Title guidelines for SEO
The <title> tag for each page should follow these guidelines for Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Explanation
Search engines use the contents of the <title> tag to provide some of the details about the contents of the page. The <title> tag is the most important tag that site developer controls that can influence the relevance and ranking of a page in search-engine results.
The <title> tag helps differentiate a page from other pages in search-engine results. A unique, accurate, and descriptive title can improve the click-through volume to the site.
The <title> tag should be defined in the <head> tag section of the page, before the <meta name="description"> and <meta name="keywords"> tags.
Guidelines
Search engines generally expect to find consistently formatted content and structure in the <title> tag for each page in a site.
Review each <title> tag in the site to make sure that it contains text that is relevant to the page that contains it.
Check each <title> tag for the following:
The
<title>tag of a page should not contain programmatically generated text, such as "Untitled-1".For more information, see WEB1064 - The <title> tag contains placeholder content that provides no search benefit.
The
<title>tag of a page should be unique and distinct from the<title>tags of other pages in a site.For more information, see WEB1064 - The <title> tag contains placeholder content that provides no search benefit.
A
<title>tag not be empty and should contain 65 characters or fewer.For more information, see WEB1048 - The <title> tag contents are too short and WEB1047 - The <title> tag contents are too long.
Each page should have only one
<title>tag.For more information, see WEB1050 - The <title> tag should be declared only once in a page.
The
<title>tag belongs inside the<head>section of a page.For more information, see WEB1046 - The <title> tag is not defined inside the <head> tag section.
The contents of the
<title>tag should be different from the contents of the<meta name="description">tag.For more information, see WEB1045 - The title and description for the page are identical.
See also
Concepts
Page and site guidelines for SEO
Heading guidelines for SEO
Description guidelines for SEO
Keywords guidelines for SEO
Image guidelines for SEO
Hyperlink guidelines for SEO
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