Characters in titles

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by amelen, Oct 24, 2007.

  1. #1
    Is there an SEO difference in terms of these:

    Free Web Hosting, PHP, Ftp, Domains - T35 Hosting
    Free Web Hosting, PHP, Ftp, Domains @ T35 Hosting
    Free Web Hosting, PHP, Ftp, Domains | T35 Hosting

    Is one better than the other? We used to have "T35 Hosting" first in the title, but noticed an improvement after putting it in the end... although i'd still prefer it in the front for visual reasons. Any suggestions?
     
    amelen, Oct 24, 2007 IP
  2. Matt B

    Matt B Active Member

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    #2
    You'll be pleased to hear that substituting one character for another is going to make no difference whatsoever :)

    As for your titles, you should have a unique title for each page and try not to stuff them with keywords. Just natural and relevant text.

    For the structure of your titles I'd do something like this:

    Home Page: T35 - Free Web Hosting with PHP
    Inner Pages: Domain Names - T35

    There are a number of reasons why. I can elaborate a little if you want.

    Oh and try and keep your titles to 65 characters or less including spaces.

    - Matt
     
    Matt B, Oct 24, 2007 IP
  3. astup1didiot

    astup1didiot Notable Member

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    #3
    Wouldn't this be more of a vaildating issue than seo?
     
    astup1didiot, Oct 24, 2007 IP
  4. amelen

    amelen Active Member

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    #4
    Hmm.. So Google doesn't care if you have something like '@' in your title? Is there a specific reason to have titles under 65 chars? I noticed an increase in visitors from google when I went from 20 char's to 49.
     
    amelen, Oct 24, 2007 IP
  5. Matt B

    Matt B Active Member

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    #5
    If your title is too long it will be cut off when displayed in a SERP.

    I think the cut off point for Google is about 70 characters now.

    - Matt
     
    Matt B, Oct 24, 2007 IP
  6. amelen

    amelen Active Member

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    #6
    Thanks Matt!
     
    amelen, Oct 24, 2007 IP
  7. redspace

    redspace Peon

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    #7
    if the improvement is for the term "free web hosting" then it just confirm how important is your target keyword phrase should be near the beginning of the title.
     
    redspace, Oct 24, 2007 IP
  8. amelen

    amelen Active Member

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    #8
    Yes, for "free web hosting".
     
    amelen, Oct 24, 2007 IP
  9. cybotrix

    cybotrix Peon

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    #9
    I completely agree with Matt...
     
    cybotrix, Oct 25, 2007 IP
  10. Dan Schulz

    Dan Schulz Peon

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    #10
    It's because he's right. :)
     
    Dan Schulz, Oct 25, 2007 IP
  11. catanich

    catanich Peon

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    #11
    Just a heads up on this, the character set you are using will matter. I use
    <meta HTTP-EQUIV="content-type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">

    And just for argurments, I would do:

    Free Web Hosting| PHP, Ftp, Domains - T35-Hosting

    Also,

    Title case should rank higher
    Free Web Hosting| PHP, Ftp, Domains - T35-Hosting
    than lower case

    free web hosting| php, ftp, domains - t35-hosting
     
    catanich, Oct 25, 2007 IP
  12. Dan Schulz

    Dan Schulz Peon

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    #12
    The character encoding you specify will make a difference, but only as far as serving the pages are concerned. While ISO-8859-1 is fine for Western European languages (such as English), a person who's reading the page in Mandarinn will have problems (in such cases you're probably best off using UTF-8 for the character encoding, then specifying that English is your default language via the HTML element's lang="" attribute).
     
    Dan Schulz, Oct 25, 2007 IP
  13. Matt B

    Matt B Active Member

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    #13
    Matt B, Oct 25, 2007 IP
  14. amelen

    amelen Active Member

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    #14
    Thanks! I didn't realize "Fee Web Hosting" in the title would rank higher then "free web hosting"!
     
    amelen, Oct 26, 2007 IP
  15. Dan Schulz

    Dan Schulz Peon

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    #15
    I doubt it actually, but capitalization issues is one thing I tend to avoid whenever possible. In your case though I'd go with the capitalized letters (as was suggested, ie "Free Web Hosting") simply because it appears to be more of an accepted convention than anything.

    I could be wrong though. :)
     
    Dan Schulz, Oct 26, 2007 IP
  16. amelen

    amelen Active Member

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    #16
    Sounds good. Thanks Dan!
     
    amelen, Oct 29, 2007 IP