Brand in Title Tag - a Ranking Factor for Scaling Big Websites?
-
I'm in the middle of redesigning title tags on a large ecommerce site - approximately 9000 product pages.
The old structure was -(product name/description) | (Website/Brand)
So an example would be -
Big League Chew - 13 oz. | Target - With 'Target' Being the site's brand and appearing on each.
With Google's new Title Tag display, our title tags are too long now. Unfortunately, our Brand/Website is HUGE - over 18 characters. My question is two fold -
1. Is it OK to remove brand from the title tags of some particularly long names? Will this impact ranking?
2. Does Google look for brand in these title tags, and more specifically: brand consistency in title tags?
I'd love to cut the brand out of some as the product name is the biggest click-through element by far - but I don't want to affect rankings. My 'gut' says that I should focus on clickthrough rate with title tags and cut brand where necessary. Does anyone have thoughts on this?
-
Thanks FCBM!
I hadn't considered the reformatting Google tends to do anyway.At this point, I haven't seen any where this is the case 'in the wild' for our brand (maybe they've recognized that it doesn't affect the clickthrough on our stuff?). They simply just let it cut off since they're mostly over the 55 or so limit.
I think a test is in order as well. Thanks!
-
I don't have a scientific answer but I do have one based off personal experience and knowledge.
1. The page title is used for ranking purposes and having a brand appended to every title tag actually results in page titles where Google decides to display the brand first and then the keywords which often times get cut off. So your title can be Bubble Gum 72 oz | Target and Google can/does display it as Target : Bubble Gum 72 oz, now imagine the same scenario with a longer brand name and all the sudden Google is cutting off the keywords/ click worthy title.
2. I think that unless you're a very dominate player in a certain industry your brand name doesn't help, even with that said smaller less "authoritative" brands can out rank older brand by just being a better player in the internet marketing game. Consider your audience, is the brand making them click the page because every other brand is spammy/crap or is the brand not adding value?
I expect that you'll get very similar answers to mine from other here. What I would recommend is removing the brand from the title on decent traffic page (not your best but not your worst) and run a test, see if the brand in title does anything.
Lastly, if you need to have the brand and it's causing issues just throw it into the meta description.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Can anyone please explain the real difference between backlinks, 301 links, and redirect links?which one is better to rank a website? i am looking for the help for one of my website
Can anyone please explain the real difference between backlinks, 301 links, and redirect links? which one is better to rank a website? I am looking for help for one of my website vacuum cleaners
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | hshajjajsjsj3880 -
How much does "Sud-domain SEO optimisation" improves website ranking?
Let's say there is a website(domain) and couple of sub-domains (around 6). If we optimise all sub-domains with "keyword" we want our website to rank for.....like giving "keyword" across all page titles of sub-domains and possible places which looks natural as brand mentions. Will this scenario helps website to rank better for same "keyword"? How can these sub-domains do really influence website in rankings? Like if the sub-domains have broken links, will this affect website SEO efforts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Would you redirect Website A to Website B, when Website B is in the middle of a HTTP=>HTTPS migration?
Hey guys, I'm curious on your thoughts around this scenario... Website A: 35,000 monthly pageviews 1,000 pages 375 root linking domains currently HTTPS focused on one topic weak rankings for competitive keywords Website B: 3M monthly pageviews 32,500 pages 3,500 root linking domains started HTTP to HTTPS migration 1 week ago. 1/3 of pages indexed as HTTPS. focused on many topics strong rankings for competitive keywords Requirement: I want to have a reliable read on how Website A's keyword rankings change after redirecting it's pages to Website A. This post-migration analysis will be used as a basis to assess the risk of redirecting another website we own that is similar to Website A into Website B. My question: Would you wait until most of the pages on Website B are indexed as HTTPS before doing a 301 of Website A to Website B? Please back up your answer with reasons why or why not 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jeremycabral0 -
How important is the optional <priority>tag in an XML sitemap of your website? Can this help search engines understand the hierarchy of a website?</priority>
Can the <priority>tag be used to tell search engines the hierarchy of a site or should it be used to let search engines know which priority to we want pages to be indexed in?</priority>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mycity4kids0 -
Tagged URL ranking organically
I've noticed that one of our GA tagged urls are ranking organically & therefore is skewing the referral data. The campaign that we were tracking is no longer active but the link still works, but it's going to an old landing page. I asked our developers if we could redirect it but they said that it didn't work. Does anyone have some advise or a solution for this? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Elihn0 -
Why is Google rewriting titles with the brandname @ the front followed with a conon " : " i.e. > Brandname: the rest of the title
Example: https://www.google.nl/search?q=providercheck.nl&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&ei=9xUCUuH6DYPePYHSgKgJ&fp=96e0b845c2047734&q=www.providercheck.nl&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&sa=X&spell=1&ved=0CC4QBSgA Look @ the first result: www.providercheck.nl
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Zanox0 -
Ranking
Hi All, I have been working on a car insurance site which targets US market. we have been doing all types of links to the site like - good related directory links, related blogpost and reviews. the site is updated daily with a fresh unique content. what more is needed to get it to the first page. we are currently ranking in the range of 40 - 50 on the page 4 or page 5. we have also recently done a redesign with a new cms, done a good press release but not seeing much of changes. please if anyone in the same industry or with some experience can suggest us. we are using all white hat seo & I can understand the amount of competition in this niche. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Markyseo0 -
Could adding canonical tags to large Ecommerce site ever hurt rankings? Temporarily?
We have a really large site we're working on who's product pages rank well for the most part but also have multiple products listed in different categories with different URL's. I'm assuming there's no downside to adding canonical tags to these right? Its peak season so I don't want to do anything that could, even temporarily, bring down their rankings. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | iAnalyst.com0