Does title text of homepage effect ranking of sub pages?
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Question is pretty much summed up in the title. I realize that title text on a specific page can effect the ranking of that page. But what I'm getting a feeling of lately is that google uses the title text of your homepage to effect the ranking of the site on a whole.
Thoughts?
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As I understand it, yes it does.
If you check out the 2011 search engine ranking factors you'll see it's estimated that about 11% of the metrics Google uses to rank pages are related to domain-wide keyword usage. This suggests that, to a limited extent, text used on any page on the domain can be used to determine the subject of the domain's pages.
Also, text in the title of the homepage could negatively effect other pages in incidents of 'keyword cannibalisation'. For example, if you're trying to get a landing page to rank for 'free range eggs' and your homepage title is also 'free range eggs' then you're sending a mixed message to Google about the subject of your pages.
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