Title Tag

Why it matters

The title tag is the text in the browser tab and the blue headline in search results. It is the first thing Google and a potential visitor reads. Its contents affect click-through rate, and getting it wrong — missing, duplicated, or truncated — is one of the most common and most fixable SEO problems on the web.

When a title is missing, Google writes its own. The substitute usually pulls from on-page text, Open Graph tags, or anchor text from other pages linking to you. None of those are optimised for search intent, and none are under your control.

Duplicate titles across multiple pages create a different problem. Google sees two pages competing for the same query and must choose one to surface. Often it picks the wrong one, or divides ranking signals between them, weakening both. Title length matters too. Google truncates at roughly 60 characters in most interfaces. A title cut off mid-phrase looks broken and wastes the impression.

How we check it

Coffeepot loads each page in a real browser. JavaScript executes before we read the DOM, so client-side frameworks that set titles dynamically — React, Next.js, Nuxt — are checked accurately against the rendered output, not the raw server HTML.

We store the exact value. If it changes between crawls, we record the old and new values and include both in the alert email.

What to watch for

Unexpected title changes are often caused by CMS updates, A/B tests, or theme rollouts that affect page templates. If a title disappears entirely, treat it as urgent. Check your template rendering logic before the next crawl cycle.