page name and SEO

[kakshaks]

I appreciate SEO is a vast topic but just concentrating on the page name. The majority of my page names are static but quite long. Is the length of a pagename a problem and does the position of a keyword in the pagename have any bearing on SEO?
Thanks

[Rich Brady]

Hey Kevin,

Search engines treat words at the beginning of the sentence as more important

Gives us a URL so we can take a look.

Rich

P.S. This may help you: http://www.blog.websitedesignbywebd....seo-techniques

.

[Mike Hughes]

As Rich says but in a nutshell, yes and yes.

It's all pretty logical though.

If you have a page called paper.html then it's pretty clear it's about paper.

If you have one called paperplasticsglassandmetal.html then it's less clear what it's about and so will rank less well for 'paper'.

As rich says, where there are several keywords in the pagename then the ones that appear first will rank a bit higher than the others.

Mike

[kakshaks]

Thanks guys, so from what I am hearing:-
'www.domain.co.uk/gifts/doorstop-dog-unionjack.html'
is better than
'www.domain.co.uk/gifts/dog-doorstop-unionjack.html'
if we are aiming to optimise for 'doorstop' as a keyword.

[leehack]

That's correct, doorstop-dog-union-jack.html is probably even better.

[Rich Brady]

First thing first, don't hide your URL. An inbound link from forums like this one will help you site. You only have to look at our signatures to see how worthy we think they are.

In answer to your question, yes for the key word "doorstop" having it at the front of the page title would be better.

I echo Lee's comment too

Remember if you are changing an existing Page Title to set up redirects so that any index links remain intact.

[pinbrook]

Rich

is this a deliberate mistake in your signature

CMS Website Deisgn

[leehack]

LOL unfortunately it isn't, last week (no BS) he spelt his name wrong.

He should be applauded though for his efforts to make Taddy look like Shakespeare.

Rich or is that Rch, is now firmly confirmed as the forum's worst speller .

CB has been pushing hard for the title lately, lazy so and so keeps leaving his posts to be cleaned up by me (don't tell him though).

[Rich Brady]

I don't know what you guys are talking about...

[Webfaced]

It might be worth noting also that there is an optimum length for title and description tags from a technical and aesthetic viewpoint.

Try to keep your title between 5 and 10 words long with the most important phrases near the start.

Also, your keywords tag length should be between 200 and 500 characters. This is pretty much redundant in terms of showing a search engine what your site is about but it's length may be interesting to an engine in determining whether you are trying to stuff spam into it.

Your description should be no more than 200 characters long. This is for technical reasons but also why I mentioned aesthetics above. Google uses this field to show a user what your site is about. If it cuts off halfway through then you are missing an advertising opportunity.

Last point but often overlooked is that you should have different meta tags on every page of your site.

[Rich Brady]

Also, your keywords tag length should be between 200 and 500 characters. This is pretty much redundant in terms of showing a search engine what your site is about but it's length may be interesting to an engine in determining whether you are trying to stuff spam into it.

You never know if the algorithms are going to change so I always encourage clients to populate the keyword field correctly.

It will save you having to trawl through all your page s retrospectively when they become important.

[kakshaks]

All really useful stuff (except the bit about Rich's signature). Thank you all so much.
.
I dont expect anyone to explain the bit about changing names and redirects but a link to a 'How to..' guide would be useful. I do understand why changing page-names is a bad idea but dont understand how to apply redirects which I guess would help.

[leehack]

There you go Rch or Munzy, your next article to write lol.

[Rich Brady]

All really useful stuff (except the bit about Rich's signature). Thank you all so much.
.
I dont expect anyone to explain the bit about changing names and redirects but a link to a 'How to..' guide would be useful. I do understand why changing page-names is a bad idea but dont understand how to apply redirects which I guess would help.

You need to search for "301 re-directs" and you'll need access to your .htaccess file.

If I get a chance I'll put something together, but I'm a little busy this weekend.

[kakshaks]

I will get searching now I have a phrase to look for, thanks again. Dont worry about putting something together unless you are really bored.