Site Title Issue

You can check using site:findmytricks.com

If you need more details then let me know.

Hello!

I don’t think the database cleaning and the change in Google Search are correlated.

When you remove the site’s title from a meta title, TSF should warn you about its implications via the SEO Bar, as shown in the image below.

You can learn more about that here: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/title-link.

I quote:

Brand your titles concisely. […] Consider including just your site name at the beginning or end of each <title> element, separated from the rest of the text with a delimiter such as a hyphen, colon, or pipe.

Moz, an authority in SEO, explains that removing the brand name from the title is one of the main reasons Google will rewrite titles, according to their research: https://moz.com/learn/seo/title-tag.

Essentially, Google wants your site name in every title to eliminate confusion. Here are more details from another study: https://moz.com/blog/title-tags-seo.

Okay I understand. But I am using SEO Framework for a long time and all is working fine till I delete some database tables.

Are you sure it’s not from database – As I deleted everything manually using sql queries and manually one by one (not by using any plugin).

Hi Ajmer,

If you have a log of what queries you used to clear data, you should be able to cross-reference it with this: https://tsf.fyi/kb/data-stored-in-your-database/.

If you have the log, please feel free to share it with me for a second set of eyes here: https://tsf.fyi/contact.

If any data you modified/deleted matches those keys of TSF, then you may be onto something. But I do not think there’s a correlation, especially not if the front-facing metadata remained unaltered.

Edit: The below was an assumption, and I see your site doesn’t make use of TSF’s structured data but another plugin’s.

It might have to do with how TSF v5.0 sends out more information about your site via structured data (inspect it via https://validator.schema.org/), including the site name. It takes time for Google to process this data; perhaps they did so recently, learned the brand name from that, and altered the titles on the SERP.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by Sybre Waaijer.

Yes, I am using another plugin for structured data.

So, may be they are causing this issue. ( According to you)

This will be resolved automatically in future? (when crawled again)

I have one more question – In the extensions I see a structured data extension… is that extension sufficient for every schema like how to, review, item list or collection, etc. If yes then I will purchase that and remove the other plugin.

Hi Ajmer!

Sorry, I didn’t see your follow-up.

I didn’t mean to imply there was a plugin conflict. If your optimizations touched TSF’s options, then there may be a correlation as to why Google displays your site differently. However, this can only be proven if there’s a log.

Moreover, since you do not use TSF’s structured data, the overhaul of TSF v5.0 couldn’t be a cause of this issue. So, my speculation on that was unfounded.

The title issue won’t be resolved automatically, but TSF’s behavior is as intended on your site and remained largely unchanged over the updates, and Google’s behavior is according to their documentation and expert SEO findings: Google will brand your titles if you do not.

Note that Google changes fast and often; they experiment constantly to combat spam on their search engines, to provide users with the best results, and to keep site owners happy. So, you may find the brand name disappearing on another device in the future, or your custom descriptions changing, etc. There’s nothing we can do about that.

About the structured data, the extensions do not cover all the types of data. To learn more about our approach to structured data, please see https://tsf.fyi/kb/structureddata. The gist is that you should only report structured data of what’s actually represented on the page visually.

I used this sql query for similar patterns – ” DELETE FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key LIKE ‘%plugin_name%’; “

I also used this in wp_posts and wp_options.

Otherwise I delete some metas manually one by one.

Can I export and share my database tables of wp_posts, wp_options and wp_postsmeta?

Or is there a way to recreate tables like by reinstalling the plugin?

Hi Ajmer,

At https://tsf.fyi/kb/data-stored-in-your-database/, you can learn which keys might have matched the %plugins_name%. If you could list the plugins you used the query for, we might be able to find the data affected.

If you hold a backup of your data from before and after the cleanup, you could use comparison software like Winmerge to see what data is removed. This way, we can trace the data deleted manually, too.

TSF repopulates only caches and the settings automatically when they’re gone. Everything else is auto-generated the moment a page is requested — TSF doesn’t store that generated data anywhere.

Thats a lot of work ??.

Okay one last question , can reinstalling the plugin helps? I mean if i reinstall the plugin, does it recreate the tables again?

Hi Ajmer,

Comparing data changes using tools usually takes a minute or two if you know what you’re looking for. But I still haven’t a clue what data may be affected by the queries.

During uninstallation, TSF only sets the options from “autoload” to “not autoload.”

During activation, TSF reverts that.

When you go to TSF’s settings page, there’s a “Reset Settings” button. That one resets the settings to their default values, but only those listed on that page. All post/term/user metadata from TSF are unaffected.