Maximum Length of Page Title Tag
This is one of the easier SEO factors, and one of the most popular and well-known. The title tag identifies the page's title, which (in some browsers) shows up in the top bar of the browser window when the page is displayed. The value of including the page's best keywords in the title tag is equally well known as plays an essential role in improving search rankings for the page.
The reason for this is easy enough to understand. The title tag is what the search engines use as the clickable link that appears for the page in the search results. While the SEO value is obvious (given the fact that keywords and links have been inextricably joined together since the invention of PageRank), one should not overlook the importance of the title from the user's perspective. When presented a page of search results, the clickable link is almost always what people focus on first, so it is your first opportunity to grab their attention and (hopefully) encourage that desired click.
One way to limit the length of the title is to make it no longer than ten words in length, but not less than three words. Since the title serves as the link in a SERP (search engine result page) listing, there is no reason to settle for a short length. This rule of thumb for the title's length works well. However, if you want a more specific limit, Google does not display more than 69 characters from the title tag, so 69 characters should be the maximum length of the title. Aim for somewhere between 25 and 69 characters for best results.
The amazing thing to me, however, is not how many people know and understand the inherent value of the title tag. What is more surprising is how many people apparently still have no clue about its value, as shown by the number of pages you can find on some web sites where the page's title is "untitled" or is a duplicate of the title on many other pages on the web site.
One of the most important factors where Google's Panda update is concerned is the need for unique title tags on every page of the site. Incredibly, most shopping cart software, blog software, and content management system software such as Joomla and Drupal still create tremendous amounts of duplicate title tags as they automatically create new pages for their respective sites. I would have thought that the creators of these web site development packages would have learned by now the importance of unique title tags. Maybe someday.
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