Downsides on shortening article title?
-
Hi there,
I'm new to Moz: great tool so far!
I just tried the page optimization feature and see that (for instance for this article) page titles are often too long. Now it's tempting to just shorten the title straight away, but I have a memory of someone once telling me changing the title will change the URL. And changing the URL is something not appreciated by Google.
Could someone please explain if and why this is/isn't the case? And if there are any downsides/things to consider before changing the article's title?
Thank you in advance!
-
@Christy-Correll Best Answer about your query.
-
There and no real downsides to shortening the title of an article, as long as the title of page / blog post accurately explains what the page or blog post is about.
We done this for a fencing business because some of the titles were to long for the meta title and description, so we had to rewrite them to make them shorter.
-
There are no real downsides to shortening the title of an article.
That’s as long as the page title accurately explains what the page or blog post is about.
We done this for a Cardiff fencing business, simply because some of the meta titles were too long for the meta title and description.
-
Thank you for your replies José, Christy and Salience,
It looks like you are right, and the ('SEF URL') is fixed: it will not change when I change the title: https://screencast.com/t/XR6lS6YdL
For now -changing URLs- sounds a bit too risky for me to start with yet. I'm just trying to create the best articles, contentwise.
Feels a bit odd that URLs are going to be different from the titles though. But I guess that's a better situation than having titles that are too long.
-
Hey,
Agree with the other replies but wanted to mention that changing your article title may have an adverse affect on the ranking performance of your content, so be careful and do some solid research before making a change.
Thanks!
Salience
-
Hi RaoulWB,
Welcome to the Q&A forum! As far as the search engines are concerned, the title and URL of a page are independent. However, some content management systems create the URL based on the page title, and may automatically update and redirect the URL if you update a title (depending on how the CMS is configured, etc.). Is this possibly what you are thinking of?
Christy
-
Hello,
It is independent, you can change your title and not change the url. Many times to improve the CTR the SEO title is changed. Changing the url is more delicate, first you must study the risks it has for the positioning of that url. If you have received links to that url you could lose them, etc.Regards
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
-
Google cuts meta title after 60 characters and meta description after 130 characters. Is this new?
Hey community, We noticed, that our meta's are cutted after much lesser characters then it used to. Mainly after 130-135. Did i miss something? Should we basically consider to write meta's constantly with lesser then 130 characters instead of the advised 160 characters? Cheers, Boris
On-Page Optimization | | posthumus0 -
Adding Location to Title Tags has dropped SEO Rankings
After adding the suburb of my business to each title tag on my website, I've noticed their rankings have dropped from page one to page four in a lot of cases. Should I wait it out and expect to see them improve in the future? Should I revert them back to their old title tags? I'm a little concerned!
On-Page Optimization | | thomaslutrov0 -
Changing my title tags
My title tags always get changed, i label them correctly, no too long or short and they always get changed, any ideas?
On-Page Optimization | | benjaminmarcinc1 -
Duplicate page title - blogs
Hope someone can help me, I am a total SEO noivce so please be gentle. My first report shows that I have duplicate page titles. I have been through and changed all of these so they are different and after my latest crawl they are still showing as duplicates. I am wondering if this is because it;s a blog, here is one of the duplicates: http://www.cottagesoapcompany.co.uk/blog/?row=1 Hope you can help!
On-Page Optimization | | emmamoulden0 -
High Volume Duplicate Title and Content Errors: Scale of 1-10 How bad is this?
I have 15k pages and 1.5K have duplicate title and content errors. the reason is I have a ring parent page with child pages for each of the size variations. On a scale of 1-10 how big an issue is this and does it need fixing?
On-Page Optimization | | Tippman0 -
Keyword Placement in Page Title - will changing it make a big difference?
Hiya guys I've noticed since changing my Title of my forum from: Talk Nightlife | Nightlife and Clubbing forum for the UK to Talk Nightlife | Nightlife Forum and Clubbing Guide for the UK (current) ... That its jumped from 22nd to 10th in google for term "nightlife forum" Am wondering, because of the on site optimisation tool telling me I should put the keyword to the front to something like eg: Nightlife Forum | Talk Nightlife Clubbing Guide for the UK Will changing the Keyword and putting it to front of the Title make a big difference? Your thoughts please guys Cheers Luke
On-Page Optimization | | Lukescotty0 -
How serious an issue is Title Element Too Long (> 70 Characters)?
Hi, We have about 3000 of these, how serious an issue is this considered? Is it simply the fact that Google won't index the keywords if they are over 70 characters? Could we strip out common words here: 50 Worship Ideas for Small Groups by Stuart Townend | World of Books.com Like 'for', 'by' and probably the '.com'?
On-Page Optimization | | Benj250 -
What Drupal 7 module for SEO, or if not what other SEO software for article writing does anyone recommend?
what Drupal 7 module for SEO article writing optimization, analyzation does anyone recommend? Thanks in advance. We are updating our sites and need this information. If hter is not a Drupal module what else would you recommend?
On-Page Optimization | | alternativelaw0