Any disadvantages to putting your site's name in the title?

Better to OR not?

[hulahoop]

Hello,

Most sites do not put their name on the title.
Is there any disadvantages in putting it like this:
<title>Company XYZ - Widgets and more</title>

Most site pack it with their keywords but I find that customers don't really 'know' you in the end and won't remember you.

So does putting your name in the title 'take off' anything from your search optimization efforts?

[tomda]

I personnally think it is good to do it however I'd rather reorder the title content.

<title>Widgets and more - Company XYZ</title>

Better for SEO and for your viewer.

I am not aware of any disadvantages.

[chrisgarrett]

I don't think customers actually take that much notice of the title outside of "does this reflect what I was looking for". I would say the snippet has as much if not more impact on wether they will click. Adding the company/site name into the title will probably just dilute your SEO efforts and not add that much branding wise?

My 2p :O)

[hulahoop]

I noticed that most of the titles that appear on Search Engines like Google only shows the first 60+ letters. My title is pretty long so if I put my sites name behind, it will not be seen.

What I was trying to acheive is to get customers to notice the name. This is to acheive recognition and branding.

However I want to be absolutely sure it doesn't hurt or take away from my SEO efforts.

Also, can someone explain to me how search engines rate and value the title bar?

[chrisgarrett]

As far as I understand it more weight is given to words nearer the start, so the further to the right the less impact it has but also the more unnecessary words you have may dilute the overall affect (keyword density)

[jimbeetle]

Adding the company/site name into the title will probably just dilute your SEO efforts and not add that much branding wise?

I have to take the other tack. Since many folks searching for one term will also search for other related things for which my site will pop up, I think...

"This Is What You Searched For -- My Brand Here"

...repeatedly appearing in the top five or six adds some authority and a bit more legitimacy. If nothing else it helps break out from the clutter and differentiates it a bit from the...

"Your Search Term Search Your Term More Search Term"

..gobbledygook that make some SERPs so hard to read.

Besides being formatted for the SEs and pure SEO purposes, a good title should help you get the searcher's click.

[Michael Weir]

Depends on the business. Some companies like to try and brand their name and therefore have the company name in the title. Unless it's a huge corporation interested in being known by their name I say don't bother - titles need to be short and to the point so why waste the space?

Besides, web users are more interested in seeing the words they are searching for in the SERPS, not company names.

[sunzon]

I reckon it's a good idea.

Once in serps, you stand out, maybe even get that authority level mentioned (direct to the company making them) or a recognition level (seen that company before for "widgets", let's take a look).

For ranking, there is maybe a minor cost, as far as I can see only to the extent the company name appears in the first letters of the title as opposed to later letters in the title (because the whole idea loses effect if it's not leading the title words -- the visitor doesn't need to see "widgets" overemphazised again because that's what they searched for, and there is a description to look at.......). Undoubtedly keywords in title are important, but I don't think the weight of being in the first letters or not counts for all that much, and I don't think that the company name need weigh downwards the overall keyword density that determines your ranking.

My 2c.

[maximillianos]

I try to always put my site name first in the title. Good for branding and good for standing out against spammy sites.

[chrisgarrett]

There are three factors that you need to order by your own sense of priority
- click through (what will get the max people to click, some sort of call to action, benefit, etc)
- brand (what will make you memorable)
- rank (what will get you on page 1 of serps)

Only you can decide how you want to dial up or down on the three factors. Remember your domain name will help with the branding and your company name may not hurt your rankings (maybe get more good anchor text links if it does).

[PCInk]

Think about if people bookmark your page. The title having a company name, would have the company name in the default bookmark name.

[hulahoop]

I am now more sold out to have my company name in the title. However I would like to have it in front rather than at the back. Any problem or will it search from front to back?

Also does anyone really know for sure how search engines really work when it comes to title?

[CanadianChris]

Well the title is the first bit of content that's ready by the search engines about your page. So if your site's title has good keywords, then yes go ahead.

Ex - the site I'm in the middle of setting up has 3 keywords in it's url, but 2 of them are very specific to the site, so I put the site name in the title before the actual name of the page.

<title>sitename - keyword title goes here</title>

Since the first few words are extremely important, I find this does help a little bit.

However if my site name didn't have any keywords in it, then I would probably include it but put it after the page title.

<title>keyword title goes here - sitename</title>

[HughMungus]

Personally, I think it's good because when I look at search results and I see the link text, I can see both the source and the page title in one line (instead of having to look down to see what website it's on). I don't understand why you wouldn't want it on there (except for SEO purposes).