony PSZ-HA1T

and let me know what you see.

[metafser]

I don`t see anything like your screenshot. Here is my screenshot, Check it out: http://prntscr.com/6iqfyx 
I think, its your cash problem. Clear your browser cash.

[BradyDCallahan]

In my experiences, any time there's a dash in the SERP title, it means Google re-wrote it to some extent. Whether they've shortened it, changed it to something completely unique, it always re-writes with a dash and not a colon, or some other separator.

What Google is essentially saying is, "we think this title better describes your page." The first obvious places to look are length and keyword placement/usage: if the title is too long, shorten it. If the main keywords in your title aren't prominently displayed on the page (H1, H2s, body copy, other internal pages using that anchor text, etc.) then I'd try and make those types of changes.

Don't go overboard with keyword stuffing or anything like that, of course. It's usually not too hard to get these changed back, just do a little digging, keyword research, and make some of the changes I've recommended. I bet you'll see the title change to what you've suggested after optimizing and another crawl or two.