Hi Nic,
Some independent third-party experts input about page titles . . .
Regarding Ability to manage page title behaviour
http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic ... #msg157889
Supporting Argument(s)/References
The Title Tag
From Search Engine Visibility, New Riders Publishing, 2003
The title tag is very important in terms of search engine visibility because it serves multiple functions:
- Title-tag text is considered primary text by all the search engines, meaning that all the search engines record this text and place a considerable value on it.
- Title-tag text is the first text shown in search results. The text is highlighted in the search results as a hyperlink to your web site. This hyperlink is the call to action — it's letting your target audience know that there is a link to information pertaining to the words they entered in a search query.
- Title-tag text is the text shown in Bookmarks and Favorites.
Thus, a title tag serves two main functions. The first function is for search engine visibility. All the search engines consider title-tag text when calculating relevancy. The second title-tag function is a call to action. Your title-tag content should encourage your target audience to click the link to your site.
As a general rule, write a unique, descriptive title of 5 to 10 words for each page — or 69 to 75 characters. Remove as many filler words as possible from the title. Titles should contain your most important keywords and phrases and accurately reflect the content of your web pages.
All title-tag text should be unique because every page of your web site contains unique content. Does your About Us page contain the same information as your Products pages? Probably not, and your title tags need to reflect the differences in page content.
Unless your company name is well known and has excellent branding, it is best not to place your company name in the title tag. To get or maintain branding and to modify your site to accommodate your target audience, do not put your company name in the beginning of the title tag unless you have a keyword in your company name.
On the All-Important Title Tag
From Building Your Business with Google For Dummies, Wiley Publishing, 2004
You might think that asking several SEO experts what they think is the most important optimization detail would yield a fierce and diverse argument. Amazingly, one simple answer emerges with remarkable agreement. The good news is that the single most important optimization trick is also one of the easiest to accomplish.
"The title might be the single most important on-page SEO element, because (1) it tells search engines what to find on that page, and (2) search engines use that title in the search engine results page. So if you have your company name in the title of your page and it does not accurately describe what that page is about (example:your product) then the search engine will not rank that page well for your product. In addition, if you do rank for that page, the search engine user (searcher) will see just your company name and say, “What does this have to do with my search?” and skip over to a more relevant listing."
-- Barry Schwartz,
http://www.rustybrick.com
"How many times have you looked at a web site where the page Title in your browser reads “Welcome to [company name]’s website” or simply “[Company Name]”? Nothing wrong with that, I hear you say? Well if you want to achieve high search engine rankings, there’s PLENTY wrong with it. You see, while it may not be common knowledge amongst webmasters or (shock, horror!) even some web designers, most search engines index the content of the Title Attribute and consider it to be one of THE most important factors in their relevancy algorithm. What you place in your Title can make or break your ranking for particular search terms on the various engines. If you don’t include your most important search phrases within your Title tag (and target the content of each Title to the content on each page), you are overlooking a vital opportunity in your quest for higher search rankings.
"Having said this, you should try and keep your Title to a maximum of 200 characters, as that is the average limit most search engines will truncate to. If you really insist on including your company name in your title and you’re willing to sacrifice good keyword real estate to do so, put it at the very end of the tag, because search engines give more relevancy “weight” to content at the start of your tag."
-- Kalena Jordan,
http://www.high-search-engine-ranking.com
"As for what is known as ‘on-page’ optimization, which involves the source code on your website, probably the most important thing to get right is the Title tag. This has to be the most weighted tag on a webpage, and if your keywords do not show up in it, then you can expect poor rankings."
-- Alan Webb,
http://www.abakus-internet-marketing.de
"The two most important aspects when optimizing a site for Google or any other crawler-based search engine are the title tag and content of each page. One should make sure that the keywords that are relevant to each page are represented in the title tag of the page as opposed to saying something like “Welcome to oursite!”. One must also make sure they have well-written HTML text that also represents the keywords they wish to target. With Google, more often than not, content is king."
-- David Wallace,
http://www.searchrank.com
Summary
- Do not have "Home" in your home page title
- Have unique and content-relevant page titles
- Put content title/keywords first, then company name (if at all)
Joomla wish list:
- home page Title tag may be fully customized
- section pages show section title in title tag
- category pages show category title in title tag
- content pages show content title in title tag
- content/keywords first, then site title (or selectable as previously discussed in the artifact)
http://developer.joomla.org/sf/go/artf2076?nav=1
Nic,
Based on the above one might think proper management of the title tag is important.
If this is not convincing enough, there is more available out on the web.
This was just easier to grab semi-quickly.
KM