Short & Unique vs Long and Repetitive

WebmasterWorld's Title only has topic, mine has topic, biz name, biz description

[theChronic]

Hello,
I have been wondering about how I should change my <title> tag and my <description>. I am using a CMS for my site and its system is to have the title like this: Article Topic :: Website Name :: Website description. This puts the website name and the website description in every single page and they are the exact same obviously. Then it also has the meta tag with the website description for every page (it is the exact same description for each page).

Is it better to just have the pages title in the title? What do you think about having the same description on every single page and in every single title?

I have noticed a lot of other sites that rank high (such as Webmaster World) don't do this. There is only the page title and there is no description for each page. It gives the page title a more short and sweet/unique sense.

Any thoughts on what I should do here/what is best for SE placement?

Please ask for any clarification since I can't give URL of page!

Thanks,
John

[webboy1]

Titles and meta information (all though there is some argument to the importance of the second in rankings) are part of the basics that I would advise all sites MUST have right if they want to start climbing up the rankings.

To many sites these days don't have these correct for one reason or another ... usually bad advise from a dodgy SEO company :-)

Anyway, it is good SEO practice to keep your title and meta information relevant and consistent to the content of the page they are on.

So, if you have a page on your site about "orange juice" (an example, simply because I have a glass in front of me just now!), your title would be something link "Orange juice from YourCompany" - this can obviously vary quite widely, but the point is that you shouldn't clutter it with your website name, URL etc. Keep it relevant to the page.

Your meta information should follow this pattern.

I would advise doing this for all pages on your web site.

A lot of CMS systems only allow one set of meta information which will then be used on all pages. This isn't good practice.

So, the message ... keep everything relevant and consistent to the page you are working on. If the page is about Oranges, don't fill your meta and title info with info about pears.

Hope this helps.