After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Title tag consistency. Is it worth it?
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I operate a stain removal website and was wondering how consistent it was worth being from title tag to title tag. To give you an example, here is a group of keyword phrases that I might wish to target:
"getting out pet stains with vinegar"
"how do I remove water stains from wood"
"removing chocolate stains"
Does the benefit to be gained (whatever that might be) from making these consistently of the form "how to remove X from Y, " or "how to remove X" outweigh simply giving articles titles based on the exact phrases above?
I heard from someone that Google is getting more proficient at spotting "clumsy" title tags, although I'm not sure if any of the above examples would fall into that category, and was thinking that I should then probably proceed on the basis of directly titling articles based on the exact keywords I am uncovering...
Any advice much appreciated.
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Always optimize for the user, not for the bots.
What I mean by that is, create titles that are typically phrases that make sense to people as they'll be more willing to click on that result within the SERP's.
The title tag is simply just a one-liner of what the page is about, just in a catchy way. If it looks/sounds robotic, people will notice, and in turn, crawlers will notice.
To fully answer your question: unique is always better. Creating custom title tags whenever possible, outside of the template, robotic style, will warrant you better results.
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Given that pages are viewed independently of one another, the only consistency that matters is if you're consistently using keyword strings that would tend to surface for the broadest range of queries 'remove chocolate stains'. That said, competition may require that you get more specific, i.e., 'remove x stains from y'. Consistency will make it easier to test and get a feel for what works over time.
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