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Google rewrites homepage title as “Brand: Keyword” - should I remove the brand from the title tag?

Question about title tag rewriting for a local service business homepage.

Let’s say the homepage is targeting a main non-branded commercial query like:

[Service] [City]

The HTML title is currently structured like this:

[Service] [City] - Premium [Business Type] | [Brand Name]

But Google often rewrites it in the SERP as:

[Brand Name]: [Service] [City] - Premium [Business Type]

My concern is that the main target query no longer appears first in the displayed SERP title, even though it is first in the actual HTML title tag.

For a local service homepage where the main SEO target is the non-branded commercial query, would you:

  1. Keep the brand at the end of the title tag [Service] [City] - Premium [Business Type] | [Brand Name]
  2. Remove the brand from the title tag entirely [Service] [City] - Premium [Business Type]
  3. Use a different format to reduce the chance of Google moving the brand to the front?

The brand is already clear from the site name, structured data, Google Business Profile, and domain. So I’m wondering whether repeating it in the title tag is unnecessary or possibly contributing to the rewrite.

Has anyone tested removing the brand from homepage title tags for local SEO pages? Did it help keep the commercial query closer to the front in SERPs, or did Google still prepend the brand anyway?

submitted by /u/MargaritaMars
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from Search Engine Optimization: The Latest SEO News https://ift.tt/RoS0Jlv
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