Changing title tags in well established site - should I do this gradually to avoid risk of penalty?

[McTaggart]

Hi, I'm altering title tags in a well established site (many of which are duplicates) and was wondering whether there's a risk associated with adjusting them all in one go? Should I just make gradual changes instead in case I flag anything?

[Everett]

Luke if you're writing these manually I doubt you could possibly write and publish them fast enough for it to be any problem at all. If this is automated and you're going to be releasing thousands, or tens-of-thousands... of new title tags I'd slow down and do it in segments, not for fear of any "penalty" but because it's always good to test things out before making changes that big unless you know for sure it is a change for the better - which it sounds like it is.

[SErOb]

Yep, there are risks:

• SE rankings
• Click-thru rates
• External/Social share link text implications

Suggestions if you don't want to do the whole lot:

• Make changes one section at a time & observe any changes
• Change title tags which are obvious violators of best practices