Google showing different title in the snippet than what`s on the page

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Micah Fisher-Kirshner: Yeah, that can happen if you`re accidentally cloaking (it happens), or if your title is so bad Google decides to choose their own.
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  Alan Bleiweiss: I`ve also seen Google stick in descriptions that are entirely junk code, and not actual words.
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  Alan Bleiweiss: Countless times. The algorithm does attempt to formulaically identify a page`s topical focus, and match the title to it. And when that breaks down, will often change the title to something determined to be more accurate to the searcher`s intent.
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  Neil Cheesman: Have you gone to search console and re-crawled and re-submitted the offending url?
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  Alan Bleiweiss: This is how insane it can get sometimes with description injection. The whole system is randomly helpful and equally chaotic at other times.
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  Webado C Webada: If the page title does not reflect the searcher`s query a new one by Google will be displayed in search results. As for descriptions, the first 120 characters (or so) of text from the page will be used in the absence of a proper description meta tag or when it better matches the searcher`s query. If you see code, it means your markup is broken. Perhaps you have parsable javascript code BEFORE the title and meta tags.
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  Neil Cheesman: Not sure if the domain I see ranked in Google... but searching for "Facelift Surgery in San Francisco - Laser Assisted Facial Surgery" I see exactly that.... IF it is that website then it could be a caching issue on the site IF the title was changed..
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  Arsen Rabinovich: I need to look into the cloaking thing, but the new title is super relevant to the page, actually more relevant than what it was before. G is showing the old title tag vs the new one, fetch and render as well as cache show the new one.
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  Neil Cheesman: "actually more relevant than what it was before" This suggests that the title you used may not have been the most appropriate option...
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  Webado C Webada: I see 2 identical title tags on the homepage. Both are the one you said you have and that`s how Google indexed it also.
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  Neil Cheesman: AND... I do see Two identical title tags on that url...
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  Neil Cheesman: what is your H1 on the page? and H2s?
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  Arsen Rabinovich: Yes, their dev is getting slapped on wrists for that right now.
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  Arsen Rabinovich: Neil is on to something, the site is on a host where the cache needs to be cleared when you make changes. Just purged it, we`ll see what happens.
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  Webado C Webada: All caches need to be flushed whenever changes are made to the site.
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  Neil Cheesman: autoptimize/caching - depends what it is set at....
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  Bill Hartzer: Yep they usually get it from your navigation items or your breadcrumbs. Been like this since 2010 at least.
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  Neil Cheesman: My guess is... that maybe the theme has a title tag.. as does Yoast and the two are being used somehow...