Textpattern CMS support forum
You are not logged in. Register | Login | Help
- Topics: Active | Unanswered
Pages: 1
Page titles, the SEO way?
Ever since I started running Textpattern, I’ve used the txp:page_title tag for the html title of pages.
The txp:page_title tag defaults to site name – title of article, never questioned it, left it alone. A few weeks back, I researched how other sites are formatting their page titles, for the most part, commercial sites have their site name first while personal sites use the title of the article first, then their site name.
Many SEO articles suggest using the article title first, since they claim that search engines like it better and when a user is doing a search, the pertinent information is where their eyeballs are focused on as they go down the search results page.
So I decided for my own personal blog to change the order of the titles, many suggested using ob1_title, but it’s not being maintained, so I added a conditional for individual articles and used the txp:title tag along with txp:site_name to make the page title.
3 weeks have gone by and Google has updated some of my previous articles with the new title order on their search results page. Some of these articles have stayed in the same order as they were before on the search results page, some have dropped to the following page or many pages back.
After doing all this, and seeing my articles drop in the search results, I’m starting to wonder the validity of the claims many SEO sites make. Or maybe it’s just a wait and see game while Google re-indexes my site over time and the articles make their way to where they were before.
Has anyone else made similar findings after changing their title order?
We Love TXP . TXP Themes . TXP Tags . TXP Planet . TXP Make
Offline
#2 2009-09-06 18:35:42
- ferenczi
- Member
- Registered: 2005-01-31
- Posts: 67
Re: Page titles, the SEO way?
Wow, this is a very good question. I tried a similar experiment on one of my sites and had a similar experience to yours. Ranking dropped. Took a while (like, months), but now it has gone back up. So in sum, I just don’t know. Confused about this myself.
Offline
#3 2009-09-06 18:49:02
- masa
- Member
- From: Asturias, Spain
- Registered: 2005-11-25
- Posts: 1,091
Re: Page titles, the SEO way?
hcgtv wrote:
After doing all this, and seeing my articles drop in the search results, I’m starting to wonder the validity of the claims many SEO sites make.
They’re just spreading fear & doubt, after all they’re making a business of it. I doubt they, or anyone else for that matter, knows for sure.
In my experience, relevant and interesting content is the most powerful ingredient to achieve high rankings, no SEO voodoo required, just good writing skills.
Offline
Re: Page titles, the SEO way?
ferenczi, glad to hear someone else went through the same thing. I’ll wait a few months and see what happens then.
masa, I agree, SEO sites are all business, most of them increase your rankings by spamming forums and blogs. On a number of occasions I’ve had to contact companies asking them to stop posting on my forums.
We Love TXP . TXP Themes . TXP Tags . TXP Planet . TXP Make
Offline
Re: Page titles, the SEO way?
I think you should wait a little more – changing rather many titles at your site makes google nervouse. He should calm :) Any way – making title first is good – searcher will see title of article he searchs, not total common site name.
Providing help in hacking ATM! Come to courses and don’t forget to bring us notebook and hammer! What for notebook? What a kind of hacker you are without notebok?
Offline
#6 2009-09-12 12:58:54
- kevinpotts
- Member
- From: Ghost Coast
- Registered: 2004-12-07
- Posts: 370
Re: Page titles, the SEO way?
hcgtv wrote:
After doing all this, and seeing my articles drop in the search results, I’m starting to wonder the validity of the claims many SEO sites make. Or maybe it’s just a wait and see game while Google re-indexes my site over time and the articles make their way to where they were before.
It’s always a wait-and-see with Google. However, from my experience, I have had more success presenting the name of the site after the keyword-heavy title, unless the name of the site has important keywords (“Ted’s Real Estate”).
Don’t get frustrated. SEO is playing a game of poker in the dark where the cards are blank and the dealer keeps changing the rules.
Kevin
(graphicpush)
Offline
Re: Page titles, the SEO way?
Yes, it just appears to be a matter of time.
When I was born I was so surprised I didn’t talk for a year and a half – Gracie Allen
Offline
Re: Page titles, the SEO way?
Would a redirect of some sort have helped. I mean should you have tried a redirect in your htaccess file pointing the old urls to the new ones before your experiment? Not sure if it would have made a difference.
its a bad hen that wont scratch itself.
photogallery
Offline
Pages: 1