Why isn't there a browser tab title AND meta title?
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Personal opinion; as a user, it makes sense for me to want a full 50+ character meta title which displays in a search engine that helps me determine if I want to click that link AND a concise browser tab title that tells me which page and brand I have open.
As a search engine, I would (possibly wrongly) suppose that having one more piece user-facing of information would be helpful in understanding a page and that page's relation to the rest of the website.
Theoretical example
Meta title: A great title for the website I've been dreaming of! | OurBrand
Browser tab title: Home | OurBrand
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As a user, there are certainly times it's helpful to have the browser tab text, especially if I have a few tabs open on a single site and want to distinguish between them quickly. From a search engine's standpoint, I don't see why this wouldn't be one more piece of possibly useful information.
However, as you pointed out, if the user happens to have one window open with dozens of tabs, then each individual tab is so skinny which results in only the brand favicon/icon as important.
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Interesting idea. I've never even considered this before.
But how often do people look at the browser tab to remember which page they are on?
And for people like me, who have 20-50 tabs open at almost all times (I know, it's an issue I have), it wouldn't be very helpful since all the tab widths are so small.
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