Word order in title tag

Is the order of words in the title tag important?

[leylie]

I know the title tag is important to search engines BUT are words just important or is it the order of the words.

For example would "BBC Online - women's health" be less effective than "Women's health - BBC Online".

If anyone knows please Email me
Anne Smith

[NFFC]

Hi leylie welcome to WebmasterWorld,

The simple answer is "Women's health - Your Domain" is best, having said that one of the key's to long standing and overall success in the search engines is variety. Assuming you have multiple pages to work with have the keyword at position 1 in the majority of cases and then add some variety.

For example:

Your Domain the indispensable guide to women's health issues

A guide to women's health from Your Domain

Women's Health

etc etc

>If anyone knows please Email me

You can set the forum up to notify you via email when someone posts a reply to a particular thread.

A final teaser, do searchers look for "women's health" or "womens health"?

The Keyword Discussion Forum is this way [webmasterworld.com]. ;)

[rencke]

Hello Anne and welcome to WebmasterWorld.

Word order does seem to be important in most search engines. Your first example would attain high ranking when "BBC online" is searched, but wouldn't do well for "women's health". The opposite is generally true for your second example.

[msgraph]

>Word order does seem to be important in most search engines.

Very true. Definitely with Altavista.

The search engines where I have seen word order not really count much is FAST and Inktomi.

You could have a title like...

BBC Health - Women's Online

..and get listed under the search ...

women's health

BUT...just because this happens from time to time doesn't mean it will always happen.

[GWJ]

>For example: Your Domain the indispensable guide to women's health issues.

Naive question, I was always told it was a "bad" thing to list your domain name in the title? Is this a falsehood?

TIA,

Brian

[msgraph]

If your domain has your targeted keywords it is good. I placed many domains in parts of the title and had some good results. All the domains had dashes between the keywords so that helped quite a bit too.

[GWJ]

Thanks all.

[gmiller]

It's also important to have the specific things first from a user perspective. The beginning of the title is what will appear in task bar buttons and in the bookmark menu. If the domain comes first, it can be hard to find the page you want in a list.

[tedster]

As an aside, I am amazed at the number of sites who have this kind of

T I T L E F O R T H E I R P A G E

What on earth are they thinking? This is clearly a case of the contageous cutsies in the designer community.

[ihelpyou]

Along the lines of this thread:

Keyword phrase at start of title is important.

Here is a great way to have a different title for a "bookmark" other than your title tag. It has worked extremely well for me. Notice that you can specify any page you want to be bookmarked and you can write anything you wish for the title. It creates a bookmark link. You can also label the link with any words you wish. It will tell a netscape browser to just hit ctrl-D when viewing.
=========

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!--
if ((navigator.appName == "Microsoft Internet Explorer") && (parseInt(navigator.appVersion) >= 4)) {

var url="http://www.webmasterworld.com";
var title="WebMasterWorld.com - Free advice from the best of the best!";

document.write('<A HREF="javascript:window.ext');
document.write('ernal.AddFavorite(url,title);" ');
document.write('onMouseOver=" window.status=');
document.write("'Add our site to your favorites!'; return true ");
document.write('"onMouseOut=" window.status=');
document.write("' '; return true ");
document.write('">Bookmark</a>');
}
else {
var msg = "Bookmark";
if(navigator.appName == "Netscape") msg += " (CTRL-D)";
document.write(msg);
}

// -->
</script>

Edited by: ihelpyou

<edit: disable smilie -rcj>

Edited by: rcjordan

[tedster]

Thanks for the code, ihu. It could sure come in handy when the title is good for the search engines but less than helpful in the bookmarks/favorites file.

However, I don't really follow all the code. Is it complete and accurate as posted?

[ihelpyou]

yes tedster,

Bookmark... is the text that shows up as a link. (you can change it to what you want)

The smiley faces ( :) ) in the code should be replaced with this character:

)

That one.

You put the code exactly where you wish your link to be on the page.

[ihelpyou]

oh, forgot, the code is good as is as long as you wish your visitors to bookmark WebMasterWorld.com on your site instead of letting them bookmark your site. :)

Have to change the domains.... though I'm sure, Brett would not mind.

<added>If you notice, whatever page your link is on, you can change the bookmarked Url to match the page, or you can just make every link on every page be a bookmark for your front page. Anything you wish to do.

You would not believe how many people will click a link that says "Bookmark" just to find out what it does. When they do, it immediately brings up the little favorites file thingy that they usually just click "okay" on. Then you are bookmarked. Lots easier for visitors to do that than click on their favorites file thing.</added>