jtara - 9:05 pm on Dec 10, 2007 (gmt 0)

The title bar contents appear next to the minimized icon in most operating systems and window managers. And, if not, it at least appears as a tooltip or 'balloon' when hovering over it.

Putting your site name in the titlebar, then, will help your users find and manage minimized windows.

WebmasterWorld doesn't do it. So, right now, next to the icon in the Windows Task Bar it says "post message" Acces...". OK, post message WHERE?

Depending on your site, it may make sense to either put the site name or the page name first, as there usually isn't enough room for both in the Task Bar (or equivalent in other OSs).

If users are likely to have a lot of your windows open, you might put the page title first, and of course it may elicit the "where" question I previously cited. But if they are going to have a bunch of pages open on your site, they probably already know "where".

If users are more likely to have one of your pages open, as well as other sites, then put the site name first. (Which is more conventional, as well.)

And, of course, a tabbed interface throws a monkey-wrench in the works. But, again, the same titles appear on the tabs in that case.

Once again, I see SERPs dragging webmasters around like they have a ring in their nose. Don't worry about SERPs. Good content will take care of them. Worry about making things easy for your users, so that they come back again and again.

Of course, something as subtle as page titles is almost subliminal. It's a small tweak. But I think it's the things that aren't so obvious, and make one site easier to use than another without being obvious that can make all the difference.