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Title Junk

daringfireball.net

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Re: Title Junk

#61

Post by aneth »

jacobolus wrote: post #36
aneth wrote: post #25

Complaining about proper punctuation in web page titles seems a little pedantic. Using colons and other strange "punctuation" is a substitute for graphics and styling since these are not available in title bars. For those cases where it is meant to be sort-of punctuation, I'd say titles on the internet simply follow a different set of rules and conventions than prose, or anything else prior, because they serve a diff…

The New Yorker (e.g.) is a publication known for its typographical pedantry, for example writing diaereses in words such as coöperate or naïve; it’s entirely uncharacteristic of them to have sloppily punctuated titles.

In this case, it's not typography - it's the closet thing they can get to graphic design using ASCII in one line and still being dignified. If instead of a colon it was a pretty little fig leaf we'd all feel more pedantically satisfied. Unfortunately, that's not possible in titles - so they use a colon.

Regardless, I'm guessing the editor of the New Yorker has been to their website. Her approval defines what it is that the New Yorker does, and what it is known for. Sniping at such an organization previously known for pedantry is a bit presumptuous.

Re: Title Junk

#62

Post by kellysutton »

The mere fact that SEO exists as an industry is an aberration and just a testament to the long way the search engines must go.

People that make business decisions based on SEO are putting the cart before the horse and will go away quickly. Fine-tune it, but don't obsess over it.

Re: Title Junk

#64

Post by chronomex »

aneth wrote: post #61
jacobolus wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The New Yorker (e.g.) is a publication known for its typographical pedantry, for example writing diaereses in words such as coöperate or naïve; it’s entirely uncharacteristic of them to have sloppily punctuated titles.

In this case, it's not typography - it's the closet thing they can get to graphic design using ASCII in one line and still being dignified. If instead of a colon it was a pretty little fig leaf we'd all feel more pedantically satisfied. Unfortunately, that's not possible in titles - so they use a colon. Regardless, I'm guessing the editor of the New Yorker has been to their website. Her approval defines what it is th…

Unicode is full of dingbats, most of which display properly in all modern software: http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/block/dingbats/utf8t...

Re: Title Junk

#65

Post by tjogin »

InfinityX0 wrote: post #22

This is highly inaccurate. Title tags have EVERY implication on ranking for a keyword. For the most competitive keywords in the world, it's very possible that certain sites could rank without having it in the title tag due to the sheer volume of people linking to them with relevant anchor text, but this is highly unlikely. And more importantly, it doesn't make sense not to do it, because it's pretty ridiculous to put…

Maybe he didn't mean that the title is irrelevant from a SEO perspective (I don't think he meant that, it's hardly a closely guarded secret).

Maybe he doesn't think people tend to google for "breaking news" much.

Maybe he meant that ranking is great, but what if people don't click your jabberwocky title because it's confusing.

Just sayin'.

Re: Title Junk

#66

Post by cheald »

kellysutton wrote: post #62

The mere fact that SEO exists as an industry is an aberration and just a testament to the long way the search engines must go. People that make business decisions based on SEO are putting the cart before the horse and will go away quickly. Fine-tune it, but don't obsess over it.

There are a lot of SEO snake oil salesmen out there, but that doesn't change the fact that there is a viable industry built around making your product more visible to your target audience. Until Google is psychic and can infer what you want by any search input, SEO will still have tangible and legitimate value.

Re: Title Junk

#67

Post by masklinn »

damoncali wrote: post #9

It is amazingly annoying to users, but the fact remains that crudding up the title tag does actually provide tangible SEO benefits.

> the fact remains that crudding up the title tag does actually provide tangible SEO benefits.

Source/study?

Re: Title Junk

#68

Post by aneth »

chronomex wrote: post #64
aneth wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, it's not typography - it's the closet thing they can get to graphic design using ASCII in one line and still being dignified. If instead of a colon it was a pretty little fig leaf we'd all feel more pedantically satisfied. Unfortunately, that's not possible in titles - so they use a colon. Regardless, I'm guessing the editor of the New Yorker has been to their website. Her approval defines what it is th…

Unicode is full of dingbats, most of which display properly in all modern software: http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/block/dingbats/utf8t...

Fair enough. If they used them though, they might get sniped at for not sticking to web conventions. There's no cover from snipers on the internet.

There might be reasons not to as well - I imagine they break some bookmark tools, etc.

Re: Title Junk

#69

Post by tel »

markbao wrote: post #15

Trading an SEO advantage for a string to look better in the title bar and in bookmarks seems like a dumb trade.

Unless you (Gruber) care prominently about Apple/Google and other places with enough inbound link equity that your marginal SEO increase is minuscule and marginal UX*appreciation gain is large.

Re: Title Junk

#70

Post by pbiggar »

pak wrote: post #44
Semiapies wrote: post #26

"No one punctuates with colons like that." Apparently the Chicago Sun-Times does on its website, as do many other sites. " :: " is a simple visual separator that makes it clear that what's intended is not just a colon. It also prevents any confusion that can arise when you use a single colon or an em-dash as the title/site separator and then use the same punctuation element within a title.

If anybody wants to know the punctuation symbol that "::" is, it's called Paamayim Nekudotayim, better known in programming as the scope resolution operator. PHP (because of its Israeli roots) calls it by the Hebrew name. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scope_resolution_operator

Apologies for the pedantry I display below, but your comment is so full of errors that I got riled up. Again, apologies, I'm sure you were just trying to add interesting information for other hackers.

'::' is not a punctuation symbol, at least not in English. It is two of the same symbol (colon) in succession.

Now in Hebrew, it may be considered a single symbol (though a cursory google makes me think Paamayim Nekudotayim might just be the Hebrew term for 'double-colon'). If Paamayim Nekudotayim were a single symbol in Hebrew, the term has certainly not migrated to English, at least outside the PHP community.

In programming languages, it is commonly used as a scope resolution operator, and dates back to C++ at least. In PHP, they often call it Paamayim Nekudotayim. But this does not mean that you would be correct to come across the syntax in a C++ source file and call it Paamayim Nekudotayim.

So to summarize:

- it is not a punctuation symbol - if it were, it would not be called that in English - it very likely isnt a single symbol in Hebrew - it is the scope resolution operator is _some_ languages - in those languages, it is not called Paamayim Nekudotayim, except in PHP.

(and after that rant, I fully expect to be proved wrong on some of those claims, which I will deserve).

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