---
title: "How often Google rewrites a title tag: 61.6% to 76%"
url: https://seomadman.com/studies/title-tag-rewrite-rate-study
section: studies
published: 2026-09-08T00:00:00.000Z
modified: 2026-09-08T00:00:00.000Z
author: Adam Hafez
topics: ["Technical SEO"]
---

# How often Google rewrites a title tag: 61.6% to 76%

## The short answer

Cyrus Shepard's 2022 study of 80,959 title tags found Google rewrote 61.6% of them. John McAlpin's Q1 2025 follow-up found a 76% rewrite rate. Shepard also found that when a title matches its H1, the rewrite rate drops to 20.6%, and titles over 70 characters get rewritten 99.9% of the time.

## Key takeaways

- Cyrus Shepard's 2022 Zyppy study of 80,959 title tags across 2,370 sites found Google rewrote 61.6% of them at least partially.
- John McAlpin's May 2025 Search Engine Land study, covering roughly 30,000 keywords in Q1 2025, found the rewrite rate had climbed to 76%.
- Shepard's study found that when a page's title tag matches its H1, the rewrite rate drops to 20.6%, far below the 61.6% baseline.
- Titles between 51 and 60 characters were changed only 39% to 42% of the time, the lowest rate Shepard measured; titles over 70 characters were rewritten 99.9% of the time.
- McAlpin's data shows brand-name removal accounts for 63% of rewrites, readability and clarity for 30%, with length adjustments a smaller factor.

Two researchers, three years apart, asked the same question with two different datasets: how often
does Google use a page's title tag as written, versus rewriting it for the results page. Cyrus
Shepard's 2022 study put the rate at 61.6%. John McAlpin's 2025 follow-up put it at 76%. Both
studies also isolated a specific, actionable lever: what a title tag matching its H1 does to the odds
of a rewrite.

## The overall rewrite rate rose from 61.6% to 76%

Shepard, an SEO consultant at Zyppy, examined 80,959 title tags across 2,370 sites in early 2022 and
found Google rewrote 61.6% of them at least partially, whether by trimming, reordering, appending a
brand name, or replacing the title outright with text pulled from the page. Search Engine Journal
covered the study on publication and it has been cited across the industry since.

McAlpin's study, published on Search Engine Land in May 2025, sampled roughly 30,000 keywords in the
top 20 results during Q1 2025 and found a 76% rewrite rate, close to a 25% relative increase from
Shepard's figure. McAlpin's data attributes the largest share of rewrites, 63%, to Google stripping
brand names, with readability and clarity changes accounting for another 30%. Neither study names a
single cause for the increase between 2022 and 2025; the two are independent measurements taken with
different tools and different keyword sets, not the same dataset checked twice.

## Matching the H1 cuts the rewrite rate to 20.6%

The more useful finding for anyone writing title tags sits inside Shepard's original data, not the
headline number. When a page's title tag says roughly the same thing as its H1, including cases with
elements Google commonly strips like pipe characters, the rewrite rate drops to 20.6%, a third of the
61.6% baseline. Shepard's study also isolated length as a factor independent of H1 alignment: titles
between 51 and 60 characters were rewritten only 39% to 42% of the time, the lowest rate in the
study, while titles over 70 characters were rewritten 99.9% of the time and titles of 1 to 5
characters were rewritten 96.6% of the time.

Neither finding is a guarantee. A title that matches its H1 and sits in the 51 to 60 character range
still gets rewritten roughly one time in five, on Shepard's numbers. What the data supports is a
lever, not a lock: title and H1 agreement, and a length that avoids Google's truncation point, both
measurably reduce the odds without eliminating them.

## Why we care

A rewrite rate above 60%, rising toward 76%, means most title tags you write are not the title tag
searchers actually see. That is a reason to write titles Google is less likely to touch, not a
reason to stop writing them carefully: the two factors both studies isolate, H1 alignment and
character length, are both things a site controls before publishing, unlike the query-dependent
snippet rewriting Google does to meta descriptions.

Check where a title actually truncates before publishing it. Our [SERP snippet preview](/tools/serp-snippet-preview/)
measures rendered pixel width rather than character count, since Google truncates by width and a
50-character title in a wide typeface can cut earlier than a 60-character title in a narrow one. It
will not tell you whether Google keeps your title intact, since neither this tool nor any study here
can see Google's rewriting model directly, but it removes length as a guessing game before you check
the one factor that is proven to matter more: whether the title agrees with the H1 underneath it.

## Frequently asked questions

### Who ran these studies, and are they independent of each other?

Cyrus Shepard, an SEO consultant at Zyppy, ran the first study in early 2022 on 80,959 title tags from 2,370 sites. John McAlpin ran the follow-up published on Search Engine Land in May 2025, on roughly 30,000 keywords sampled in Q1 2025. They are two separate researchers using two separate datasets three years apart, not one study cited twice.

### Does matching my title tag to my H1 guarantee Google keeps it?

No. Shepard's data shows the rewrite rate drops from 61.6% to 20.6% when title and H1 say roughly the same thing, which is a large reduction, not a guarantee. Google still rewrites about one in five matched titles.

### What length keeps a title tag safest from rewriting?

Shepard's study found 51 to 60 characters had the lowest rewrite rate he measured, 39% to 42%. Titles over 70 characters were rewritten 99.9% of the time, and titles of 1 to 5 characters were rewritten 96.6% of the time. Check the actual rendered width with a pixel-based preview rather than relying on character count alone.

### Why did the rewrite rate go up between 2022 and 2025?

Neither study states a cause. McAlpin's data shows brand-name removal is now the single largest reason for a rewrite, at 63% of changes, followed by readability and clarity fixes at 30%. Whether Google's rewriting model changed or the pages sampled differ is not something either study isolates.

## Sources

1. [Study: Google Rewrites Title Tags 61.6% of the Time](https://zyppy.com/seo/google-title-rewrite-study/) - Zyppy (primary)
2. [Google Changed 76% of Title Tags in Q1 2025, Here's What That Means](https://searchengineland.com/google-changed-76-of-title-tags-in-q1-2025-heres-what-that-means-454847) - Search Engine Land (primary)
3. [Google Changes More Than 61 Percent Of Title Tags](https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-changes-more-than-61-percent-of-title-tags/435618/) - Search Engine Journal