How Each Specific Major Search Engine Utilizes the Title Tag
by John Heard

Courtesy of SearchEngineNews.com | February 2006 Planet Ocean Communications, the top-rated source of search engine marketing information.

Considering how important the <title> tag is to your ranking success, let's focus on the top three engines and break down exactly what they're responding to in terms of high ranking <title> tags...

Google: Believe it or not, we've recorded Google indexing up to 1,137 characters within the <title> tag as of January 24, 2006. While they'll typically display only the first 63 characters in the search results, our tests have shown the page's search description will display the otherwise truncated portion of the <title> tag contents where the keyword is found - with the queried keyword emphasized in bold text to make it stand out.

Regardless, we do not recommend using <title> tags of such great length. However, it is good to understand that even extremely long title tags are, indeed, indexed by Google - but we see no evidence whatsoever that long titles are a cause for higher rankings.

MSN: Like Google, we know that MSN will also index at least 1,137 characters deep into the <title> tag contents. However, MSN only displays approximately the first 70 characters found in the <title> tag in the search results for the page title.

Unlike Google, MSN does not display any of the title contents in the search results description area. They, instead, show just the first 196 characters of body text content regardless of keyword query. Again, we do not recommend using <title> tags of this length at MSN in spite of their apparent willingness to index such exceedingly long titles.

Yahoo: Our test page is not currently indexed at Yahoo although our previous testing indicated that Yahoo indexes approximately 1,100 characters in the title. And, the fact that our long-title test-page has now vanished indicates that excessively long <title> tags should be avoided.

Currently we are certain that Yahoo displays up to the first 112 characters of the page's <title> tag in their search results.

Less is more...

Even though most search engines will index far more of the <title> tag than what they display in the search results, we recommend that you apply this knowledge with common sense and restraint. We see no evidence that long titles are key to high rankings. On the contrary, long <title> tags actually dilute keyword density within a <title> tag. By adding additional text you reduce the influence that each keyword has in relation to the overall interpretation of what the title is actually about.

Simply put, shorter titles (i.e. less than 70 characters) are what we have found lead to the best results, ranking-wise.

Clearly, the <title> tag is an extremely important part of your SEO toolkit. It influences both your rank and your traffic. But don't try to fit everything including the kitchen sink between those two little <title> </title> tags! Simply follow our guidelines and your titles will be well-poised to play their role as one of the critically important elements that cause web pages to get ranked toward the top of the search results.

What Web marketing tool do we whole-heartedly recommend to our clients? There's no question - it's WebPosition Gold. Unlike other products out there, this amazing tool really does help you achieve top rankings on the search engines! Be sure to check them out at WebPosition.com.

This article is copyrighted and has been reprinted with permission from FirstPlace Software, the makers of WebPosition Gold. FirstPlace Software helped define the SEO industry with the introduction of the first product to track your rankings on the major search engines and to help you improve those

rankings. A free trial of WebPosition Gold is available from their Web site.