[uwebd] RE: url naming (and page titles)

[Dempsey, Paul]

Following up on this, does anyone have thoughts or guidelines to share about page titles?

 

In an admittedly casual survey of other schools, the two most common approaches I’ve seen are a breadcrumb and reverse breadcrumb format:

 

Big University | College of Business | Accounting | Faculty

or

Faculty | Accounting | College of Business | Big University

 

I’ve read articles that suggest a short, descriptive title with keywords at the beginning is best practice. So my example might be better as:

 

Faculty Profiles | Accounting Department | Big University

or

Accounting Faculty Profiles | Big University

 

I’m gearing up for a site redesign and I want to make sure that this important detail is not overlooked. So I’m interested in hearing what other people do.

 

Paul

 

 

Paul Dempsey

Web Director

Ursinus College

 

From: David C Poteet [mailto:dpo...@vt.edu]
Sent: Thursday, June 06, 2013 10:58 AM
To: University and College Webmasters
Subject: [uwebd] RE: url naming

 

Your SEO expert is right, it is better for optimization. However, it's not as important as the page title itself and the relevance of the actual content on the page.

 

David

 

On Jun 6, 2013, at 10:20 AM, Tracy Axelson <TAxe...@clarku.edu> wrote:

What is the consensus on using dashes in folder and file names to increase SEO? My marketing friends are not keen on it because of how it looks in ads and print materials, but my SEO expert says its the best standard for optimization.

 

David Poteet

NewCity

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[David C Poteet]

Paul,

The recommended best practice is a max of 65 characters, in this format:

keyword phrase | organization name

Reverse breadcrumb will usually result in a title that is too long. So you'd just do something like

Accounting Faculty | Big University

Hope that helps!

David

On Jun 6, 2013, at 12:05 PM, "Dempsey, Paul" <pdem...@ursinus.edu> wrote:

Following up on this, does anyone have thoughts or guidelines to share about page titles?

[David C Poteet]

Paul - I should point out that the 65 character limit on titles is because that's all Google will show in search results.