7 replies to this topic

[spidbot]

Due to the content management system I use (or my host gives me) for www.job.co.nz I cannot change any titles except for the home page so all my pages have the same title

I am thinking of moving to another host so I can optimise individual page titles but befoe I do this do you think I am getting benefit from having all those pages the same - as we are top on Google (Organic) for NZ Jobs and high ranking for other search phrases I do not want to mess it up!

:upsidedown:

[SearchRank]

That depends on how many keywords you want target. If all you want to do is target one phrase and you rank well for it , there's no need to do anything.

However if there are multiple keywords and phrases you wish to target, then you absolutely want to have the ability to create unique title tags and even meta description tags for each page on your site. With some search engines such as Goolge, it doesn't make a difference whether you are able to add meta description tags or change your existing ones as they form a description from the actual html textual content of your site. So if targeting multiple keywords, whether you can modify title tags or not, make sure your html text in your pages reflects the keywords you want to target.

[Jill]

You gotta have control of your Titles. Many CMS's have workarounds. Be sure that they don't have one before you switch hosts. Any CMS that won't allow unique Titles is living in the early 90's!

Good luck!

Jill

[spidbot]

Thanks Jill and searchrank

I think they are in the 90's

I think I also benefit from having a small NZ audience

Put up the site for review as I am sure there are some obvious things wrong :upsidedown:

[Haystack]

Hi Spidbot,
Could you hire a programmer to tweak the articles pages of your CMS? It shouldn't take more than a couple hours to get a programmer familiar with the language used to write the pages to figure out how to serve a variable such as the article titles into the title tag for you.

This is assuming the pages are getting indexed but are underoptimized. If they're not indexed either, the time involved in straightening things out might be a bit higher.

[Paul J]

I guess it would depend on the competition in NZ, but I know I want unique titles in the U.S.

I wonder if you're having the same CMS problem as a friend of mine...

He's a realtor and the company he uses for CMS cannot (or won't) change any titles - they're all the same.

When I called the company, they told me that it was essential that all titles stay the same because when they are different, SE's get confused and drop pages for no reason. So, it's beneficial to always have the titles stay the same. In the rare case a page get's dropped, their top of the line auto-submission programs resubmit for backup.

Yes, they really did say all that. :slap:

Ohhh, I'm assuming that this was the norm 8 years ago and they just haven't changed anything. I dunno.

Paul

[SearchRank]

When I called the company, they told me that it was essential that all titles stay the same because when they are different, SE's get confused and drop pages for no reason. So, it's beneficial to always have the titles stay the same. In the rare case a page get's dropped, their top of the line auto-submission programs resubmit for backup.

Sounds like a lazy response from a lazy programmer.

If spidbot's CM programming team has half a wit, they can program to allow for unique page titles on each page - the question is, "do they want to?".

[spidbot]

Hi

Just woken up here in NZ - it's Wednesday!

Thanks Haystack hppckmn and searchrank for the replies - I will talk to the "Developers" at my hosting company - they are beginning to understand the importance of it all. Although as you say searchrank do they want to? -it is all a bit too hard - after all in this case I am only a customer! I even had one hosting/design company (not mine) say to me that they do not offer SEO as it increases traffic and their costs - this is Planet of the Apes stuff

Good job they don't understand it all - otherwise we would have no work to do!


:upsidedown: