undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • MozCon
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Digital Marketers
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
    Moz Pro

    Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

    Try it free!
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Digital Marketers

      Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
  4. What are best page titles for sub-folders or sub-directories? Same as website?

Moz Q&A is closed.

After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

What are best page titles for sub-folders or sub-directories? Same as website?

Intermediate & Advanced SEO
3
10
1.6k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • vtmoz
    vtmoz last edited by Feb 24, 2017, 7:22 AM

    Hi all,

    We always mention "brand & keyword" in every page title along with topic in the website, like "Topic | vertigo tiles".

    Let's say there is a sub-directory with hundreds of pages...what will be the best page title practice in mentioning "brand & keyword" across all pages of sub-directory to benefit in-terms if SEO?

    Can we add "vertigo tiles" to all pages of sub-directory? Or we must not give same phrase?

    Thanks,

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • impactzoneco
      impactzoneco @vtmoz last edited by Mar 1, 2017, 11:58 AM Mar 1, 2017, 11:58 AM

      VTCRM,

      Good luck!

      -- Jewel

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • vtmoz
        vtmoz @impactzoneco last edited by Mar 1, 2017, 3:24 AM Mar 1, 2017, 3:24 AM

        Thanks Jewel,

        So we stick on this and get back to you for any other clarifications.

        impactzoneco 1 Reply Last reply Mar 1, 2017, 11:58 AM Reply Quote 1
        • impactzoneco
          impactzoneco @vtmoz last edited by Feb 28, 2017, 1:41 PM Feb 28, 2017, 1:41 PM

          CTRM,

          I'm glad my response helped you.

          To my eyes, without looking at keyword rankings, etc., the middle one looks like the most natural language version.

          Good luck, and feel free to ping me if I can provide any additional ideas.

          -- Jewel

          vtmoz 1 Reply Last reply Mar 1, 2017, 3:24 AM Reply Quote 0
          • vtmoz
            vtmoz @ClaytonJ last edited by Feb 28, 2017, 5:37 AM Feb 28, 2017, 5:37 AM

            I think it's Okay to go with as I noticed many are practising same from our industry. And I feel like "brand & keyword" is not going to hurt; if so it must be hurting all the pages of website being with same suffix across all page titles. I think Topic name is going to play key role which we possibly do not have duplicate content issues. Our new sub directory is a help guide and I am planning to add "help" and choose one of the below format.

            Topic | help - vertigo tile

            Topic | vertigo tiles help

            Topic | vertigo tiles - help

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • vtmoz
              vtmoz @impactzoneco last edited by Feb 28, 2017, 5:30 AM Feb 28, 2017, 5:30 AM

              Hi Jewel,

              Thanks for such descriptive answer which explains a lot. Rather than worrying about getting penalised; I would like to make sure which way of using brand and main keyword across these page titles fetch in SEO. Actually our sub-directory is all about help guides. So I decided to go with our brand name and keyword as per you suggestion with high confidence levels. Again I need to add "help" to this...So I am now in finding out the best natural looking out of below:

              Topic | help - vertigo tile

              Topic | vertigo tiles help

              Topic | vertigo tiles - help

              impactzoneco 1 Reply Last reply Feb 28, 2017, 1:41 PM Reply Quote 1
              • impactzoneco
                impactzoneco @vtmoz last edited by Feb 28, 2017, 5:25 AM Feb 26, 2017, 8:09 PM

                Hello VTCRM,

                This is a tough call. Because it is a branding versus SEO issue. Convention is to put the website's  name on all the pages. However, you are correct to be concerned about duplication and "too much".

                I decided to poke around on some big websites, where I know they have usability experts and ought to have the $$$ for high quality SEO. It looks like the convention is have the name in there, either as a repeated tagline, the company name, or as part of the product.

                Target uses SquareSpace AFAIK, so even with customization, that may be a requirement of the platform, to repeat the tagline. But having used SquareSpace, it is probably their choice, as they have the programmers to change that.

                I looked at Home Depot, and they do use their name in the product title. I also examined Nike. They use the name integrated into the product name, so not tagged on at the end.

                My advice, then, would be to follow the convention and add the name to the title.  I think the Google search engine has been programmed will enough to understand the brand name versus spamming.

                Nike's way of integrating the name into the product is the one that stands out to me as potential SEO buster for spam. However, again, I think search engines ought to be able to pick apart a site or product name from spamming.

                I think if you stick to convention and do "Topic | vertigo tiles", you'll be all right. As don_quixote pointed out, removing the standard branding name from the title does give you more room for other keywords. I agree with him that you should think through your navigation carefully, as you are doing, and that includes the page names ==> URL/slug names (the overall Information Architecture).

                To summarize, do I think you'll be penalized for following web convention of the past 20 years and tacking your brand name/website name to the title? No.

                Then your question will be, do you want to do this?

                It sounds like you do, but you are hesitant because of fears of a duplication penalty. I don't think you need to worry about that, especially given these big sites are doing it.

                The other aspect to information retrieval, is the location of one term or phrase near another that creates associations and helps in findability. Associating "product X women's tennis shoes" with "Nike" is a genuine association.

                I think you'll be fine to add that name to the title, assuming you don't want the real estate for other keywords. IOW, I see no reason why you would be penalized. (And if not, contact me, and I'll help you fix it on my time!)

                Me? I tend to follow convention in that regard. I'll buck convention in other areas, but you ought to be fine. (If it matters, I started building websites in 1995, I have worked with CMS systems for years, and I have yet to be penalized.)

                -- Jewel

                hvYSDC5.png hxNamIE.png Waf25vA.png

                vtmoz 1 Reply Last reply Feb 28, 2017, 5:30 AM Reply Quote 1
                • ClaytonJ
                  ClaytonJ last edited by Feb 26, 2017, 10:38 AM Feb 26, 2017, 10:38 AM

                  Without going into how to technically achieve the outcome. It may be beneficial to go back one step and consider drawing up a the url structure. Lay out the keyword/s being targeted for the global home page and then the first sub-folders. The url structure, when laid out, with keywords, should provide guidance on the layout of Title's and H1's.  We often take out the company name/brand when required and use the 600 pixels available to optimise the page. This allows more individual title tags for search and customers.  ie Your client will likely rank No 1-3 for their brand and brand labelling inner pages, unless beneficial for the customer experience is unlikely to assist brand ranking...

                  You may only want to index some of the sub directory pages... as well.  rel canonical the juice back to the header page..

                  Anyway I like to go back to the url structure, and find when I get that right everything flows easily from there...

                  So in answer to your question - No I would not recommend you put vertigo tiles on every page of the sub-folder. I would make sure each page has a unique relevant title.. and a closely though not exact matching H1... to the page content. I add I see "black vertigo tiles" as different to "white vertigo tiles"

                  Hope that assists.

                  vtmoz 1 Reply Last reply Feb 28, 2017, 5:37 AM Reply Quote 0
                  • vtmoz
                    vtmoz @impactzoneco last edited by Feb 26, 2017, 4:15 AM Feb 26, 2017, 4:15 AM

                    Hi Jewel,

                    Our website is wordpress and yes it auto generates our company name and main keyword to rear of the every page title. This is good because we do have targetiitng keywords and brand on all pages.

                    Our sub-directory is a different CMS. It's been hosted independently with own design. This will be even auto generated. My doubt is whether repeating same "company name and keyword" in all page titles of this sub-directory good or bad? Will this be kind of duplicate look for Google? Or it'll help us in the keyword scenario?

                    Thanks

                    impactzoneco 1 Reply Last reply Feb 26, 2017, 8:09 PM Reply Quote 1
                    • impactzoneco
                      impactzoneco last edited by Feb 25, 2017, 8:37 PM Feb 25, 2017, 8:37 PM

                      What website platform/CMS are you using? Does it auto-generate your website name to either the front or rear of the page title? For example, as WordPress does? Or, is this something you can suppress, which I believe SquareSpace allows (but don't quote me on that).

                      vtmoz 1 Reply Last reply Feb 26, 2017, 4:15 AM Reply Quote 0
                      • 1 / 1
                      1 out of 10
                      • First post
                        1/10
                        Last post

                      Got a burning SEO question?

                      Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                      Start my free trial


                      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.

                      • See all categories

                      Related Questions

                      • peteboyd

                        Law Firm Website Completely Switching Marketing Focus - How to Best Handle

                        Hi Moz Community, Thanks in advance for the help! We have a law firm client interested in fully switching their SEO marketing from Criminal Defense to Personal Injury. Our client no longer wants any business for Criminal Defense cases. Background Info: The website for the last 10 years has focused on Criminal Defense (and ranks well). Over the last couple of years we have introduced Personal Injury content on the website and achieved some decent rankings as well. In order to make the website less relevant for Criminal Defense, it had crossed our minds to de-index these specific Criminal Defense pages but still leave them present on the website. Question:  Would you recommend de-indexing all of the pages at once or done in a gradual manner? Our concern it that doing it all at once could affect the overall domain's authority more sharply and harm rankings for any other keywords not involving Criminal Defense.

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Apr 18, 2024, 5:49 AM | peteboyd
                        1
                      • vtmoz

                        What are best page titles for sub-domain pages?

                        Hi Moz communtity, Let's say a website has multiple sub-domains with hundreds and thousands of pages. Generally we will be mentioning "primary keyword & "brand name" on every page of website. Can we do same on all pages of sub-domains to increase the authority of website for this primary keyword in Google? Or it gonna end up as negative impact if Google consider as duplicate content being mentioned same keyword and brand name on every page even on website and all pages of sub domains? Thanks

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Feb 15, 2017, 10:01 AM | vtmoz
                        0
                      • KJ-Rodgers

                        Location Pages On Website vs Landing pages

                        We have been having a terrible time in the local search results for 20 + locations. I have Places set up and all, but we decided to create location pages on our sites for each location - brief description and content optimized for our main service. The path would be something like .com/location/example. One option that has came up in question is to create landing pages / "mini websites" that would probably be location-example.url.com. I believe that the latter option, mini sites for each location, would be a bad idea as those kinds of tactics were once spammy in the past. What are are your thoughts and and resources so I can convince my team on the best practice.

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Sep 4, 2015, 3:06 PM | KJ-Rodgers
                        0
                      • Kadel

                        Pipe ("|") in my website's title is being replaced with ":" in Google results

                        Hi , One of the websites I'm promoting and working on is www.pau-brasil.co.il.
                        It's wordpress-based website and as you can see the html's Title is "PauBrasil | some hebrew slogan".
                        (Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/2f80EEY.gif)
                        When I'm searching for "PauBrasil" (Which is the brand's name) , one of the results google shows is "PauBrasil: Some Hebrew Slogan" (Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/eJxNHrO.gif ) Why does the pipe is being replaced with ":" ?
                        And not just that , as you can see there's a "blank space" missing between the the ":" to the slogan.
                        (note: the websites has been indexed by google crawler at least 4 times so I find it hard to believe it can be the reason) I've keep on looking and found out that there's another page in that website with the exact same title
                        but when I'm looking for it in google , it shows the title as it really is , with pipe. ("|").
                        (Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/dtsbZV2.gif) Have you ever encountered something like that?
                        Can it be that the duplicated title cause that weird "replacement"? Thanks in advance,
                        Kadel

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Aug 23, 2013, 4:18 AM | Kadel
                        0
                      • rahul11

                        How to do geo targeting for domain and sub directories in Webmaster tool?

                        Hello All, How can i do geo targeting in multiple countries on my ** root domain and sub **directories in Webmaster tool. My domain is "abc.com" and i want to target three countries UAE , Kuwait, Saudi arabia. So, Can i assign geo targeting in Webmaster tool ,  Root domain for UAE country and make other two sub directories for Kuwait and saudi ? abc.com - UAE (geo targeting) abc.com/kw - Kuwait (geo targeting) abc.com/sa - Saudi  (geo targeting) Or Root doamain should be not assign for any country and Make three sub directories for UAE, Kuwait , and saudi and targeting them there geo locations. abc.com - Unlisted (geo targeting) abc.com/uae/ - UAE (geo targeting) abc.com/kw/ - Kuwait (geo targeting) abc.com/sa/ - Saudi  (geo targeting)

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Mar 24, 2013, 9:09 PM | rahul11
                        0
                      • Bio-RadAbs

                        PDFs and images in Sub folder or subdomain?

                        What would you recommend as best practice? Our ecommerce site has a lot of PDFs supporting the product page. Currently they are kept in a sub domain and so are all images. Would it be better to keep them all in a subfolder? I've read about blogs being hosted on a subfolder to be better than subdomain but what about pdfs and images? thoughts?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jan 30, 2013, 1:20 PM | Bio-RadAbs
                        0
                      • alextanner

                        Duplicate page titles Wordpress SEO/Yoast

                        Hi I have a Wordpress site using the Wordpress SEO plugin by Yoast. Everything appears to be fine except that on 1 Feb SEOMoz crawl suddenly picked up a bunch of errors. The errors are duplicate page titles, and these exist only for the mysite.com/page/X pages. I can't find any setting in Yoast that looks wrong or tells me how to fix this. The pages are also dynamically canonicalizing to themselves - not sure if this makes any difference although I don't know how this is happening. Does anyone know how to fix this duplicate title error? Alex

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Mar 26, 2012, 7:51 AM | alextanner
                        0
                      • EricPacifico

                        Should the sitemap include just menu pages or all pages site wide?

                        I have a Drupal site that utilizes Solr, with 10 menu pages and about 4,000 pages of content. Redoing a few things and we'll need to revamp the sitemap. Typically I'd jam all pages into a single sitemap and that's it, but post-Panda, should I do anything different?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jul 14, 2011, 3:44 AM | EricPacifico
                        0

                      Get started with Moz Pro!

                      Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                      Start my free trial
                      Products
                      • Moz Pro
                      • Moz Local
                      • Moz API
                      • Moz Data
                      • STAT
                      • Product Updates
                      Moz Solutions
                      • SMB Solutions
                      • Agency Solutions
                      • Enterprise Solutions
                      • Digital Marketers
                      Free SEO Tools
                      • Domain Authority Checker
                      • Link Explorer
                      • Keyword Explorer
                      • Competitive Research
                      • Brand Authority Checker
                      • Local Citation Checker
                      • MozBar Extension
                      • MozCast
                      Resources
                      • Blog
                      • SEO Learning Center
                      • Help Hub
                      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                      • How-to Guides
                      • Moz Academy
                      • API Docs
                      About Moz
                      • About
                      • Team
                      • Careers
                      • Contact
                      Why Moz
                      • Case Studies
                      • Testimonials
                      Get Involved
                      • Become an Affiliate
                      • MozCon
                      • Webinars
                      • Practical Marketer Series
                      • MozPod
                      Connect with us

                      Contact the Help team

                      Join our newsletter
                      Moz logo
                      © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                      • Accessibility
                      • Terms of Use
                      • Privacy

                      Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.