Search
Every page has a title
seo.missing-title
Why this matters
The title is the blue clickable line in a Google result and the text in the browser tab. Without one, Google invents something from the page content — usually badly.
Who fixes it
You can, usually
Roughly how long
Minutes
Care needed
Low risk to change
How to fix it
Give every page a unique title of roughly 50–60 characters, leading with what the page is about.
On your platform
WordPress
WordPress on its own has nowhere to put this — the post title is the heading on the page, not the title in Google's results. It comes from an SEO plugin, and if you have none installed that is the first step: Yoast, Rank Math and SEOPress all add an editable search-result title to every page, previewed as Google would show it. If a title still comes out wrong afterwards, the plugin's sitewide title template is overriding the page.
Shopify
Open the product, page or collection and scroll to the search engine listing section at the bottom of the editor. The title there is what Google shows and it is separate from the product name. The home page is the exception and the one usually missed — its title lives under Online Store → Preferences.
Drupal
The Metatag module, which adds a Meta tags section to each content type and to each individual node. Set a pattern on the content type first so new pages inherit one, then override the few that need it.
Joomla
Built into Joomla, with no extension needed: the Browser Page Title field on an article's Page Display tab, or on the menu item. Where a page is reached through a menu item the menu item wins, so that is usually the one to edit.
How we score it
Failing this check takes up to 20 points off your search score. It is a fact about your site rather than a measurement, so it reads the same on every scan until you change something.
Does your site pass this one?
This check runs on every scan, along with the other 106. Free, no account, and you see the evidence for each result.
Check my siteOther search checks
- Canonical tags point somewhere validA canonical tag tells Google which address is the real one for a page. When it points somewhere wrong — another domain, a dead page, or the wrong protocol — Google follows it anyway, and the page you wanted indexed can be dropped in favour of one that does not exist.
- Content has been updated recentlySome content is meant to sit still, and age alone is not a fault. But prices, opening hours and staff pages that have not been touched in over a year are usually wrong by now — and a visitor who acts on the wrong opening hours does not come back to check whether the rest was right.
- Descriptions are a sensible lengthLong descriptions get truncated mid-sentence; very short ones waste the space you are given.
- Each page has exactly one title tagA page can only have one title. When there are several, the browser and Google each pick one — and they do not always pick the same one, so what you see in the tab may not be what appears in search.
- Each page has one main headingSeveral top-level headings makes the structure of the page ambiguous. Worth checking rather than urgent — modern HTML permits it, and Google handles it, but it usually signals that headings are being chosen for their size.
- Every page has a main headingThe h1 is the headline of the page. Without one, both visitors skimming and search engines parsing the page have nothing telling them what it is about.