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Considering title tag is given a very high importance in search engines like Google, do you think at some point Google may downgrade its reliance on title tag?
Considering title tag is given a very high importance in search engines like Google, do you think at some point Google may downgrade its reliance on title tag?
My opinion is that it would be the last thing an SE would discount. The <title> element has always been the most important area. Most would not even think of thrashing their titles (like metadata may get thrashed), it serves no purpose. Relevancy, proximity and a few other things come into play with the <title> element.
Knowing how to write effective titles and then marry them to the on page content is the key to using titles successfully.
Spam is in the eyes of the beholder (e.g. every competitior who out performs you "must be a spammer".) and a good title is one ingredient of this.
Short of Googlebot becoming an artificial lifeform so that she can see precisely what the visitor sees, the title will remain important.
However, the title is only one part of the equation - thus "spam the title" all you want it doesn't produce much by itself.
Incidentally - I have pushed a blank page to #1 to prove a point, but a "blank" page isn't blank to the bot - and the title element alone can't do this.
unless the phrase is >> white elephants in china doing the google dance <<
However, for the first part, your assumption is that everyone will prudently shape their title tags and not abuse/spam.....just like webmasters were expected to do for Meta Keywords?
If I am at #10 with a title Find Blue Widgets at Widgery.com
and the 9 sites above all have a title
Blue Widgets Blue Widgets Blue Widgets Blue Widgets
and all 10 companies are actually direct competitors complete with their own "blue widgets" for resell then there really is no spam. (It does not matter how I feel about their titles - it only matters how the searcher feels) did they purchase or search further.
On the other hand if all of the sites above were actually selling "peanuts" then I agree with you. This is abuse, and Google should stop false advertisers.
From Google's perspective though - a title is only 1 of 100 ranking considerations - thus I believe they have taken care of this.
<Added>Your position assumes that you are not at #1 and don't like the fact that someone else is.
The searcher cares less about who is at #1 as long as they have what they are looking for.
Google's cares less about who is at #1 as long as they provide the best possible results to the search.
Everyone assumes "they have the best" information, product or service, but in the end the searcher decides who is spamming and who isn't</added>
[edited by: fathom at 2:54 am (utc) on Jan. 30, 2003]
It does not matter how I feel about their titles - it only matters how the searcher feels.
That's the key right there. Your titles are supposed to be written to entice the visitor, not scare them away. You can entice both the visitor and the spiders with just the right balance. ;)
So my style is to try and have a title that matches my main search phrase for a page and try to pick up rankings on other search phrases by using the words on the page rather than clutter up the title. That way you have the best chance of a nice bold title in the SERPS that instantly makes sense. Although I'm sure the professional Adwords writers are biggest experts in that field!
The issue is, if the users don't like the rankings
Exactly!
Google users do like the results, or they would start searching at Atlavista... thus Google defines this as successfully curbing spam, why change?
From my personal point of view (vice professional) I can find everything I look for at Google.
If you really think about it, title tag is no different in its handling
Nope. They are entirely different. The meta keywords tag was never seen by the user. The title tag is the first thing seen by the searcher on the SERPs - before they even enter the site.
This in itself at least moderates most sites to the point of using words in the title tag that reflect the content of the page, and therefore the search terms that the user was looking for.
With the keywords tag, a page about widgets, toggles and doohickeys could toss 'Anna Kournikova' into the tag a few of times and perhaps draw a nice number of additional though untargetted Anna fans, without damaging the credibility of the page in the eyes of serious widget, toggle or doohickey enthusiasts.
With the title tag, adding Anna to the title will perhaps still draw in a few extra untargetted Anna fans, but it is likely to be at the expense of some serious widget or doohickey buyers who would bypass the page as 'poppy'.
Losing highly targetted buyers for random pop-culture shoppers is a pretty poor trade.
Of course there's still the issue of poorly written titles - "Widget-world Widgets - cheap widgets free widgets blue widgets large widgets small widgets widgets widgets widgets widgets widgets widgets widgets".... but at least the user can see the title in the SERPS and make a judgement before clicking.
Well yes, this is where linking and pagerank come into it though. The site with a widgets title that is selling peanuts will only have links saying 'peanuts' and not 'widgets', so even if it is in the title it shouldn't rank well.
I think sometimes PageRank works against the purpose of relevance. Consider this - search for the term 'smoking' on Google and the #1 site amongst 9 million pages has NOTHING to do with smoking. I guess since PageRank plays a 'Multiplier' effect, it compounds the error.
I'm not suggesting that Google results are way out. Not yet. I love it the most, but do we see a writing on the wall?
but do we see a writing on the wall?
No, not with the title tag. Again... it's visible and highly prominent. It's the most prominent thing you see in the serps; and if it's tied in with other algo factors, as it is, then it's perhaps the hardest part of the algo to spam.
To oversimplify... if you look at the Google algo as has been generally scoped out here, you'll see that Google emphasizes what is visible and prominent to a site visitor (titles, headings, high word placement on a page), and what is confirmed by other sources (link text, PR, etc).
In a way, a title is all of these... it is in fact the anchor text from the engine to the site.
