# Title tag length - how long should they be?



## RedAlias (May 29, 2008)

Hi,

I'm working on optimizing a website which used to have very long title tags i.e. 12 words long. Now Ive reduced it to 7. 

It used to be something like this: 

Clients website name Ltd - Personal injury solicitors clinical negligence human rights lawyers

And now reads:

Personal injury lawyers - Clients website name solicitors

It looks better but do you think this will lose me a lot of traffic? 

Sorry can't disclose actual site.


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## leroys1000 (Aug 16, 2007)

I have only used the title tag for the title of the site.
The desciption usually is entered in a desciption
metat tag.
The search engine will list the title in bold and
put description under it.
The title with the name of the lawers is probably
going to be a bit better.
I don't think you would lose a lot of traffic from the change.
Put this stuff,
Personal injury solicitors clinical negligence human rights lawyers
in your keywords.


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## WendyM (Jun 28, 2003)

The W3C recommends a maximum of 64 characters and Google cuts off after 66. While it's true that search engines use the title tag, it's also true that the link needs to be meaningful when people see it in search results. Google in particular has made it clear that "stuffing" title tags or meta tags with too much data will hurt your cause. Personally, I'd leave off the website name if you can, or use an acronym if one exists. People searching by the website name will find it easily because it should be the first hit. I'd pay more attention to making sure the title tag of each page accurately represents the information on that page. You don't say one way or the other, but if each page uses the same title tag, you should change that. Hope that helps.

Edit: Also, welcome to TSG.


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