Steve83
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 33
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Posted: 2003-Mar-28 20:27
Getting a little confused about the title being an important feature of SEO. Which is important is it the title that displays in a browser window i.e
<title>text</title>
or is it the title meta tag i.e.
<META NAME="TITLE" CONTENT="text">
or are both important - should the text in each be the same?
Thanks
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Teresha Aird
Joined: Feb 14, 2000
# Posts: 595
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Posted: 2003-Mar-28 21:43
It's the <title>text</title> tag - the one that displays in the browser window and is used by the engines as the links on the SERP's.
The title meta tag isn't important at all - personally, I'd suggest that you DON'T use it.
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Hux
Joined: Dec 02, 2002
# Posts: 1207
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Posted: 2003-Mar-31 01:38
Survey says: Engggggggggggggh...wrong Teresha. NEVER discount any element of the tags as the SEs change their ways quite often. Write titles that are distinct and descriptive for each page.
You will notice that many SEs (MSN for example) use the meta description in their SERPS. So write meta descriptions that are informative and contain key words/phrases that are likely to be used in a search query. Not only will it help you in placement, but it will entice the searcher to click through to your site.
[ Message was edited by: Hux 03/30/2003 07:39 pm ]
[ Message was edited by: Hux 03/30/2003 07:40 pm ]
[ Message was edited by: Hux 03/31/2003 08:50 am ]
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thejenn
Joined: Aug 08, 2001
# Posts: 9196
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Posted: 2003-Mar-31 15:16
Actually, Hux, I'd have to go with Teresha on this one... it's not like she said you shouldn't put in a title tag or a meta descriptiond tag, she said there was no reason to put in a meta title tag.
I agree completely. There's also no reason to put in any of the dozens of other speciality meta tags. Just because the engines could someday use them doesn't mean it's worth putting time and effort into adding four or five extra meta tags to each page of your site.
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Steve83
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 33
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Posted: 2003-Mar-31 16:27
Thanks all, I stripped the title meta tag out of my pages at the weekend and was just about to put them back in! (hokey cokey anyone  )
I originally made them through one of those 'meta tag generator' sites and didn't really know if they were useful or not.
Now the only meta tags I have are:
DESCRIPTION
KEYWORDS
COMMENT (is this one necessary?)
CHARSET
CONTENT-LANGUAGE
Do I have any important ones missing?
[ Message was edited by: Steve83 03/31/2003 10:28 am ]
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T. J. Daniels
Joined: Aug 19, 2000
# Posts: 183
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Posted: 2003-Mar-31 19:58
Here are the meta title tags from Google, Yahoo, Dmoz and MSN.
<title>Google</title> <title>Yahoo!</title>
<title>ODP - Open Directory Project</title>
<title>Welcome to MSN.com</title>
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Hux
Joined: Dec 02, 2002
# Posts: 1207
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Posted: 2003-Mar-31 20:25
I was speaking about the meta title description tag, which I think is very important, and relevant.
MSN uses both the <title> and the <meta name="description" content= "blah blah blah"> tags. And since I see a fair amount of traffic from MSN to my clients I am not about to give the short shrift to these tags.
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T. J. Daniels
Joined: Aug 19, 2000
# Posts: 183
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Posted: 2003-Apr-01 00:05
Hux, I also use the meta title and description tags and include the kw tags for the SE's that still use them. I've noticed that the SE's pull words/phrases from the body text, according to the kw search phrase. Here's a few examples:
From Ask: something you like about the poem? page 1
Google: "poetry by" page 1
Msn: heartfelt prayers page 2
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MakeMeTop
Joined: Jul 05, 2000
# Posts: 1714
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Posted: 2003-Apr-01 06:51
>meta title description tag...
I know what you mean - but it is the description meta tag. There is no such thing as a meta title description tag - hence our confusion.
>I've noticed that the SE's pull words/phrases from the body text..
I certainly hope so That is what SEO is all about - making sure the phrases you want to come up for are in the body text (in an appropriate format) - as well as title and meta tags.
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unreviewed
Joined: Dec 07, 2000
# Posts: 6776
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Posted: 2003-Apr-01 07:37
Thanks Barry, for more on the title tag or meta tags, please see, http://searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/meta.html
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OAC
Staff
Joined: Jan 25, 2001
# Posts: 6809
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Posted: 2003-Apr-01 22:27
I think part of the confusion is due to some assuming that the title tag and the meta name="Title" tag are the same or similar.
The meta name="Title" is in fact, just a meta name tag, whereas the title tag is the title tag. Make sense?
The meta name="Title" tag is no different from a meta name="Author" or a meta name="Copyright" tag as far as anyone, including robots, are concerned.
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T. J. Daniels
Joined: Aug 19, 2000
# Posts: 183
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Posted: 2003-Apr-02 03:20
Correct OAC. And the 'Page Title' is the title of the 'page' usually found at the top of the page. Go to google.com and you'll see that the page name is GOOGLE.
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excell
Staff
Joined: Mar 19, 2001
# Posts: 14513
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Posted: 2003-Apr-02 10:59
so what is important in your header area?
This is:
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Steve83
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 33
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Posted: 2003-Apr-02 11:22
Thanks,
I dont have the "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd" part in my header what does this do?
Also, I thought I'd read here that the 'robots index follow' wasn't necessary, and I took it out - should I put it back in?
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excell
Staff
Joined: Mar 19, 2001
# Posts: 14513
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Posted: 2003-Apr-02 12:00
specifying the doctype is standard protocol.. just so any browser or robot arriving knows what it is, they are looking at... read up on it by simply doing a search on google for "doctype" that will give you some answers.
You don't HAVE to use a robots tag.. and I probably shouldn't have included it.. I like to put it in so that I remember to change it to "noindex,follow" on some pages and also to remind me to set up my site robots.txt file as I build.
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