The <title> Tag
Date: 19/09/2006
The title tag is without a doubt one of the most important factors to take into consideration when optimizing your website's pages for the search engines such as Google and Yahoo. This is because most of these search engines and directories place a high level of importance on words that exist within your webpage's title tag. The tag is usually also used by search engines as the title of your listing on their results pages.
Position
The correct position to place the title tag is between the <head> and </head> tags within your markup document. It should only be used once.
Tag limits
It is recommended that your title tag be between 50 and 80 characters in length, including spaces. The length of the title tag value which different search engines accept varies, but so long as you stay within these limits your page should be read without a problem.
Title Tag Tips
- It is recommended that you include one or two of your most important keyword phrases which describe your site's purpose (or what phrase you would like to be found under) in your page's title tag, but be careful not to just place a long list of keywords. Doing so will mean you run the risk being categorised as spam by the search engines, which can ultimately lead to your website being blacklisted and banned. Ideally your title tag contain keyword phrases and also remaining readable as a sentence.
- Try to make your title sound interesting. Remember, even should you get the number one spot on the results pages your listing still needs to be able to pull prospective visitors in.
- It is recommended you place your keywords at the beginning of the sentence so they do not risk possibly being cut off by some search engines with a character limit on the title tag.
- Every page in your site should ideally contain it's own unique title tag text, which in turn relates to the content displayed on that page.
