In an update to its search documentation, Google has expanded the list of sources it uses to generate title links in search results.
Google now includes the og:title meta tag as one of the elements it considers when automatically creating title links for web pages.
Screenshot from: developers.google.com/search/updates, August 2024.
Title links, which appear as clickable headlines for search results, give people a quick introduction to a webpage and how well it matches their search.
Google’s system for generating title links has long relied on various on-page elements. Adding og:title expands the list of criteria Google uses.
Understanding og:title
The og:title tag allows you to specify a title for your content that may differ from the traditional HTML title tag. This can be useful for optimizing how a page appears when shared on social networks or, now, in search results.
Og:title is part of the Open Graph protocol, a set of meta tags developed by Facebook that allows any page to become a rich object in social graphs.
While it’s used to control how content appears on social media platforms, Google’s inclusion of this tag in its title link sources indicates a broader use of Open Graph data.