Page Title Length & Keywords

Looking for Current Wisdom

[Go60Guy]

Last year there was a thread concerning length of the page title (character count) and keyword placement in the title, etc.

[webmasterworld.com...]

The consensus seemed to be that up to 68 characters is optimum, and that its preferable to place targeted keywords at the beginning. Also, there was discussion of repetition of keywords in the title.

Since that earlier thread, I see snippet type references to these factors scattered about in various threads, and I'm suggesting that its time again to get a cohesive understanding of current wisdom on this important element of SEO.

[pendanticist]

My point of view (as the owner of an academically oriented directory) regarding Title Tags [webmasterworld.com].

Secondarily, there is a link off of this thread which may be of some help.

Whatever information your thread produces, I ask you all to please keep in mind there are folks out here who play hell changing the Title of pages (we include in our directories) because we feel ethically bound to Title a page exactly as it is Titled.

Thanks.

Pendanticist.

[Robert Charlton]

Go60 - Here are two threads which contain many of the comments I'd make now.

[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]

I'm seeing that for PR4 and PR5 pages, Google and seems to be less dependent on title content than, say, Teoma or Inktomi. This isn't to say that titles aren't important on Google... they are. Also, note that, on Google, title word order and word proximity appear to be big factors.

[Go60Guy]

Thanks Robert. Very helpful.

[egomaniac]

Keep your title to 60 characters or less including spaces. After 60 characters, Google will cutoff the title when its displayed in the SERPs.

[rfgdxm1]

Don't repeat words in title, although remember singular and plural are different words to Google. Google does chop off after around 68 characters. Also, try to avoid a pure string of keywords that looks ridiculous to humans. If it totally turns of humans reading a SERP, this negates it coming up high on the list.

[Go60Guy]

I'm not so sure rfgdxm1. I seem to see keyword repetitions quite frequently in high ranking sites.

[vitaplease]

try setting up a title in google adwords.

[rfgdxm1]

>I'm not so sure rfgdxm1. I seem to see keyword repetitions quite frequently in high ranking sites.

But would they do just as well without the repetition? Odds are any site with such a title also is using a lot of other SEO tactics to rank high.

[Robert Charlton]

Don't repeat words in title

The second thread I mentioned above (344.htm) is about keyword repetition in titles. Possibly worth looking at.... The question I posed in my post never got answered....

In the past, my tendency has been not to repeat the keywords... there used to be a rule of thumb to use a keyword once only in the title... but I see so many sites repeating words and ranking well that I'm wondering...

- Does an exact phrase match outweigh the risk of a repetition penalty?

- And is there a repetition penalty at all... or might there even be a boost for using the keyword twice?

[Go60Guy]

Good question Robert. Anyone have an answer?

[John_Caius]

I think rfgdxm1's point was that it's all very well turning up position 3 instead of position 10, but that's negated if your title looks so spammy that no-one will click on it.

That's not to say necessarily that you shouldn't repeat a keyword, but IMHO:

Widgets Inc. - supplier of blue widgets to the widget men

is better than

blue widget widgets red widgets widget red blue

(obviously)

:)

[matkat]

I changed the title on a site 3 months ago. It now has the main keyword repeated so that, as in the widget example, it makes sense for 2 phrases. It moved up from 2 to 9 positions (it's around #1 - 5 for the keyword phrases). The index page is PR5 and all the other SEO work has been done. A second page also was retitled without repeating and it jumped from nowhere to #5. I have obviously seen movement based on the title (as long as everything is optimised). I have a few competitors that have repeating titles that don't make sense and are still up there. From my experience it doesn't appear there is a penalty.
<edit>One more piece of the puzzle. If I search for a 2 word keyword phrase I'm at #1. If I add the state to the beginning It's #4. If I search with the state at the end it's #1. In the title the state is after the phrase and the company name contains the keyword phrase.</edit>

[annej]

matkat,

You inspired me to try it. I put in two phrases that make good sense in my title. I'm at #11 on my top single keyword and would sure love to get on that first page.

How long did it take you to see the difference in the serps?

What I am wondering is if I will lose a bit because the title will no longer fit the anchor text for most the inbound links. The first phrase is still that anchor text though.

[matkat]

On G freshbot pushed it up fairly quickly (days) but it would move up and down and didn't stabilize until the update to the index. I also moved up in the directory for the DMOZ category about 5 spots after the update.