Length of Title tag - Length of Title tag (Posted by Jeff Rus)

They have: 2 posts

Joined: Oct 1999

Hello,

I found a lot of information about Meta Tags and how they are displayed
on search results pages of the major search engines. But I couldn't find
anything about how long your page title should be.

I had created a title of 14 words, and the last three words weren't shown
on AltaVista.

Thanks,
Jeff

They have: 2,390 posts

Joined: Nov 1998

Keep in mind that when the search engines display your ranking they sometimes show what you have in your title tag - they normally cut off this text after about 250 characters so by this point you should have explained what the current page is about.
JP

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John Pollock's picture

He has: 628 posts

Joined: Mar 1999

I just use a simple title, then it doesn't get cut off. It would seem a title longer than 5-7 words would
seem long to me, but that is just me. Smiling

My best advice is to use a meaningful title with a few solid keywords, but to avoid a long list or a never-ending description. Smiling

They have: 2 posts

Joined: Oct 1999

Hi John,

But when I look at the title on THIS page: it has 13 words Smiling
Or aren't these pages indexed by spiders?

Jeff

John Pollock's picture

He has: 628 posts

Joined: Mar 1999

This page isn't owned by me, I really don't know where it is indexed and such. I was only giving an opinion, so it doesn't mean I'm right. I just found that long titles never helped me with the search engines, and they made my listings look bad. Consider this- which site would you go to when you saw its listing at a search engine?

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You can get top ranking in the search engines here, plus how to make money, FREE design tips, FREE graphics, META tags, search engines, directories...

or

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Learn how to help your site gain a better listing in the search engines and directories with our tips, tricks, and advice on search engine placement.

Smiling

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