Is changing your meta titles frequently good SEO Practice
-
Greetings,
Im a new SEO and really knew nothing until signing up to SEOMoz. After reading the SEO101 and gathering as much information in a short period of time things started to become a little clearer.
So I started my first campaign used my new SEO knowledge and input all of my meta information. Then I waited a few days to see what happened with my search result.
We had never ranked for a single keyword before mind you. So a couple/few of days go by and I started punching in my keywords and looking through the pages. There I was page three. I was SO happy.
I read the entire SEO101 again, realized a little more about what I had to do. So I started changing everything up, adding pictures, I found out what a IMG ALT Attributes were in the HTML editor, bolded text and all the other things I missed the first time around.
Three days go by and I move up again. I start to notice my traffic is increasing and I am actually getting organic hits through search traffic. This has never happened before. I am over the moon. But I realize that I have my main focus keyword as the second key word in my title tag. So I switch the two words around, wait a few more days.
Here's why I ask my question. The original title tag was still showing up and I was on the first page for both keywords, and I could see both title tags when searching for either keyword.
So; Is changing your meta titles frequently good SEO Practice ?
Warmest regards,
Michael
Warning: adult site, NSFW
-
Testing different titles to see if you can improve your rankings for specific keywords or to focus on different keywords may be worthwhile but changing them for the sake of making a change is pointless.
-
I agree with both Moosa and Aran. I don't think constantly changing your page titles on a site-wide basis is going to help your rankings. It may actually have the opposite effect, depending on how you interpret Google's mysterious and upcoming "Over-Optimization" penalty.
However if you're page title's need improving and doing so will help you increase impressions, I wouldn't avoid it. I just wouldn't make a habit of tweaking them and changing them too often.
Like Aran said, if you've running a special promotion, have a major announcement, incredible new content, etc... I absolutely think changing the titles on relevant pages to reflect those things is a great idea for increasing CTR and conversions.
Moderation is the key on this I believe.
Hope this helps.
Anthony
-
First of all, welcome aboard. I always love to here of peoples first steps into SEO and the results they get.
My site has around 450 pages, thus its would be a major job for me to amend my page titles. Sites like SEOmoz have thousands of pages, and the vast majority of them are available in SERPs. Now as far as I know SEOmoz do not change their titles, again because it would be a massive job.
Saying that, if I run an offer or a sale on my website I will generally change my homepage title to reflect the fact I have a sale on, in the hope that the Sale text will be updated promptly in the SERPs and attarct a few extra click throughs.
In summary, no I dont think the freshness of your page titles has any positive effect on your SEO. But, It may impact your Click through rate (which I guess in turn could effect your SEO...now were going full circle).
Clear as mud?
-
Frequently changing title tag as a good practice… I don’t think so! I mean it’s good to change when you think the changed title can better tell search engine and users about the website but changing it frequently to get SEO boom… I don’t think it works!
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
-
Which seo firms produce the most authoritative SEO studies?
I'm not talking about conjectures or guesses -- but SEO studies that is actually backed up by hardcore data. Which SEO firm produces excellent data-driven studies you always trust?
Algorithm Updates | | Brand_Psychic0 -
Googlebot soon to be executing javascript - Should I change my robots.txt?
This question came to mind as I was pursuing an unrelated issue and reviewing a site's robots/txt file. Currently this is a line item in the file: Disallow: https://* According to a recent post in the Google Webmasters Central Blog: [http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2014/05/understanding-web-pages-better.html](http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2014/05/understanding-web-pages-better.html "Understanding Web Pages Better") Googlebot is getting much closer to being able to properly render javascript. Pardon some ignorance on my part because I am not a developer, but wouldn't this require Googlebot be able to execute javascript? If so, I am concerned that disallowing Googlebot from the https:// versions of our pages could interfere with crawling and indexation because as soon as an end-user clicks the "checkout" button on our view cart page, everything on the site flips to https:// - If this were disallowed then would Googlebot stop crawling at that point and simply leave because all pages were now https:// ??? Or am I just waaayyyy over thinking it?...wouldn't be the first time! Thanks all! [](http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2014/05/understanding-web-pages-better.html "Understanding Web Pages Better")
Algorithm Updates | | danatanseo0 -
Does the page title keyword count in anchor text when link is web address?
If someone links to my plumbing site with this link as the anchor text: http://www.plumbers.com/austin-plumbers.html does the key phrase "austin plumbers" get counted in the anchor text by google or is this a sample of anchor text that google ignores? Thanks mozzers! Ron
Algorithm Updates | | Ron100 -
External Linking Best Practices Question
Is it frowned upon to use basic anchor text such as "click here" within a blog article when linking externally? I understand, ideally, you want to provide a descriptive anchor text, especially linking internally, but can it negatively affect your own website if you don't use a descriptive anchor text when linking externally?
Algorithm Updates | | RezStream80 -
Ecommerce good/bad? Showing product description on sub/category page?
Hi Mozers, I have a ecommerce furniture website, and I have been wondering for some time if showing the product descriptions on the sub/category page helps the website. If there is more content displayed on the subcategory, it should be more relevant, right? OR does it not matter, as it is duplicate content from the product page. I think showing the product descriptions on non-product pages is hurting my design/flow, but i worry that if I am to hide product content on sub/category pages my traffic will be hurt. Despite my searches I have not found an answer yet. Please take a look at my site and share your thoughts: http://www.ecustomfinishes.com/ Chris 27eVz
Algorithm Updates | | longdenc_gmail.com0 -
"We've processed your reconsideration request for www...." - Could this be good news?
Hey, We recently had a Google Penguin related links warning and I've been going through Google WMT and removing the most offensive links. We have requested resubmission a couple of times and have had the standard response of: "
Algorithm Updates | | ChrisHolgate
Site violates Google's quality guidelines We received a request from a site owner to reconsider your site for compliance with Google's Webmaster Guidelines. We've reviewed your site and we still see links to your site that violate our quality guidelines. Specifically, look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could be intended to manipulate PageRank. Examples of unnatural linking could include buying links to pass PageRank or participating in link schemes. We encourage you to make changes to comply with our quality guidelines. Once you've made these changes, please submit your site for reconsideration in Google's search results. If you find unnatural links to your site that you are unable to control or remove, please provide the details in your reconsideration request. If you have additional questions about how to resolve this issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum for support.
" On the 5th September after spending another couple more days removing the most prolific offenders we resubmitted the site again and again got the automated response saying they had received our request. A week later on the 13th September we got a slightly different response of : "
We've processed your reconsideration request We received a request from a site owner to reconsider how we index your site. We've now reviewed your site. When we review a site, we check to see if it's in violation of our Webmaster Guidelines. If we don't find any problems, we'll reconsider our indexing of your site. If your site still doesn't appear in our search results, check our Help Center for steps you can take. " I left it another couple of weeks to see if we'd get a slightly more in depth response however so far there has been nothing. I'll be honest in not being entirely sure what this means. The e-mails says simultaneously 'We've now reviewed your site' (as in past tense) but then continues with "If we don't find any problems" which suggests a future tense. I’m unsure from reading the e-mail whether they have indeed reviewed it (and just not told us the outcome) or whether it’s just a delayed e-mail saying that they have received the reconsideration request. Of course, if I received this e-mail off anyone other than Google I would have thought I was still in the dog house but the fact that it differs from the standard ‘Site violates Google’s quality guidelines’ message leads me to believe that something has changed and they may be happy with the site or at least happier than they were previously. Has anybody else received the latter message and has anybody managed to determine exactly what it means? Cheers guys!0 -
Best Practices for Page Titles | RSS Feeds
Good Morning MOZers, Quick question for the community: when creating an RSS feed for one of your websites, how do you title your RSS feed? Currently, the sites I'm managing use the 'rss.xml' for the file name, but I was curious to know whether or not it would, in any way, benefit my SERP if I were to add my domain to precede the 'rss.xml', i.e. 'my-sites-rss.xml' or something of that nature. Beyond that, are there any 'best practices' for creating RSS feed page titles or is there a preferred method of implementation? Anybody have any solutions
Algorithm Updates | | NiallSmith0 -
SEO Link building / Article Distributation
Quick question in regards to link building and OFF PAGE SEO... Why isn't Articles distributation via wire services considered a "Duplicate Content" issue by Google? i.e. If take the one article and post it accross 50 (do follow) websites, Press release sites, and blogs. I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback on this. Regard, Sammy
Algorithm Updates | | revsystems.com0