Writing page titles in multiple languages is generally not recommended. However, Google now has a way to handle them when they’re encountered.
An algorithm update is rolling out that specifically targets multilingual page titles.
Here’s what’s changing and how it will impact search results.
Google Multilingual Title Algorithm Update
Google’s algorithm update is designed to identify pages where the title contains a different language from the main content, and handle them in a different way than it did before.
Rather than displaying the page title in search results as it’s written, Google will rewrite it in the language that’s used in the main content.
That means you can 100% expect to have your page titles rewritten if they contain more than one language or script.
As Google states in a blog post, this change is based on the best practice of keeping language consistent throughout a document:
“This week, we introduced an algorithmic improvement that identifies documents where the title element is written in a different language or script from its content, and chooses a title that is similar to the language and script of the document. This is based on the general principle that a document’s title should be written by the language or script of its primary contents. It’s one of the reasons where we might go beyond title elements for web result titles.”
This update also applies to transliterated titles, which is when content is written from one language into a different language that uses a different script or alphabet.
Although the title contains only one language, it will be rewritten if it’s not the same as the one used in the main content.
Google gives an example of a page title for a song written in Hindi but transliterated to use Latin characters rather than Hindi’s native Devanagari:
Image Credit: Screenshot from developers.google.com/search/blog, June 2022.It’s best to use a title that matches the language and/or the script of a page’s main content.
Source: Google
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