Quality Title Tag

[Vibes63]

Is this feature very important in in a site's development? How much does it does SE optimization?

[ihelpyou]

Welcome! :hi:

Of course it is. When you do a search on Google or any search engine, what is the first thing you see when a page is in the search results?

[spectregunner]

But don't get carried away. the title should accurately describe the content of the site -- and should not be an advertising platform.

Good: Acme Tool & Die

Bad: Acme Tool & Die, world's largest supplier of roadrunner entrapment devices for use by Wyle Coyotes in search of Roadrunner. Ranked number one among discerning Coyote buyers. Open on weekends. Call Acme Tool & Dies now for great Roadrunner entrapment devices. Ask about the Acme Tool & Die Internet specials and much, much, more.


At least one fourth of all the site titles I see contain a blatant sales pitch. Not wise.

[Connie]

I have to respectfully disagree with spectregunner. The title should accurately describe the content of the page not the site. Spectregunner knows that. Each page should have a unique title.

Spectregunner is right with his example of a good title vs a bad title. IMHO a title should be around 80 characters. It should be compelling. It should be unique for each page of your site. I wrote about Compelling Titles (http://www.spam-whackers.com/blog/2007/10/06/write-compelling-titles/) a few weeks ago. You might or might not find the article helpful.

As Doug pointed out Titles are important for a lot of reasons.

[g1smd]

Each page needs a unique title tag that reflects the content of that particular page.

Aim for about five to eight words I suppose.

[ninjasakanto]

which is better?? short or long title tags??

[ihelpyou]

Whatever you think is good for your targeted phrases and for your visitors. :)

[g1smd]

Some five to eight words is usually all you need.

[Australianfranchises]

Your title should contain 65 characters, till 65 characters SE's will go through it, more than that it won't works,
But as per Connie said you could have about 80 characters,
Always place targeted keyword in start of title,
Make Title descriptive and try to reduce use of separator, however "hyphen" would be the best choice.
And Title tag is the most important tag in SEO.

[Sambit]

Your title should contain 65 characters, till 65 characters SE's will go through it, more than that it won't works

WRONG

The characters in the Title that you are talking are shown in the SERP for Google. For Yahoo, MSN and others, it is different.

If you have more than 65 characters in Title Tag, then Google is going to show upto 65 characters in the SERP, others will not show.

Similarly for others.

[Blue]

Other than going beyond, in number of characters any SE will use, or, abusing the numbers of characters you use, the actual number of characters you use is only of minor importance.

That type of thinking is both not common sense and falling into the "build a site for search engines" mentality.

Think of it this way...

How many search engines are going to buy your product or service?

You should forget about, other than common sense and knowing the SE's guidelines, building a site with search engines in mind. Instead, build it for your real visitors - humans.

So what if you have a few characters more or less than any given "exact number of characters?" That's not important.

What is important is that the title tag for each page be an accurate description of only that pages' content, and that it is unique from all other pages in your site. If it also entices searchers to click your page in any given SERP, all the better.

[Australianfranchises]

Hey Thanks Sambit,
Will you please let me know as per yahoo and msn how many characters can be used in title?
And another question, are you optimizing website for Yahoo and MSN ?

WRONG

The characters in the Title that you are talking are shown in the SERP for Google. For Yahoo, MSN and others, it is different.

If you have more than 65 characters in Title Tag, then Google is going to show upto 65 characters in the SERP, others will not show.

Similarly for others.

[Sambit]

Will you please let me know as per yahoo and msn how many characters can be used in title?

Ask Yahoo and MSN for the perfect answer. Because noone can tell you the exact number. Like I can say "Yahoo & MSN shows upto 70 characters"

And another question, are you optimizing website for Yahoo and MSN ?

I optimize site for Human Visitors.

[lovekissing]

Is this feature very important in in a site's development? How much does it does SE optimization?

these really helps... these attarcts spiders :together:

[lovekissing]

:3:

[nalds20]

Ok, I just wanna make this clear. The <title></title> html tags are NOT a meta tag or meta element. This is an element of the <head></head> section. I know this doesn't really matter to some people, but it gets rather annoying when people keep referring to the title tags as being a meta tag or a meta element, because its not! Below are some resource links if you wish to "concede" my rant here.

Can we stop the mis-information train from leaving the station or what?

</rant>


http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/global.html#h-7.4.2
http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_meta.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_element
http://htmlhelp.com/reference/html40/head/meta.html

REF: ssandecki in DP

[Blue]

That's correct.

We get that all the time in here. We're constantly fighting inaccurate information propagation.

It amazes me that so many can't see the importance of educating themselves.