potentialgeek - 6:37 am on Aug 24, 2008 (gmt 0)

Get it right the first time is more important now that ever. I'd prefer to delete a page and use a redirect or just create a new page at a new address than tamper with existing titles.

The issue for Google may not be word order as much as the fact titles were changed. Last year I changed the titles across an entire site of over 1,000 pages. It has since rebounded but was in the 950 tank for months. (May or may not be related to title changes.) The pages unaffected had very solid and very many internal links.

Google once had a problem with overoptimization. Now it looks sometimes as if it just has a problem with optimization. The best time to optimize is at the time of original creation. Do it once. Do it right.

p/g