26 replies to this topic

[ChuckFinley]

Does it make any sense to include Head Keywords in Title Tags on multiple pages? So for example, if the Top Level Theme of my site was "Cars", would I help myself to rank for the keyword "Cars" by including it in the Title Tag on every Category Page? Let's assume that "Cars" has medium competition for this example (I know that I don't have enough money and won't live long enough to rank on Page One for Cars).

[Jill]

In my opinion, no. You don't need to focus more than a couple of pages on any given phrase.

[chrishirst]

Search engines index and rank pages not sites so "site themes" don't actually exist for search engines

[Hichem]

That's true, and I think it must be changed ..

But there are some SEOs saying that "website theme" is important, and deviating from that theme can harm your rankings .. (SEOs from [removed])

I personally just see the opposite happening everywhere ..
technology websites ranking for beauty product review terms, just because their tech website is PR6 and 7 ..

Search engines index and rank pages not sites so "site themes" don't actually exist for search engines

[chrishirst]

There has always been so-called "SEOs" who talk complete bollocks!!!!

Wikipedia don't seem to have suffered from not having a "theme"!!!!

[chrishirst]

BTW.

It's nothing to do with the SGB PR.


PR is a by-product of links

Google "ranking" is, or can be a by-product of anchor text.

the three are only connected by coincidence.

[Hichem]

I agree , but notice that I'm speaking about a well known SEO firm with previous amazing work .. that's why it's a little bit tricky ..

QUOTE(chrishirst @ Dec 24 2011, 01:00 PM)
There has always been so-called "SEOs" who talk complete bollocks!!!!

In my opinion, Having "no theme" is a theme
and wikipedia is a case on its own .. just like youtube videos ranking very high for very competitive keywords (videos with absolutely no inbound links)

QUOTE(chrishirst @ Dec 24 2011, 01:00 PM)
Wikipedia don't seem to have suffered from not having a "theme"!!!!

I know how a website ranks
I was just making a point .. I mean that authority websites in some themes are ranking for completely unrelated theme's keywords .. I didn't mean that PR is ranking them ..

QUOTE(chrishirst @ Dec 24 2011, 01:00 PM)
BTW.

It's nothing to do with the SGB PR.


PR is a by-product of links

Google "ranking" is, or can be a by-product of anchor text.

the three are only connected by coincidence.

And back to the original question .. maybe it's not proven that putting the main keyword representing the "theme" in the end of each title tag will help you, but it's "common sense"

many CMSs have different plugins doing that, or by default structure (wordpress, drupal etc) , and I think there is a reason ..

if it will not help you with SEO, at least it makes sense and it's helpful for your visitors at some point ..

Just follow common sense and it will be okay I personally was doing things years ago, and just this year Google implemented them with Panda .. So do the right things and the algorithm will follow

[chrishirst]

QUOTE
I know how a website ranks

Pages rank not sites!

QUOTE
many CMSs have different plugins doing that, or by default structure (wordpress, drupal etc) , and I think there is a reason ..
Yep there's certainly a reason, the programmers of these CMS tools and "SEO plugins" think that there is a formula to follow for "optimising" pages.

Now there are certainly "good practices" to be observed, but genuine SEO isn't a "one size fits all" scenario and just because a particular scenarion works for one set of pages doesn't mean that it will work in all cases.

QUOTE
maybe it's not proven that putting the main keyword representing the "theme" in the end of each title tag will help you, but it's "common sense"

In real SEO, as opposed to the formulaic approach of chasing one or two "main keywords", the page titles would include the keywords or phrases for the PAGE, not the "site".

QUOTE
I personally was doing things years ago, and just this year Google implemented them with Panda .. So do the right things and the algorithm will follow

Not quite. Doing things right for users has been the right thing to do before "Panda", before "Caffeine", before "Florida". The google "algorithm" changes to weed out more of the junk pages that have employed tricks or targeted flaws to get shown.
But it has always been the case that Google will reward pages that are created for users and well promoted to users, rather than those that are created for search engines and then "promoted" purely for "rankings".

"Panda" was just another evolutionary step along the way of killing off the formula SEOers.

[torka]

But there are some SEOs saying that "website theme" is important, and deviating from that theme can harm your rankings .. (SEOs from [removed])

I personally just see the opposite happening everywhere ..

Let's say someone who claims to be an "expert" writes an article stating emphatically the sky is red. You go outside and see for yourself the sky is blue.

Would you disbelieve your own eyes, and run around asking everyone if the sky might really be red, simply because some "authority" told you so? Or would you trust your own intelligence and powers of observation, and conclude that maybe the so-called "expert" doesn't really know as much as some people think he does?

If these alleged experts have told you with complete certainty that "website theme" is so important, but you've seen for yourself it isn't... well, that should give you a clue as to the degree of expertise they really possess, no?

Look it's not necessarily a bad idea to read articles from people who have a reputation as industry experts. I've learned many new and interesting things myself from doing so. But don't suspend your own intelligence when you read. Just because somebody acts authoritative, this doesn't make what they say "common sense" unless it actually makes sense.

The most useful SEO tools ever are your own eyes and your own brain. If the evidence of your own eyes contradicts what the "experts" say, then maybe you should re-think whether they're really "experts." There are plenty of people who are well-known more because they're good at marketing themselves than because they're all that good at what they do. Don't assume just because somebody is good at self-promotion, this automatically makes their unsubstantiated (and somewhat illogical) opinions more valid than your own real-world observations.

My , less taxes, adjusted for inflation.

--Torka

[tivnet]

Hello,

The original post was about "repeat or not to repeat" the same keyword over all the pages of a website.
If the site is about cars, then it makes sense having titles like "Cars in ...", "Car service in ...", "Car dealers in ..." and so on.
Is there a chance that Google ignores repeating text in the title, same as it ignores repeating text (header, footer, menu) in the pages?

I do not think so. But who knows. Over-optimization penalty?

As for the themes... of course, pages rank... but the "juice" passing from one page to another may have something with the "theme"... just a thought.

Thank you!

[Michael Martinez]

Hello,

The original post was about "repeat or not to repeat" the same keyword over all the pages of a website.
If the site is about cars, then it makes sense having titles like "Cars in ...", "Car service in ...", "Car dealers in ..." and so on.
Is there a chance that Google ignores repeating text in the title, same as it ignores repeating text (header, footer, menu) in the pages?

I have found through a mix of observation and experimentation that there do seem to be some negative consequences to using the same keywords repeatedly in title elements, but since it's accepted practice to use a site name or URL in page titles that the search engines are looking for a reasonable balance between tolerance and intolerance. It could be that the rules are tweaked one way or another every now and then.

[Webnauts]

I have found through a mix of observation and experimentation that there do seem to be some negative consequences to using the same keywords repeatedly in title elements, but since it's accepted practice to use a site name or URL in page titles that the search engines are looking for a reasonable balance between tolerance and intolerance. It could be that the rules are tweaked one way or another every now and then.

Michael I was recently dealing with such a case, and I noticed that many pages using a generic keyword in the title were weakening the generic keyword targeted page. So I do not think it is a good or maybe the safest practice.

[ChuckFinley]

How do you think this will affect the over-optimization penalty Matt Cutts announced ---> http://www.seroundta...date-14887.html

Don't you think Google should just come out and say what they want changed, instead of penalizing sites?

I think Google should announce the coming penalty and clearly explain the guidelines with examples as to how they should be implemented. I think they should take, say, 6 months explaining what they want so the word has time to get out and website owners have a chance to get in compliance.

For example, that's what the federal govermnment does with the tax code -- they write the law, them Treasury writes regulations, often with examples if it's complicated.

What do you think?"

[Michael Martinez]

I think what Matt was referring to probably had more to do with blog networks than anything else. Technically, he did NOT announce any "coming penalty". That's just the SEO community over-interpreting what he DID say.

What about the people optimizing really hard and doing a lot of SEO. We don't normally pre-announce changes but there is something we are working in the last few months and hope to release it in the next months or few weeks. We are trying to level the playing field a bit. All those people doing, for lack of a better word, over optimization or overly SEO - versus those making great content and great site. We are trying to make GoogleBot smarter, make our relevance better, and we are also looking for those who abuse it, like too many keywords on a page, or exchange way too many links or go well beyond what you normally expect. We have several engineers on my team working on this right now.

Yes, he mentioned "too many keywords on a page" but I think people completely misunderstood what he was talking about. "We are trying to level the playing field a bit" seems to me to be the key part of his warning: the playing field was mostly tilted toward Websites using the blog networks to build up their link profiles.

[ChuckFinley]

Hi @Michael Martinez

I think that is an astute analysis of what Matt Cutts said. I hope you're right, but I'm much less confident than you are that there isn't something else up their sleeve. Most people think that the "Over-Optimization Penalty" is still coming because Matt made that announcement after the blog networks were being hit.

Listening to Matt Cutts is a little like listening to Ben Bernanke -- people analyze every word and try to guess what the future of the investment landscape will be like. And, he's never clear as to what future policy will be.