Their new web guy recently changed their title tags from simply the title of the paper/study to: Title of the Paper: keyword 1, keyword 2, keyword 3, keyword 4, keyword 5, keyword 6, keyword 7, keyword 8, keyword 9, keyword 10

Really? Give that person their pink slip (we'll call him the old web guy) and change them back before it is too late.

They've just made the change for a week, so too soon to see any negative or positive repercussions, if any.

Arrrggghhh, too late, bummer. :(

My guess? NEGATIVE repercussions. I could be wrong but I don't think so in this particular case.

Did the new web guy, I mean "old web guy" also set up a links directory? And submit your site to thousands of search engines and directories?

No, the guy did not set up a links directory :o)

But I was just surprised because they just recently hired an SEO firm, and the results of which was presented last Friday. The SEO firm recommended that the title tags should contain important keywords -- and this web guy (he's the head of the web dept) interpreted this to mean that they can stuff the title tag with keywords.

I just wanted some stronger arguments why they need to revert back to their old way of giving titles to their papers/articles. They have a person in their editing dept who optimizes the titles of their papers as the analysts/writers sometime get carried away with cute sounding titles which have nothing to do with the papers.

Now they want to take that title optimization process even more

This sounds like a common story to me. One common challenge in SEO consulting is not lack of proper analysis or any missing knowledge on the part of the consultant. The challenge comes in getting good advice properly executed. I've never worked with a client who executed 100% accurately on the first go-round.

Quite often the problem's core is in the company itself, and not the SEO consultant. I know of a case where a major enterprise invested many thousands of dollars in an SEO review. That was followed by more big dollars spent on a training program for all the players who affected the website - from marketing and product development through to the IT Department.

One month after the on-site education, the parent company moved 8 of those 11 key players into other positions. The entire process that had begun in a very intelligent manner was completely short circuited and effectively back to zero.

In this case, I hope the SEO is still on the job and doing Quality Assurance on the execution. They should not sign off on this kind of faulty implementation, but instead should continue to push for more client education as well as correction of the bungle. It is understandable from a human point of view, but it still needs to be set right - and maybe you are in a position to do that.

If you need some ammunition, try this recent thread: Adjusted order of title tags - rankings tanked [webmasterworld.com]

Now the high PageRank (and possibly trust) of the site you are talking about might protect their rankings from this folly - at least a bit. Are they at least monitoring search engine traffic so they will know if there are bad consequences showing up?

Thanks tedster.

This practice started Oct 1, and their traffic for the full week already decreased by about 16%.

I just wanted some stronger arguments why they need to revert back to their old way of giving titles to their papers/articles.

Several arguments that I'd give...

One of the primary functions of a title is to attract click-throughs. The title is what the searcher sees in Google's results. I myself would never click on a keyword list, and that's likely to be true for many searchers.

There's an art to crafting a title that will both help rankings and to work in effect as a marketing message. A keyword list is a lazy way out, not intended for the user, not an effective message, and very likely not optimal for Google either.

Such a list lacks strategic focus, which is the essence of onpage optimization. A run-on list of keywords is likely to have too many keyword phrases, or too many repetitions of certain words.

It's also likely that Google applies some sort of semantic analysis to titles, and that a list is likely to do worse than an artiful combination of well-crafted phrases.

I suspect that both user and search engine criteria may vary in market areas. When you mention "papers/articles," this suggests an area where some weight is given to literacy.

This practice started Oct 1, and their traffic for the full week already decreased by about 16%.

How many pages were changed by this "web guy"? I'd imagine that Google has not had a chance to come spider all the pages since the change. If your going to revert back, sooner than later would be suggested.

If the site has a webmaster tools account, check there to get an idea of how much of the site has already been affected.

How many pages were changed by this "web guy"?

So far 5 papers that have been published Oct 1 onwards.

The site already has a huge duplicate title tag (around 5,000+) and metatag description (about 2,000+ pages) problem in their webmaster account.

So this and the duplicate tags problem may cause a potentially huge problem

To follow up the above thoughts, I try to keep my titles under 63 characters, which is under the Google display cutoff. While Google looks at words beyond the cutoff, I think they're trying to tell us something about page focus by make their title display as short as it is.

Here's an oldy but goody discussion that touches on length and focus in title elements...

Title Tags: A badly written title will sink your site
How to sabotage your web site without even knowing it
[webmasterworld.com...]

a few more facts and opinions about title tags here:
[webmasterworld.com...]

The web guy was finally "persuaded" to revert to the old protocol of creating title tags -- which is simply the title of the paper optimized with keywords. He removed the series of comma-separated keywords he placed on the titles.

And yes, he admitted that he went overboard and misinterpreted the recommendations of the SEO firm.

Thank you guys for all your help

On one of my sites I have a title tag that is I think 12 words. But it flows well. It is longer than the 71 characters that Google shows when you do a search.

But do you think it is ok? I manage to put a couple of important phrases in there.

Yes, an occasional longer title is usually OK. You'll soon discover if those extra words help that url rank or not. There are so many factors involved in each case that "try it and see" is the only real way to know.

I have 3 major focuses on my site and I put those 3 phrases in my title which is slightly longer than what shows in Google search results. However I still rank highly for the last two words even though they don't show in search results (those words are also in text of the page).

I also try to arrange my keywords so phrase #1 when combined with prase #2 forms another keyword phrase.

This is very good information to know. It helps me to understand how Google might be looking at the title tag.