Title and Link Relationship
The importance of the title tag in optimizing content can easily create patterns that are perhaps not in the favor of overall performance of the Web page under optimization. The Title length is often less than 60 characters and in the 10-15 words range. Trying to optimize with each important keyword found in the Title tag can easily lead to keyword stuffing.
In addition to Meta description, headings and Alt tags the text of links on a Web page are frequent potential content and search engine optimization targets. A common sense approach to link text is having them describe the Web pages they link to instead of the content on the Web page they reside on with the exception of inclusion in natural language, the actual text content.
We have data from two large samples that show the usage of meaningful Title words in the text of links.
| Title Words: General Web Sites | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Observed Element | % Found | Average | Min | Max | Median | 80 Percentile Range | |
| Title Words in Links | 76.66 | 3.48 | 1.00 | 20.00 | 3.00 | 1.00 - 6.40 | |
| Title Number of Words | 99.63 | 9.16 | 1.00 | 511.00 | 12.33 | 2.55 - 14.83 | |
| Title Number of Meaningful Words | 99.02 | 6.54 | 1.00 | 100.00 | 8.33 | 1.88 - 11.33 | |
| Title Words: Web Sites in SE Positions | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Observed Element | % Found | Average | Min | Max | Median | 80 Percentile Range | |
| Title Words in Links | 73.82 | 3.72 | 1.00 | 16.00 | 3.86 | 1.14 - 6.57 | |
| Title Number of Words | 99.74 | 8.52 | 1.00 | 46.00 | 8.71 | 2.63 - 14.34 | |
| Title Number of Meaningful Words | 99.07 | 6.44 | 1.00 | 44.00 | 5.71 | 2.00 - 11.09 | |
The above data shows there is a good probability meaningful words in the Title tag are also in the text of links for both samples with general Web sites being a little more likely.
Related links:
