Best Way to Use Date in Title
-
Hi,
I do most of the current copy for our blog which you can find here http://appointedd.com/blog/
I believe having a regular blog structure with a mix of irregular ad hoc posts to go in around these. So, for this blog, I write an article on "Beauty Industry News" every week.
Now, I don't want to use the same title for each post, so I've peen butting in the date after each one i.e. "Beauty Industry News - 24/04/13". Is this best practice or is there a better way of naming regular posts?
Thanks in advance!
-
It's all been said but here are a few more tips to get your going with the perfect page titles
http://seoandy.com/optimisation/perfect-webpage-title/#sthash.lcH9PSFM.dpbs
-
Hi Philip,
By all means add the last part if you wish to give you some consistency in the series, but make sure you append it at the end of the title. One thing to mindful of is not to make the title too long or it may end up being truncated by search engines. This SEOMoz guide should help.
-
Ah, thanks - that's very useful to know. I might try and incorporate a bit of the article content into the title as way suggested by Simon above.
Cheers!
-
Thanks very much!
I hadn't done that as I'd wanted to keep the sense of consistency week to week, but what you say makes a great deal of sense. Do you think it might might be better to highlight the main article content and then put a consistent part at the end.
As an example, today will mainly be focusing on a new UK cosmetic surgery review, so the title might be "Cosmetic Crisis: UK Cosmetic Report - Beauty Industry News" or do you think it better to simply leave the last part out?
Thanks!
-
I don't think there is a better way to name a dated document than by using a form of a date.
However, you might want to consider using a different format (because you've mentioned these posts were weekly), for example "Beauty Industry News - Week 13 of 2013". Just a personal preference though, no gains or losses in the search engines there that I'm aware of.
-
Why not differentiate each of your titles by the actual content so that you include relevant keywords in your titles?
For example if it's a blog about 'Beauty Tips for Women over 40' then make that the title rather than calling the post 'Beauty Industry News - today's date'. Page title is an important ranking factor so make sure that your title gives both the user and search engines a clue of what the content of the blog post actually is.
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
-
Publication Date, Modification Date - (Proper) Usage and Effect
Hi, First of all: I think apart from QDF results, effects of this are rather small and trumped by such things as the actual content and value a page offered. Nevertheless I got to wondering how the publication date and modification date are used ... effectively and correctly. Fact: Google displays the publication date on SERPS (if it is given via schema or through the CMS or in any other form). This also applies if you have a date of last modification, for example via schema.org/dateModified - regardless of the extent of changes.
On-Page Optimization | | netzkern_AG
Google only considers the publication date. Google also uses it as an indicator for "freshness". There are quite a few articles on that out there, ex: http://www.kevinmuldoon.com/change-date-article-boost-seo/ and http://www.viperchill.com/new-seo/ Q1: In my opinion, faking the publication date is at the very least a darkish grey area which nonetheless seems to still work. Would you agree? Q2: Would you see it as legitimate to (at some point after thoroughly reworking one page) update the publication date to the date of republication? Case in point: I have a page with book reviews. These reviews do not really go stale - much like recipes; tastes may change a bit, but essentially it stays the same. I find it somewhat irking to see a 10 year old date there - even if I maybe have restructured and rewritten, maybe even completely redone a review... But apart from the question of whether to ever "update" your publication date. I started pondering when it was proper to change the modification date (especially as it seems to have little effect apart from serving as date for last changes in headers, caches etc.)? For example, content changes when Manually changing text a visitor leaves a comment a visitor gives a book/article/page a rating a visitor gives a book a rating and this rating is part of another entity's aggregate rating Q: Which of these events would warrant an update of the last modification? ratings and aggregate ratings typically only change single numbers (vote count and sums/averages); yet there is [legitimate] change and it is utilised in SERPS (review stars). I am still hesitant. My answers would be: Changing the publication date might be valid in case of a MAJOR overhaul with new or lots of extra content - when, for example you could publish the same article again in another issue of the same print magazine the article has been published in before; and all of those changes warrant an update of the last modification, at least as it is currently used, i.e. only to show when change has happened with any real influence. Personally I'd wish for lastModified carrying more weight compared to pubDate AND especially for more google-side checks if actual change has happened. (To be ignored in case of small things like legitimately switching a sentence or correcting a typo; to be penalised if changed when nothing really changes; to honour when real change happens) Looking forward on your opinions for dating content - and of course on your hints what I am forgetting. 🙂 Nico0 -
Product titles
Hi guys, I'm starting to sell sofas and furniture online in Australia. Many USA companies just use the key ranking words as the Product Title i.e. "Ultra -Modern black leather sectional sofa with bookcase". Even if they have 100s of products. But in Australia they just use the model name, such as "The York", "The Boston", etc. Cause it does create a nicer picture and a neater look on the main page. I was wondering how important this practice is in improving search ranking? is it spammy? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | cowhidesdirect0 -
Spammy page titles
Over the last couple of weeks, I have noticed that Google aren't showing the page titles for my online shop anymore. They're set up with a third party plug-in piece of software, and while it's an old version of the software, the developer said it wouldn't be causing issues. They have suggested that I re-write my page titles to be less spammy. The thing is, Google haven't attacked just spammy looking titles, they're just taking a swoop through my whole site and not showing any of my page titles in their search results. I'm getting "Category Name - Shop Name" showing. Here's some of the page titles no longer appearing and I honestly have no idea how to rewrite these to not be spammy. Are there any good articles on what's spammy and what isn't? "Coconut oil - best tasting in Australia. Buy online from <my business="" name="">"</my> "Discount Vitamix Blender. Best deal in Australia. Buy online from <my business="" name="">."</my> "Natural & Organic skin care for the face | buy online in Australia from <my business="" name="">."</my> There are others that are showing the real page titles, but I think it's only a matter of re-indexing before they're all not showing. Any clue?
On-Page Optimization | | sparrowdog0 -
www vs no-www duplicate which should I use
site is no-www I caught this in archives. Will this by my fix? Mike Davis Online Marketing Manager at McKesson May 22, 2013 Easy fix: in your .htaccess file, use this RewriteEngine On
On-Page Optimization | | touristips
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^domain.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://domain.com/$1 [R=301,L] Remember to replace domain.com with your domain name.
Enjoy!0 -
Which URL Structure is best for New Website?
Hello All, I have one client and he want to develop his website but the he want the URL structure for his website page like below: http://www.example.com/category/xxproduct.html But I have suggest him below URL Structure http://www.example.com/category/xx-product.html So Can you people please suggest me that from above which URL structure is better from SEO side as well as from Visual side..? Is using - is better to separate the words in URL?
On-Page Optimization | | jemindesai0 -
How to mass change Title and Description of a website
Hey , I recently landed a client and his website has a lot of pages. After running a diagnostics in SEOmoz it seems like a lot of them dont have titles and descriptions. Also the ones that have titles and descriptions are not well optimized. I want to change/create titles and descriptions of this website but the problem is it has got 1000s of pages. So I was wondering is there an automated way of doing this? Thanks a lot in advance. Regards
On-Page Optimization | | MerilynL0 -
Title tags in duplicate pages
hi there, we have a new ecommerce platform which has just been deployed, and I've been asked to tidy up the onpage SEO. we have employed canonicals across the category and product pages and we now have a nice set of unique product pages my question is - do we need to create the title tags in all of the duplicate non-canonical pages eg www.mysite.com/niceproduct.html (canonical) www.mysite.com/acategory/niceproduct.html (duplicate) Can we leave the duplicate title tag empty and not worry about it, or should we put in a duplicate of the canonical title tag hope the question makes sense! thanks in advance for all help
On-Page Optimization | | k3nn3dy30 -
Negatives to using custom sub domain?
So - being photographers, we have our main website, but also, we use a hosted service for all our client galleries (www.zenfolio.com) So, in effect, we have two websites: Our main informational website Our client gallery/proofing website The client gallery has back links to our main website - so, when people are viewing their gallery, they can easily get back to our main site. We also have thrown a few of our preferred keywords in there for SEO purposes. The gallery has thousands of pages which link back to the main site. So.. the client gallery URL can either be: http://ourbusinessname.zenfolio.com OR we can have it so it uses our own domain, such as: http://gallery.ourbusinessname.com The question is, which domain name will benefit the back links more? Our custom subdomain (which links to our main domain) or, using the Zenfolio domain (which is external to our site). Or, is there no real difference either way? Or.. do I make no sense?
On-Page Optimization | | blitzna100