18,000 'Title Element is too Long' Errors

[TomKing]

How detrimental is this in the overall SEO scheme of things?

Having checked 3 of our main competitors, they too seem to have similar issues...

I am trying to look at a solution but it is proving very difficult!

Thanks

Andy

[Keszi]

Hi Andy,

It is important to know that Moz crawl gives you an error/notification about a specific issue, to highlight that one or more elements could influence your search rankings. All tools can do, is to highlight information for you.

The way they highlight an issue (high importance, low importance, etc.) is based on the big data they are able to analyze, and how they have experienced how these data correlates with the rankings from their data.

On the other hand having your competition having the same issue, might be a signal that it is a point on your website where you could do better than your competition.

This is how I interpret their data.

I hope this was helpful.

Gr., Keszi

[EGOL]

In my opinion, a title tag that quickly communicates what you have on the page is very important for clickthroughs. It can also focus your optimization. How to Handle this? There are several options, all dependent upon your individual situation.

If your title tags look like this....

<title>Blue Widgets: Huge Selection and Free Shipping | MyBrandNameThatNobodyGivesAHootAbout</title>

Then I would cut the brand, but lots of people will argue with me. If your standard title tags is just a keyword melange then I would start rewriting them. If you have top rankings in all of your SERPs and people are buying stuff like mad then I would ignore the error and go out for beers.

[Keszi]

Egol, you are right! Just love how you present your idea!

I was more into how to interpret the data from Moz (or any other tools in general).

[ScottImageWorks]

This does seem like a good opportunity for you to do better than your competitors.

Obviously, that's a huge amount of pages with issues. I agree with EGOL's suggestion to remove the brand name if that's one thing making your titles too long. Otherwise, prioritize your most important pages and start there.

It's my perception that a good page title is important for SEO, but it's even MORE important because it represents a chance for you to communicate with the people who are finding your page in their search results. Give them a reason to choose your site over your competitor's - a too-long, keyword stuffed title won't do that.