Very Long Title Tags

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Very Long Title Tags

Is there a limit?

sandboxsam

2:48 am on Sep 18, 2006 (gmt 0)

I am see more very long title tags.
One I am looking at today, that is ranking well, has 42 words and contains 11 key word phases separated by commas:
<Title>key word phrase 1, key word phrase 2, key word phrase 3, key word phrase 4, key word phrase 5, key word phrase 6, key word phrase 7, key word phrase 8, key word phrase 9, key word phrase 10, key word phrase 11</Title>

Does G apply a cut-off or limit after a certain number of words or characters?

moishier

2:33 pm on Sep 26, 2006 (gmt 0)

I was actually thinking the reverse: perhaps too much in the title tag seems to to dilute it?

Anyone with any experience in this?

Simsi

2:39 pm on Sep 26, 2006 (gmt 0)

Personally, I think it's length is irrelevant in so much that it is used in conjunction with other text-based factors on the page to provide the algo score. So (example) a short relevant <TITLE> but strong page content may be equally as good as long relevant <TITLE> and weaker page content or vice versa.

[edited by: Simsi at 2:40 pm (utc) on Sep. 26, 2006]

F_Rose

3:16 pm on Sep 26, 2006 (gmt 0)

Put it this way..

Let's assume every keyword is worth 10 points.

One keyword in your title tag is worth 10 points.

Having two keywords in your title tag, each keyword is worth only 5 points.

Having five keywords in your title tag, makes each keyword worth only 2 points.

Having long title tags is definetely not the best idea..

Hercules2

3:46 pm on Sep 26, 2006 (gmt 0)

max 9 words

WiseWebDude

4:22 pm on Sep 26, 2006 (gmt 0)

Bruce Clay says 12 words or under...

joeking

4:36 pm on Sep 26, 2006 (gmt 0)

"Put it this way..

Let's assume every keyword is worth 10 points."

Sorry but why would we assume that?

longen

4:47 pm on Sep 26, 2006 (gmt 0)

I would have expected that words would be weighted, descending, from left to right.

Pico_Train

5:37 pm on Sep 26, 2006 (gmt 0)

The words are weighted. I did a site and it was

"Sitename" - keyword1 and keyword2 keyword3 keyword4

The combinations of keyword1 keyword4 keyword4 didn't do as well as keyword2 keyword3 keyword4

Try it yourself on something...

Later alligatosaurus

martinibuster

5:47 pm on Sep 26, 2006 (gmt 0)

It's fairly evident that there is no single formula for title tags. Take a look at the SERPS and you'll see

some title tags consist solely of the keyword phrase
Title consists of sitename and phrase
Title doesn't contain the exact phrase, but a variant, that is located at the end of title

Etcetera.

What that means is that different title formats are acceptable for ranking purposes. The SERPs show there is no single right way for doing the title tags, but many different ways of creating them.

Going back to the original question, I see a site in position three for a competitive commercial term with a title tag 28 words long. LoL. It's relevant, but seems the site is in the SERPs as a variety choice.

puchscooter

7:27 pm on Sep 26, 2006 (gmt 0)

Wanna have a contest? One of my competitors that ranks reasonably well has a title tag of 545 words, or 3993 characters. I laughed hard about it until they started to show in the SERPs! Good thing their booking engine doesn't work...I wouldn't want anyone to make too much money off of it. :)

tedster

3:58 am on Sep 27, 2006 (gmt 0)

I have some data (old now) that strongly suggests shorter titles get more clicks. Now if these don't rank as well as longer titles, or for as many terms, then there's a balancing act. But for years since I tested this, I have been reluctant to push the limits of Title length. It still seems to me that "short and sweet" is very sweet indeed.

And after all, why try to have one url rank for every keyword in the junk drawer?