Should I include my website name in my page title?

Filed under: Research » Domain Names, Search Marketing » SEO,

Should my page title include my website name?

This is a question we've gotten a lot from clients. First off, if you haven't already, make sure you read our article on SEO 101, which details how to use the title tag on your web page to reflect the keyphrase identity of your page. Once you've built pages using this approach, you'll see your title reflected as the title of the clickable link in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). Below is an example of the title for the how accurate are search results page on Guru of Search:

Website title in page title

Do the keywords from the site title interfere with the page title keywords?

As you can see, the title of this website, Guru of Search, comes right after the page title. The question you may ask is, do the keywords from the website title interfere with the keywords from the page title? In other words, will these additional keywords confuse Google?

The answer? We think not, but things you should keep in mind:

It's okay not to have a website title in the page title
If you choose to add your website title, place it after the page title
Your website title should be significantly shorter than the page title

Remember your user - branding your website name

We like to remind people that ultimately your search engine optimization and marketing efforts need to have your user in mind first and foremost. That being said, does it help to have your website title next to the page title? Put yourself in your user's shoes for a minute. If you conduct a search and find several relevant results, but see your favorite website name next to one of the search results, are you more likely to click on it? Probably. That being said, if you hate the website, you are less likely to click on it.

Consider what your users will see

Bottom line - you should include your website name if it's short, catchy, and brandable, and you think it will help your website name's branding. If you examine the search results pages for various industries you'll notice that some industries use this approach (including the website title) more often than others. Large companies with short brandable names (Amazon, IBM, Apple, Ebay, etc.) tend to add their name to the page title.

View Comments

Use an alias

Submitted by a searcher adrift amidst an ocean of information on May 25, 2011 - 5:41am.

This is a great idea. The best approach would be to somehow shorten your domain name down to an acronym if you need to. If that's not an option, consider registering an alias domain. Thank you.

What if your domain name is too long?

Submitted by a searcher adrift amidst an ocean of information on May 17, 2011 - 8:15pm.

I've been wondering about this for a while now and how it would impact my search engine ranking. My only problem is that my website name is really long so when it's appended to the page title it makes the whole line really long. Thank you.

Domain name

Submitted by a searcher adrift amidst an ocean of information on September 22, 2011 - 11:02am.

If your domain name is too long and you have a problem, make it shorter!

The simpler the better

Submitted by a searcher adrift amidst an ocean of information on June 17, 2011 - 6:11pm.

Not only that, but it might mislead the searchers. A simple one is always better. Asher Scottsdale SEO

Shorten domain to acronym

Submitted by a searcher adrift amidst an ocean of information on February 15, 2011 - 11:18pm.

The best approach would be to somehow shorten your domain name down to an acronym if you need to. If that's not an option, consider registering an alias domain - a domain that you will forward to your original domain. That was a good idea. Thank you.

Guru of Search

Submitted by a searcher adrift amidst an ocean of information on October 2, 2010 - 5:23pm.

How can you remove " |Guru Of Search" from the "how accurate are search results? | Guru of Search" So that it looks like this "How accurate are search results?"

Printing page title only

Submitted by Guru of Search on November 17, 2010 - 11:45am.

Depending on the platform you're using, you'll want to print only the title of the page within your page's tag. In Drupal, for example, you would edit your theme's page.tpl.php (and page-front.tpl.php if you have a custom front page) and replace the title tag as follows:</p> <p>Replace:<br /> <code><title><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB"><?php </span><span style="color: #007700">print </span><span style="color: #0000BB">$head_title ?></span></span></title></code></p> <p>With:<br /> <code><title><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB"><?php </span><span style="color: #007700">print </span><span style="color: #0000BB">$title ?></span></span></title></code></p> <p>The $head_title variable appends the page title with the name of your website, hence we end up with "page title | website title."</p> </div> <ul class="links"><li class="comment_reply first last"><a href="/comment/reply/106/1952">reply</a></li> </ul></div> </div><a id="comment-89"></a> <div class="comment comment-published clear-block"> <h3><a href="/include-website-name-page-title#comment-89" class="active">Long website name?</a></h3> <div class="submitted"> Submitted by a searcher adrift amidst an ocean of information on April 8, 2009 - 4:27am. </div> <div class="content"> Good article, thanks. I've been wondering about this for a while now and how it would impact my search engine ranking. My only problem is that my website name is really long - so when it's appended to the page title it makes the whole line really long, and almost takes away from the page title. Do you have any suggestions as to what to do in my situation? Should I include the website name in the page title regardless of how long my domain name is, or should I refrain from including it at all? </div> <ul class="links"><li class="comment_reply first last"><a href="/comment/reply/106/89">reply</a></li> </ul></div> <div class="indented"><a id="comment-90"></a> <div class="comment comment-published clear-block"> <h3><a href="/include-website-name-page-title#comment-90" class="active">Shorten your domain name</a></h3> <div class="submitted"> Submitted by Guru of Search on April 14, 2009 - 8:19am. </div> <div class="content"> Good question. The best approach would be to somehow shorten your domain name (down to an acronym if you need to). If that's not an option, consider registering an alias domain (a domain that you will forward to your original domain). This will not only help with your branding initiative, but will give your users less characters to type in the browser address bar. They will have an easier time finding you, and you may get more type-in traffic. </div> <ul class="links"><li class="comment_reply first last"><a href="/comment/reply/106/90">reply</a></li> </ul></div> </div> <div class="box"> <div class="sidebar">Post new comment</div> <div class="content"><form action="/comment/reply/106" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-subject-wrapper"> <label for="edit-subject">Subject: </label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="subject" id="edit-subject" size="60" value="" class="form-text" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required ckeditor-mod "></textarea> </div> <ul class="tips"><li><a href="/filter/tips/1#filter-smileys-0">Textual smileys</a> will be replaced with graphical ones.</li></ul><p><a href="/filter/tips">More information about formatting options</a></p><input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-627953b8963cefded8789a42ab92d1e1" value="form-627953b8963cefded8789a42ab92d1e1" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <input type="hidden" name="mollom[session_id]" id="edit-mollom-session-id" value="1328404389-120205752b4a7164e5" class="mollom-session-id" /> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mollom-captcha-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mollom-captcha">Word verification: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <span class="field-prefix"><span class="mollom-captcha-content mollom-image-captcha"><img src="http://174.37.205.152:80/v1/captcha/120205752b4a7164e5.png" alt="Type the characters you see in this picture." title="" /></span> (<a href="#" class="mollom-switch-captcha mollom-audio-captcha">verify using audio</a>)</span> <input type="text" maxlength="128" name="mollom[captcha]" id="edit-mollom-captcha" size="10" value="" autocomplete="off" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">Type the characters you see in the picture above; if you can't read them, submit the form and a new image will be generated. 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