Downsides on shortening article title?
-
Hi there,
I'm new to Moz: great tool so far!
I just tried the page optimization feature and see that (for instance for this article) page titles are often too long. Now it's tempting to just shorten the title straight away, but I have a memory of someone once telling me changing the title will change the URL. And changing the URL is something not appreciated by Google.
Could someone please explain if and why this is/isn't the case? And if there are any downsides/things to consider before changing the article's title?
Thank you in advance!
-
Though there are no real downsides to shortening the title, as long as it accurately describes the products or services that be sold on that page. Your web designer, should therefore add a page title which really accurately describes what you are selling on that page
-
@Christy-Correll Best Answer about your query.
-
There and no real downsides to shortening the title of an article, as long as the title of page / blog post accurately explains what the page or blog post is about.
We done this for a fencing business because some of the titles were to long for the meta title and description, so we had to rewrite them to make them shorter.
-
There are no real downsides to shortening the title of an article.
That’s as long as the page title accurately explains what the page or blog post is about.
We done this for a Cardiff fencing business, simply because some of the meta titles were too long for the meta title and description.
-
Thank you for your replies José, Christy and Salience,
It looks like you are right, and the ('SEF URL') is fixed: it will not change when I change the title: https://screencast.com/t/XR6lS6YdL
For now -changing URLs- sounds a bit too risky for me to start with yet. I'm just trying to create the best articles, contentwise.
Feels a bit odd that URLs are going to be different from the titles though. But I guess that's a better situation than having titles that are too long.
-
Hey,
Agree with the other replies but wanted to mention that changing your article title may have an adverse affect on the ranking performance of your content, so be careful and do some solid research before making a change.
Thanks!
Salience
-
Hi RaoulWB,
Welcome to the Q&A forum! As far as the search engines are concerned, the title and URL of a page are independent. However, some content management systems create the URL based on the page title, and may automatically update and redirect the URL if you update a title (depending on how the CMS is configured, etc.). Is this possibly what you are thinking of?
Christy
-
Hello,
It is independent, you can change your title and not change the url. Many times to improve the CTR the SEO title is changed. Changing the url is more delicate, first you must study the risks it has for the positioning of that url. If you have received links to that url you could lose them, etc.Regards
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 title tag would you choose?
Target terms: Flower Pots, Plastic Flower Pots (in order of importance) Title tags: 1. Flower Pots - Plastic Flower Pots for Gardening with Free Delivery
On-Page Optimization | | Bondara
2. Flower Pots - Plastic Flower Pots with Free Delivery
3. Flower Pots - Plastic Flower Pots from [Brand] Which one would you choose and why? If you want to produce another type please do but explain why you think yours is better than the above. Thanks0 -
Wordpress Duplicate Meta Title Issue
Hi, Google webmasters tools is reporting that I have 254 blog pages with duplicate metta titles. Sample below; /blog/2012/06/
On-Page Optimization | | UnderMe
/blog/2012/07/
/blog/2012/08/
/blog/2012/10/
/blog/2012/12/
/blog/2013/01/
/blog/
/blog/?s=boxer
/blog/?s=briefs
/blog/?s=cufflinks
/blog/category/swimwear/
/blog/category/uncategorized/ Can anyone advise what is the best way to address this issue as wordpress seems to assign the site title and tag line set in general settings as the meta title for all blog posts and pages. Thanks0 -
Website title question
Say you have a website url of a rather competitive keyword phrase, would it be beneficial for me to go ahead and name my site title the same as the url? And also should my site title go through every page, or should i consider having slight variations throughout the pages? for example: page title | site title or page title| slight varation of title on sub page? **edit - to further expand on the question a bit also, if my google places has the company name on _there - would it be effective to go ahead and use the company name in my site title? _ _Also if i have the main keyword in the breadcrumb as the home, does that effect my SEO credibility if it shows up on all the pages? _
On-Page Optimization | | tgr0ss0 -
Meta description tags & title tags duplicate content?
Although meta description tags have no impact on rankings - can there be a negative effect from having many duplicate meta title + description tags with just 1-2 words switched out?
On-Page Optimization | | qlkasdjfw0 -
Title not showing in Serps
Sorry if I've posted in the wrong section; in a nutshell my page title for 2x key terms (that I've noticed) is not showing in the Serps for my listing. Instead, the keyphrase I'm searching for shows up, and in one case my site name is appended. Can anyone tell me why this is? If I take a stab in the dark, i'd plum for Gg not thinking my page title is up to scratch for the particular search term.... but that's just a punt. Any help, greatly appreciated. Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | newstd1000 -
Include the company/domain name in page titles and urls?
I know this isn't something that I would use site-wide but I'm wondering if it helps or hurts me to use my company name (also my domain name) in pages below the homepage. As an example, let's say I'm Home Depot. In the category pages off the homepage should I use Page names and urls like Home and Garden Supplies or Home and Garden Supplies at Home Depot? Or does it hurt me to reuse my company/domain name on multiple pages?
On-Page Optimization | | kdieruf0 -
Hiding Page Titles By Display None
Hi. I am new to this community, and new to SEO as well. A friend asked me to give them suggestions on onsite optimization for their Drupal website. I know page titles are very important, and usually they should be set to H1. (At least I think) This particular website has all their page titles set to H2 and they are using display:none in their stylesheet to hide them for graphic design reasons. What would be the most practical work around for this? We don't want this to appear sketchy in the eyes of the SE's, but putting page titles at the top of their pages really would take away from their graphical design. The second issue is that they use a module called Quicktabs for tabbed product specs on each page. Each tab is actually pulled from a post (called a node in Drupal), so each tab has it's own title that is an H2. So not only are they hiding the main page title, but they are hiding 5 others within the tabs, and their are 6 H2 elements showing up on each product page all set to display:none. Any creative suggestions? Hope that makes sense.... Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | aprilm-1890400