How long can your header be in number of characters?
-
hey all, have hear conflicting information on how many characters in the header you are allowed? i've heard 60, 65, and 70??
what are your thoughts?
thanks!!
-
thanks steve!
-
Just a little tip: If you're planning on playing around with differing titles and character lengths, rather than "change, wait for index, google, check, repeat", you could always use something like Photoshop to check:
Take a screenshot of a SERP with a truncated title, add a guide at the trunc point, match the font in Photoshop and type away until you hit the guide.
This way you can play around with a few titles before you go live with any of them.
-
Do you mean meta description or meta keywords?
If meta description, I think it does still have a small benefit to your SEO if optimisted properly, but more importantly the call to action function of it makes it very worth-while. I'd always put a custom one in, rather than let Google/Bing pull one in for me.
As for meta keywords, I think their time has past.
Google says they do not use the tag when deciding where to rank your site. We have to take what Google says with a pinch of salt, but I believe that this is true.
Bing and Yahoo are said to still take the tags into account - although even they admit it's a very small influence to their ranking.
I think why it has been abandoned by many, many sites is because it is a pretty clear give-away to a competitor over what keywords you're trying to target. All they have to do is look at your source code, look at your meta keywords and then they can see what keywords you might be trying to target.
For me, their time has passed and I don't use them at all when working with clients or on new sites. I believe I'm in the majority, but you certainly won't harm your site by using them, provided they are not over-optimised.
-
hey tom, one other question, do you think meta tags are a dinosaur these days?
i still think the search engines peek at them if they are relevant to your content?
thoughts?
-
No problem!
As always, testing things out for yourselves will give the best results, so if you know you have titles nearing the 65-70 length, Google them for yourself to make sure the title is showing up how you like.
-
thanks tom!!!
-
The general rule of thumb is 70 characters (with spaces).
The reason why there is discrepancy is that Google truncates titles on width, not actual character length. A 'W' is wider than a 'd' and so if you were to have 70 'W's, for some strange reason, the title would be shortened earlier.
If you're feel you're using certain "wide" characters in your titles, maybe they reoccur in your brand name (eg Wesley's Wheels), then 65 characters might be a better number to aim for. Other than that, 70 characters is usually fine.
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
-
What we can understand from decrease in % of New Sessions year to year in Google analytics.
Hi, As per Google analytics, we are loosing around 15% of new sessions every year comparing to the previous. But the sessions are increasing. Good that sessions increased; but new sessions are getting reduced. What exactly we can understand from this scenario? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Footer menu links: Header tags or list items?
Hi, I would like to know header tags (h5 or h6) or list items ( ) works better for footer menu links for the best linking structure. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz1 -
Numbers vs #'s For Blog Titles
For your blog post titles, is it "better" to use numbers or write them out? For example, 3 Things I love About People Answering My Constant Questions or Three Things I Love About People Answering My Constant Questions? I could see this being like the attorney/lawyer, ecommerce/e-commerce and therefore not a big deal. But, I also thought you should avoid using #'s in your url's. Any thoughts, Ruben
Algorithm Updates | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
3 Subdomains - Can their authority or ranking affect each other?
HI, We have 3 different subdomains that target completely different industries.
Algorithm Updates | | danialniazi
a.example.com - school reviews
b.example.com - healthcare reviews
c.example.com - car reviews Q1: If any of the above subdomains gets demoted or penalized by Google would that affect the other subdomains? Q2: Moving forward with all the new changes in SEO, penalties, etc; would it be wise to utilize 3 subdomains for different industries or should we consider getting separate domains?0 -
Can I have the same item description on Amazon, eBay and my website?
Hi guys, After looking on the Internet and reading the Learn SEO section on this site, I've realised that Google doesn't like duplicate content and penalises it, whether that's duplication on your own site or of another site's content. We are an online retailer currently selling on different platforms including Amazon, eBay and our own ecommerce webstore. Is it okay to have the same item description (i.e. main page copy) on each of these sites, or will our search rankings get negatively impacted? Thank you in advance, I have researched on this issue also but I couldn't find a concrete answer. Tanay
Algorithm Updates | | goforgreen0 -
How can we start to improve Domain MozRank & MozTrust for our website?
A simple question maybe, but how and where do we start if we want to improve our 'Domain MozRank & Moztrust', 'assuming of course that by improving both these we will improve our rankings with Google plus sales?
Algorithm Updates | | ewanTHH0 -
How can Chrome rankings vary wildly from Mozilla and IE8?
Our website (www.theideapeople.com) has generally ranked on page 4 on Google search for the phrase "charlotte web design" for the past year...regardless of which browser I used. Oh, and my browser location is always set to Charlotte, NC. I also have the Moz toolbar installed and logged-in. Today, I Googled the same keyword using Chrome and we were on page 1 in 4th position! The other browsers still showed us on page 4, as usual. Has anybody else noticed this wild variance with Chrome? Is Chrome learning that I work at The Idea People?!!
Algorithm Updates | | theideapeople0 -
Can anyone explain these changes to our Titles in the SERPS?
Hi there, We've been doing well in the SERPS over the past few weeks. Our previous meta title was displayed as: "Hunter Original Tall - Buy Original Tall Online Here" However, recently we've seen the title in the SERP switch over to: "Hunter Original Tall - Cloggs.co.uk" This has occurred on several of our product pages which display a particular style of a certain brand. So for example: "Ugg Bailey Button - Cloggs.co.uk" Has anyone else experienced these changes or can explain why this may have happened?
Algorithm Updates | | NigelJ
There is not change to the source code and our Titles have proven to have good click through rates in the past. Any ideas mozzers?0