Importance of <TITLE> in results?

Let's analyze <TITLE>

[sandalwood]

Well everybody in here pay a lot of attention on PR. Yes, PR is important, backlinks too, but i have noticed that G has design a nice algo that calculates everything, and a very important part of it is <TITLE>. I guess(maybe wrong) that G "makes" a calculation of all the above and then depented on the search keywords it gives a result. But how much attention does G pay on <TITLE>? I think alot.
Let's analyze it....

1.Number of keywords
2.Position of keywords
3."in","and","to" and other common words in <TITLE>
4.Length of <TITLE>
5....?
Well, <TITLE> really deserves to pay some attention to...

[jdMorgan]

sandalwood,

You're right. I'm off to dinner, but I thought you might like to read this thread [webmasterworld.com] about the importance of various on-page elements.

Jim

[sandalwood]

Thanx jdMorgan,

but in that thread i think there are some thing that i don't agree.
First of all:

I don't think domain name pay any importance in G. And if it does then G can't seperate words(eg. cheapcars.com). Maybe it would be better a cheap-cars.com domain. But G doesn't pay so attention on domain as G also looks the IP of every domain.

I have also noticed really "huge" titles get a really good position and also titles that repeat keywords 2 or 3 times, and G haven't banned them!
So i think <TITLE> thing, is more and more and more complicated and not so simple to give it a 9 or 10 points....

[rfgdxm1]

Keyword stuffed titles seem to work for Google. It is quite obvious Google gives weight to the title. Makes some sense, as what is in the title should reflect the content of the page.

[joeuz]

sandalwood,

I think you are mistaken about the importance of domain names. Experiment a bit and you will see that they are important especially if they exactly match your keyword. So if you are searching for widget, then you will find widget.com quite high in the rankings (assuming it is a descent website) and it will appear before other websites that have higher PR. You can even find widgetsite.com (combination of keyword + other word not separated by hyphen).

Joe

[incywincy]

imho optimising the title for the user is of higher importance than optimising it for google. of course you need to get your site listed as high as possible but i'd prefer to be number 2 or 3 with an appealing title than a number 1 with a title stuffed with keywords. remember that the user views the serps and makes a decision based on the listings shown (title + body fragments) and their applicabilty to their perceived problem (as opposed to their search terms)

i guess the skill is to stuff keywords into a title that is enticing the user to click

[digitalghost]

>>Keyword stuffed titles seem to work for Google

So do short focused titles. In fact, the word "stuffed" seems to indicate extremes, like abundant, awash, brimming, crowded, jammed, full, replete or loaded, not to mention that titles show up in the SERPs and a cheap title will reflect that cheap choice.

Since the goal is traffic that converts to sales, put some thought into the title, write something people want to click on. Forget about "stuffing" and think about "selling".

[vitaplease]

think of how Google likes your ad-titles

Would they accept your webpage's title as ad-title?

Widgets: Best blue WIDGET info for cheap Widgets!

[sandalwood]

I still believe the same thing. G doesn't pay any attention to domain. Maybe a very-very little percent. The position of the keyword in <TITLE> says to G how important is. The question is what's going to be the position of common words in <TITLE>, and what's the right sequence of use in it?

[dimok]

The close thing: what to do if site covers lots of themes? If I cannot choose the one keyword to place it alone in TITLE?

My though about TITLE tag: if i'm not mistaken, there is a trend not to put keywords in TITLE. If I search "job" in Google 4 of 10 results do not have "job" in TITLE :)
Just an assumption...

[sandalwood]

<TITLE> should contain keywords of the current page.The same for "description" and "keywords" meta tags. As i have noticed, if you have alot of keywords in <TITLE> like "buy","rent","free" then G gives a <b>lower</b> important value to each of them.

[dimok]

<TITLE> should contain keywords of the current page

So, can you explain, why 4 of 10 pages in first 10 results in Google do not have the keyword in TITLE?

KEYWORDS tag is not important for most SEs for now. DESCRIPTION tag also have no effect on rank, but it's used for displaying site description in results page.

[sandalwood]

Maybe your backlinks have the "keywords"....