Page titles

**Daz** · Jun 3, 2003 05:47

What's the best way to have your website's page titles? For example, if I have a site about Smiths Shoes and there's a link for special offers and for the month of June, should I title the page
June Special Offers or
Smiths Shoes | Special Offers | June

Personally I'd go for the latter, I read somewhere that's how it should be done but I can't remember why!

**weirdbeardmt** · Jun 3, 2003 05:57

I would also go for the latter.

**KillAllDash9** · Jun 3, 2003 06:43

Personally, I'd put the name of the site last. That way if a user has several windows open to the site, he can easily differentiate between them in the task bar. Maybe "Special Offers: June | Smiths Shoes".

**xhtmlcoder** · Jun 3, 2003 09:55

Hmmm, if you insist on using the pipes | for separation I would like: "Smiths Shoes | Special Offers: June" the reason I would prefer it that way is because it lists the company; then indicates contents of the page, partly it is due to personal preferences, and as long as it is below 64 characters in length, it shouldn't be too long.

**redux** · Jun 3, 2003 17:45

i would do the "reverse" thing (actually implementing this on a large site as we speak). the reason is twofold:
1) users with screenreaders will not really care about getting the company name read out all the time, before knowing what the page is really about. it can get quite tiresome when working with, say, JAWS. much better to have the reverse, where it first says what the page is, and then something along the lines of a reversed breadcrumb trail (so, like killalldash9 suggested "Special Offers: June | Smiths Shoes")
2) search engine listings/results often only show the first X characters of titles. again, with long company names, you end up with huge listings of "company name | speci..." etc. the company name can be made the first thing in your meta description, if you must...

all this imho, of course

**Daz** · Jun 4, 2003 01:23

The reason I asked this question is because I'm working on an Ultraseek search engine in work. It lists results using page titles/metadata and there's a feature to list results by Gov Department. It then looks a bit ridiculous if you end up with a drop down box which cuts off before it gets to the real page title ie if you use my method you have the Dept name first and if it's a long name, nothing else but leader dots!

I don't disagree with what killalldash9 and redux suggested though I have Jaws at home and appreciate what you're saying redux but whether the Dept/Company name is read first or last it still gets read out. It's less logical to have it read out last in a breadcrumb sense imho because we all find pages by drilling down links, not up.

**redux** · Jun 4, 2003 08:07

Originally Posted by Daz

I have Jaws at home and appreciate what you're saying redux but whether the Dept/Company name is read first or last it still gets read out. It's less logical to have it read out last in a breadcrumb sense imho because we all find pages by drilling down links, not up.

but, unless i'm mistaken, you can stop JAWS from reading the entire title and start reading the actual page content right away. this way, you can let it read a bit (and you'd get the "page description" first, rather than the Dept/Company name first). most blind users i've worked with almost never bothered listening to the entire title, unless it was short, and would skip to the page itself almost immediately. so, chances are if you provide description | company name, they'll get more use out of it.

just my 0.02 GBP

**Webnauts** · Jun 17, 2003 11:35

Originally Posted by Daz

What's the best way to have your website's page titles? For example, if I have a site about Smiths Shoes and there's a link for special offers and for the month of June, should I title the page
June Special Offers or
Smiths Shoes | Special Offers | June

Personally I'd go for the latter, I read somewhere that's how it should be done but I can't remember why!

Daz, have a look here:

http://diveintoaccessibility.org/day...ge_titles.html

**Icheb** · Jun 17, 2003 13:33

The advantage of having "company name | page name" would be that your bookmarks would be "better" sorted, at least you would have all pages from one website together.

**Webnauts** · Jun 26, 2003 16:49

Since I saw the sample graphic of this page, I never had problems writing page titles:

http://www.usability.gov/guidelines/...heads.html#one

**Daz** · Jun 27, 2003 00:26

Thanks Webnauts, it's the same convention I use and will be glad to stick with!

**Webnauts** · Jun 27, 2003 03:11

Originally Posted by Daz

Thanks Webnauts, it's the same convention I use and will be glad to stick with!

You are always welcome Daz!

**Ian Glass** · Jun 27, 2003 05:17

How's this (attached) screenie, then. ;-)

The first tab is the home page, this active one is this reply, the next is a report page, and the final is a reputation pop-up. Ack! Give me what it is first, then give me where it came from.

Additionally, regarding bookmaking, I rarely leave the page title as my bookmark title, and I like to bookmark by category, not by site, personally. I don't know if that's typical, though--my mom, an avid computer users but not an aficionado, for example, seems to just let the chips fall where they may. :-)

Off Topic:

Has the pipe become the universal separator in titles?

~~Ian