Titles being too long
-
I am in process of trying to help a client (who I also am an associate for) and they have over 600 pages (which are images) that have the same info in their tag, missing description, and you are talking 1500-2k pixels in their title.
I called the host and the owner of the host said "If you were a real seo you would know that the title length doesn't matter." .... help me out here.
-
From a product perspective, we tend to need to set guidelines that can be quantified, but I'm afraid the whole truth is never quite that black-and-white. All else being equal, I think keeping your titles to a reasonable length is beneficial. Long titles don't automatically harm you (there's no Capital-P penalty for it), but they tend to create a few problems:
(1) Often, long, CMS-generated titles front-load repetitive words (like the site name or category/sub-category), which devalues the unique/important words in Google's eyes and is more likely to make it look like duplicate content.
(2) Long titles tend to devalue important words for search visitors as well, which can harm click-through rates. I'm a firm believer that CTR has indirect impact on ranking over time. Even if it had no SEO significance, it's generally bad for engagement and for your site.
That said, it depends a lot on what you're dealing with. If a title of a page is, say, a title of a blog post, and it's just a long title, that's probably fine. If you have 5,000 product pages that all start with "Bob's Discount Propane Warehouse | Propane and Propane Accessories | ...", then that's going to be detrimental to your usability and SEO.
You mentioned images in your reply to Christy -- could you give a couple of examples of the types of pages and titles you're talking about? In general, image-only pages with no additional content (especially if they have near-duplicate titles) are going to be low-value from a search perspective.
-
How he acted kinda made me second guess what I have known all of this time.
SO... With over 600 pages of images where you can not put additional content/wording on each of those pages and each of those pages have long titles, would you guys recommend removing those images from becoming their own pages (since you can't add additional content) and just put them together in different slideshows or tables?
And is it still true that long titles (over 35 or 570 pixels) are not advisable?
-
Hi SeobyKP, that sounds really frustrating! Ugh, so sorry you are dealing with that. Now, what exactly can we help you with? That is, what specific question would you like us to address in this thread?
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Christy
-
HA! doesnt matter huh...
download SEO Quake as a chrome extension. Its great stuff. It will grade every page in detail, showing you how long titles and descriptions should be, as well as other metrics. big fan.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Does Google consider breadcrumbs to be duplicate titles?
Moz has been flagging a lot of our articles for duplicate titles. I noticed that the website was automatically generating the same words that were used for the titles above the articles and main images. But those are bread crumbs. Does anyone know if Google also considers those duplicate titles? I'm not sure if the screenshot I'm uploading will appear, but this is one of the blog posts the extra wording was showing up on: https://hometowneautorepairandtireofwoodbridge.com/blog/when-why-replace-spark-plugs/
Content Development | | ifixcars1 -
Wordpress Blog Pages, Duplicate Title Tag
Anyone have any experience in fixing the duplicate Title tag on a Wordpress blog multiple pages Basically the title tag remains the same on the pages /Blog/ /Blog/Page/2/ /Blog/Page/3/ My good friend Yoast Plugin doesn't seem to of resolved this (Unless i have missed something?) I don't really see this to be effecting anything and wouldn't of through it would either, but it would be nice to not see the notification within Moz site crawls and campaigns etc, its more of a cosmetic problem Any solutions ? Thanks James
Content Development | | Antony_Towle0 -
How long should a quality blog post be?
How long should a "quality" blog post be? General advice seems to be that a 300 word post just won't cut it, but advice on the optimum length is vague. I appreciate that all posts are different but is there a rule of thumb, is 1000 words good and 1500 too long...or should they are all aim to be 2000 words? Also with regards to pictures in blogs, can they just be taken from the web or are there sites that I should be using to source the pictures? Thanks
Content Development | | Studio330 -
Duplicate page title on blog
Is this something I should b concerned about? I get about 6 posts per page with unique titles - however the title per page is not unique. Is this important?
Content Development | | MartinSpence460 -
Tons of Long-Tail Conversion Terms -- What Should We Do?
A friend of mine runs a website that recently got hit with Penguin. His site now longer has authority. But he does have a long list of very similar longtail phrases. Example: Dog Food for Cheap Cheap Dog Food Organic Dog Food Home Made Dog Food Dog Chow Organic Dog Chow Basically, these are all about the same thing. But, he'd love to write content that has the exact longtail phrase in the title.. but not over-stuff it. He feels that if he puts it on the same site, it might look too spammy in G's eyes. But how would one go about doing it? I realize he should "Theme" this info -- but what does that really mean? Its all kind of the same theme.. IS there a way to do it in wordpress with categories? Please -- we'd love your help. We are also curious about how to run ANY site in the post-penguin world without adding redundant content.
Content Development | | momo30 -
Short blog post or Long Blog post, Which works better?
I was thinking, that SEOmoz or other technical SEO blog writes long blog post which cracks my interest when i start reading few lines of the blog post. My mind speak, Wooo! so boring.In SEO what will be best post long or Short? Thanks
Content Development | | tapankumar0 -
How to titling images in WP blog
What is the best way to title an image in a blog post. The wording will relate to the post discussion so I am not discussing the word stuffing, rather how to enter the words. Here are my options for the title: 1. dayton engagement photos 2. dayton_engagement_photos 3. daytonengagementphotos 4. Is there another preferred method? Should I increment the image title for each image such as: daytonengagementphotos1, daytonengagementphotos2, etc. What about the alternative text area? Does the same concept apply there? Thanks hR3ua.jpg
Content Development | | maximphotostudio0 -
How many words is suitable to use at a title photograph?
Hi! I don't have any idea about how many keywords is appropiate to include at a photograph's title, alternative text and description and how much does it affect to SEO. Could you help me? Thanks.
Content Development | | juanmanolo0