Audit titles and meta descriptions

Titles and descriptions are the only part of a page a searcher sees before clicking, and they are usually written before anyone knew what the page would rank for. Search Console tells you what it ranks for now. This playbook lines the two up.

Sequel supplies the query data. Reading the live titles uses your own browsing.

Steps

1. Pull the top pages and their queries. google_search_console.query with dimensions: ["page"], 28 days ending 3 days ago, rowLimit: 200, then with dimensions: ["query", "page"], rowLimit: 5000. For each page keep its top five queries by impressions.

2. Fetch each top page's head. Take the top 50 pages by impressions (state the number). Fetch each and extract the title, the meta description, the first H1, and og:title. Use sequel_workbench to loop if you can execute code.

3. Run the checks per page.

   • Missing title or description.
   • Title or description duplicated across two or more pages (templates cause this).
   • Title over 60 characters or description over 155, which is roughly where Google truncates.
   • Title that starts with the brand name, pushing the topic out of view.
   • Title that contains none of the words from the page's top query.
   • Description that does not answer or mention the top query.
   • H1 that targets a different intent than the title.

4. Prioritise by clicks at stake. Weight each finding by the page's impressions. Then compare the page's CTR to the site's median CTR at its rounded position (the method in ctr-underperformers); a page with a metadata finding and below-median CTR goes to the top.

5. Report. A table sorted by impressions: page, top query, current title, current description, findings. Then rewrites for the top ten: a title under 60 characters that leads with the topic and includes the top query's words naturally, and a description under 155 that answers the query's intent. Show the current and proposed side by side.

Gotchas

• Google rewrites titles it does not like, often when the title is stuffed, too long or duplicated. A clean, specific title is the best defence; do not respond to rewriting by stuffing harder.
• Templates produce duplicates by design. A pattern like "Product | Brand" across a catalogue needs the template fixed, not each page.
• Character counts are a proxy for pixel width. Wide letters truncate sooner. Treat 60 and 155 as guidance.
• Titles rendered by JavaScript may not be in the fetched HTML. If the title element is empty in the source but present in the browser, say so; Google can render it, but it is slower and riskier.
• Search Console lags 2 to 3 days. End the window 3 days back.