The Title Tag

Your HTML title tag appears in browser tabs, bookmarks and search result pages.

In the example below (from a Google Search result) the title tag is

‘Arnold Clark | New and Used Cars For Sale’

Make your title tags clear, and concise (65 characters, 200-569 pixels) and include your most important keywords.

Title tags define the title of a web page.

The title tag is one of the most important on-page factors for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).

Search engines (e.g. Google, Yahoo, Bing) rely heavily on title tags to interpret a page’s topic and determine what to expect from the page content.

Title tags are also used by browsers (e.g. Chrome, Safari, Firefox) for tab and bookmark descriptions and by social media sites (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) when you share a link.

The title tag is combined with meta descriptions by search engines to create the search snippet displayed in search results, and by social media platforms to display when sharing links.

Title Tag Update from Google

Google has announced an update on a new system for generating title tags in terms of how they are generated.

Last week, we introduced a new system of generating titles for web pages. Before this, titles might change based on the query issued. This generally will no longer happen with our new system

GOogle

Read the update on Google’s website

Google’s current advice on HTML Title Tags

‘Focus on creating great HTML title tags. Of all the ways that we generate titles, the content from HTML title tags is most like used – 80% of the time.

The following table shows the title tags for the top 100 car dealers in the UK.