Why is there a different website title or meta description displayed in search results?
The settings that you take care of on your website, like the website title or the page description, are merely guidelines for Google. Google takes the liberty to change these according to the search query. If Google determines that another text on your website suits a specific search request better than the text that you chose, then a different text from your home page might appear here.
Which texts are finally displayed is up to Google in the end. The goal is to make your search result match the search query better and more likely to be clicked.
Why can't my website be found on Google?
If you're unable to find your website using Google search, you should first check if your website has been indexed by Google - meaning, whether it is known by Google at all. This is the base requirement for the website to be discoverable using Google search. Type the following into Google search:
site:yourdomain.xx
(swap yourdomain.xx for your own domain)
No entry available
If there are no listings for your website, then Google hasn't indexed your website yet. In that case, you should connect your website to Google Search Console. We explain how this is done here:
Please note that it will still take a few days or even weeks until your website is indexed by Google.
Your website is listed
If you can see your website in Google using the method noted above, but you cannot find your website when searching with specific queries (keywords), then your website is not optimized accordingly yet. The optimization process is called SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and ensures that your website can be found using the preferred search terms.
In the second part of our SEO tutorial we explain how to optimize your website so that it can be found using the desired search queries:
Why am I finding outdated listings for my website in Google search?
If you're making changes to your website, then these are not immediately visible in Google search. The reason for that is that Google only crawls websites in irregular intervals - meaning it only checks for changes every once in a while. Thus, changes on your website are only known to Google once your website is crawled again.
The exact time when this is done is set by Google. You can actively notify Google if a change has happened and accelerate this process. We explain how to do it here:
How do I make sure that my images can be found on Google?
Certain optimizations need to be taken care of so that your images can be found using Google image search. It's important to note that Google is a text based search engine. This means that Google is incredibly good at analyzing text and recognizing context. But on the other hand, Google cannot analyze image content equally well.
The proper optimization of your images is depending on the following texts that are related to your images.
Alternative text for images
Add alternative text to your images. You can find more detailed tips in part three of our SEO tutorial:
Image captions
Moreover, you can add captions to your images. On your website, these captions are displayed right next to the respective image. Image captions can be added to most blocks that contain images by clicking the eye icon (show elements). Within that text, place a keyword that should be used to find your image.
Surrounding text
Thematically, the surrounding text that is near your image should orient to the image, so that Google can see the connection between image and text and recognize the relevance.
You can find more tips on the topic within Google's own help center:
Why does Google display several pages at once for some websites?
For specific websites, Google displays multiple pages underneath the home page within search results. These are expanded sitelinks. In general, Google decides whether expanded sitelinks are shown with a search result. If your website fulfills certain criteria, the probability of it benefitting from expanded sitelinks is higher. These criteria are rather vaguely formulated by Google.
For instance, it's a deciding factor that your website ranks at the very top for the keyword for which it appears. Furthermore, it is important that the displayed pages of your website are also relevant for the search query. Google provides a few tips on the following page: