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    4. Does Title Tag location in a page's source code matter?

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    Does Title Tag location in a page's source code matter?

    Technical SEO
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    • Istoresinc
      Istoresinc last edited by

      Currently our meta description is on line 8 for our page - http://www.paintball-online.com/Paintball-Guns-And-Markers-0Y.aspx

      The title tag, however sits below a bunch of code on line 237

      Does the location of the title tag, meta tags, and any structured data have any influence with respect to SEO and search engines? Put another way, could we benefit from moving the title tag up to the top?

      I "surfed 'n surfed" and could not find any articles about this.

      I would really appreciate any help on this as our site got decimated organically last May and we are looking for any help with SEO.

      NIck

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • BlueprintMarketing
        BlueprintMarketing @Istoresinc last edited by

        Hi Nick,

        I noticed that as well it is definitely in the header, but it is currently not been found by tools that mimic google bot.

        I am running a DeepCrawl.co.uk scan of the site as we speak I will post it when it is finished.

        3ULqxz4.png

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • Istoresinc
          Istoresinc @BlueprintMarketing last edited by

          Thomas,

          I looked at the page source and found the the title tag; it sits at the very end of the head section; not sure if that makes a difference or not. Do you know if there are any instances where we can see the title tag in the page source but some how it is not seen by search engines?

          Nick

          9d8cadba9c6c045efd82a89c02fd41e8

          BlueprintMarketing 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Istoresinc
            Istoresinc @BlueprintMarketing last edited by

            Beautiful Thomas! Thank you so much for taking the time to analyze the site. I may have to look into recommendation of authoritydev.com

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Ray-pp
              Ray-pp @spencerhjustice last edited by

              It's true that it wouldn't matter to the user, such as 'above the fold' real estate. But, to the bots do pay attention to the parts invisible to the user and should be optimized too.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • BlueprintMarketing
                BlueprintMarketing last edited by

                The page that you are having trouble with is not showing up as rendering a title in more than one tool

                ** title tag search**

                http://cl.ly/1D1k1R1l3m3L

                Screaming Frog

                http://cl.ly/2q0Y3R121X2a

                **  crawl review**

                http://cl.ly/471S0S1t0I0k

                ** internal URLs**

                http://cl.ly/2c1Y28431x2S

                ** feedthebot.com**

                http://cl.ly/2G253M3E4142

                ** I went deeper**

                http://cl.ly/0C002503212N

                http://cl.ly/1r3c1t3K0J1U

                ** your server is either slow or the coding is killing it is most likely the coding.**

                Google pagespeed score 

                68 out of 100
                This webpage is on the slow side of average. See below the reasons why your page is slow.

                Load time 

                Page begins to be seen in: 1582 milliseconds

                I have pasted it a lot of graphics below in order to show you that the URL

                http://www.paintball-online.com/Paintball-Guns-And-Markers-0Y.aspx

                is not showing a title tag to search engines nor is it something four tools have been able to find the title tag regarding that link.

                More disturbing is amount of URLs without  title tags in the more in-depth crawls.

                My strongest suggestion is that you contact a developer.

                I can recommend the authoritydev.com

                they are very good.

                Sincerely,

                Thomas

                EX4Lb9W.png BwzRStn.png 3g0HEF5.png eDVEJhJ.png voNKl6Q.png YuCMcOc.png panniPZ.png

                Istoresinc 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • spencerhjustice
                  spencerhjustice @Ray-pp last edited by

                  I mean I'm not saying that it's not possible, but above the fold is relevant to the user because it's actually something they see. The section is completely invisible to a user, hence shouldn't be relevant.

                  Ray-pp 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • spencerhjustice
                    spencerhjustice last edited by

                    I honestly don't think that the <title>tag location is your issue.</p> <p>One issue that I'm seeing is that your page load time is pretty abysmal. According to tools.pingdom.com your page load time is around 8 seconds. This probably has to do with the massive amount of code that your site is using. That is at least one thing you may look into improving.</p></title>

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • Ray-pp
                      Ray-pp last edited by

                      Yeah, maybe not. But, 'above the fold' is understood to be better real estate on a web page - why not higher up on a document too?

                      spencerhjustice 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • spencerhjustice
                        spencerhjustice @Ray-pp last edited by

                        I'm not sure that I agree with this. If this were about the

                        or any element that is actually visibile on the page then I'd be inclined to agree but there is really no reason that you should need to put the <title>tag higher up as long as it is within the <head> section. It really shouldn't affect anything in my opinion.</p></title>

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • Ray-pp
                          Ray-pp last edited by

                          Does the location of the title tag, meta tags, and any structured data have any influence with respect to SEO and search engines? Put another way, could we benefit from moving the title tag up to the top?

                          Yes, location does matter.

                          Let's consider this extreme scenario: A competitor and you are competing for the same term and have the following...

                          • The term being targeted is exactly the same
                          • Both you and your competitors' domain have the same authority
                          • You both have the same inbound links and internal link structure
                          • Both properties' content is optimized

                          Basically, you and your competitor have the same internal/external optimizations - so all other factors are equal aside from the <title>location.</p> <p>Pages are rendered from top to bottom. Crawlers read pages from top to bottom. Your competitors' <title> tag is higher on the page than yours. When Google crawls the site, they understand this (the location of the title tag in relation to the page). How will they decide between your page and your competitors' page? Your competitor puts the title tag up higher on the page than you do, it must be more important.</p> <p>Now, this is a very extreme scenario that is super difficult to replicate (you'd need to control both sites to do it properly). But, using this extreme can show why location of the <title> tag is important. It may be a very slight difference, but sometimes that is all that is needed.</p></title>

                          spencerhjustice 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • iSTORM-New-Media
                            iSTORM-New-Media last edited by

                            As long as it is in the section of your page. Crawlers look for tagging information in this section first so it may be missed if it is anywhere else.

                            If you are concerned about the amount of code in the top head section, you could move all that javascript into a external js file and reference it.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
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