Title Bar Question(s)

Key word packing, long company name, etc.

[Psmith0000]

I have some questions about title bars.

1. Could we get banned for packing keywords in title bars?

2. How many characters does Google "allow" or "read" on title bars? I an article by Brett that I found on this forum, he says titles should not be any longer than 50 characters. Somewhere else I read 80 characters. Our company name is a very long 30 characters.

How do we balance the need to be ranked in Google in a very competitive field, with not breaking any rules, not looking cheesey and following the advice of our SEO firm?

I got some advice from someone that I need to corroborate to take to my management to get our title bars changed, so your response is going to guide our direction.

Thank you for your guidance.

[korkus2000]

Titles should have keywords while making the main thing users see in SERPs look relevent. If it looks nonsensical then people are less likely to click from the engine than a well written title with the target keyphrase included.

You don't have to have the company name on the title of the pages throughout the site. This will not help anyone really. Your boss may make you, but it is not going to really help to have the company name there.

I don't know about the characters. Maybe someone else knows the exact figure. I try to stay under 50.

[rfgdxm1]

A quick check of a SERP shows Google index around up to 63 characters of a title, perhaps a few more than that. Putting this long company name in the title is a bad idea. The idea is to attract people who aren't familiar with the company.

[Psmith0000]

I'd like to use the title bar in a way that is consistent with what a title bar is supposed to be, yet still make it work for our company to help us get found in a crowded field. I am not sure that there are any hard and fast rules out there, and I'd like to hear what everyone else is doing.

And is it considered "sleazy" to leave out the company name on a title bar?

What about putting the company name after the keyword rich description of the page, i.e. "special blue widget manufacturing; The ABC Company"

Is there an expectation on the part of the user that the title bar will contain certain information in a certain format that changing it will cause confusion? If so, shouldn't we consider that? I don't want to design my pages with only SEO considered. But man, am I tired of not being listed!

[korkus2000]

The title bar should explain the content of the page. Usuers just want to see the title, which does not have to include the name of the company. You already have a logo I presume.

>>And is it considered "sleazy" to leave out the company name on a title bar?

I don't think so. Your not hiding the company on the page.

Why are you worried about the company name being in the title?

[Chris_1]

I was definitely interested in this thread based upon what a fellow web site (actually, a competitor, but, more of a friendly competitor) in my industry is doing. For sake of illustration, I have taken their title and posted it here, substituting different cities and states, as well as using a different industry. Here is the page title they are using:

<TITLE>St. Louis Commercial Roofer ¦ St. Louis Commercial Roofers ¦ Missouri Roofer ¦ Illinois Roofer ¦ St. Louis City and Illinois Commercial Roofing ¦ St. Louis City Commercial Roofing ¦ Illinois Commercial Roofers ¦ St. Louis City Roofers ¦ Commercial Roofer ¦ Roofer ¦ commercial roofer st. louis ¦ Joplin Commercial Roofing ¦ Joplin Commercial Roofer ¦ Colorado Springs Commercial Roofer ¦ Colorado CO Commercial Roofing ¦ Commercial Roofer ¦ Professional ¦ Professional Roofing ¦ Residential Roofing ¦ several extra keywords ¦ several extra keywords ¦ several extra keywords ¦ several extra keywords ¦ several extra keywords ¦ several extra keywords</TITLE> (yes, that is a total of about 660 characters)

They also have a fairly involved meta description.

The main page to the site has NO regular text - only the meta information, some images, and some flash.

ONE backlink.

His results:

First keyword: #1
Second keyword: #1
Third keyword: #2
The Keyword that starts 404 characters INTO the title: #10

The industry is not HUGELY competitive, but definitely not a small, niche market.

So, it would seem to me that it might be acceptable to stuff keywords in the title - up into the hundred's of characters.

Or, it might only be acceptable if the page uses images and flash with no other text...

Chris

<edited to add the character count near the title, also, change "words" to characters in one reference>