Page Titles - Unnecesarily wrong, Review Them

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Nelsaidi
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Page Titles - Unnecesarily wrong, Review Them

Post by Nelsaidi »

I've always had a problem with problem titles for forums taking up most of the space when a few tabs are open, which is why I changed my ~13 character title to a 3 letter acronym, Although this helps - its not enough. Well, I've been cheeky and had it display the original for users with less tahn 100 posts, for SEO reasons :P (well atleast i think)

I'd like for page titles to be reviewed, reasoning + examples:

Take a look at area 51, Open about 6 or 7 tabs and you cant tell which tab is which, a long title which is somewhat common, I can have:

<title> • Post a new topic : Not really necesary? Cant "<title> • New Topic" Suffice?

<title> • View forum • <forum title> : Again, unnecesary, "<title> • Forum • <forum title>" will also suffice

<title> • View topic • <topic title> : replace with "<title> • Topic • <topic title>"

<title> • User Control Panel • <module>: bloated, since its a user login page, relevant titles for SEO isnt necesary, and distracts people from what page they are on. If you bookmark it, chances are you wont know which module you are on. "<title> • Settings • <module>" would be better, I'd suggest UCP but settings is more novice friendly

<title> • Viewing profile • <user> - inconsistency, the others are in the future tense, this is in the present. I'd suggest "<title> • Profile • <user>" (regarding tenses, despite the fact I should know these, I havent refered to verbs for a number of years, so not sure if they are right - but you get my point)

<title> • User Control Panel • Compose message - Somewhat inconsistent, refering to a PM as a message in this case? See above for point about the user control , and 'compose' is a nice word, I like, would be better than 'New PM' i think.

<title> • Search : Straight to the point, and since POST is used cannot be bookmarked, but adding search keywords to the title may benefit when multiple searches are in effect? - But its good imo.

<title> • View your posts - Again, is the "View" necesary? By "viewing" that page its obvious," <title> • Your Posts" would be good.

<title> • Index Page : Is page neceasry? More over (but not so necesary) Index can be replaced with Home (page), more novice friendly

So, you get the drill - I'd like page titles to be reviewd, and at a version jump would be most appropiate to do it now rather than as a minor update.

Perhaps this is a topic for RFC if approved?

Thanks

Nelsaidi

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nickvergessen
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Re: Page Titles - Unnecesarily wrong, Review Them

Post by nickvergessen »

I'd also shorten this up to something like:
<title> • <forum title>
<title> • <topic title>
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Nelsaidi
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Re: Page Titles - Unnecesarily wrong, Review Them

Post by Nelsaidi »

Yeah, Thats not bad either, I think vBulletin are like that. Another thing vB have done I think is remove the "Index" when on the forum index, which can also be done.

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imkingdavid
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Re: Page Titles - Unnecesarily wrong, Review Them

Post by imkingdavid »

I agree with most of what was said because there is too much information stored in the topic title.

For instance...

yourdomain.com • View Topic • <topic title>
Could be:
<topic title> • yourdomain.com

So basically, just flip them around and remove the unnecessary descriptive text (e.g. "view topic", etc.). I think the current page should be first (topic title, forum title, ucp/mcp/acp module), then the next grouping (i.e. forum title, ucp/mcp/acp category), and then finally the site name.

Because right now on Area51 I have 4 tabs open in Google Chrome, and each one says: "Area51 @ phpBB.c..." I have no clue which one is which if I go off the site and come back, without flipping back through them.
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EXreaction
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Re: Page Titles - Unnecesarily wrong, Review Them

Post by EXreaction »

Best to place the most relevant and important information first. The site name is not as important as the topic title when trying to find what page you are on.

For example:
Image

Only one of those tabs can you actually guess what content is in it.

Better would be:
Page Titles - Unnecesarily wrong, Review Them &bull; Area51 @phpBB.com

Nelsaidi
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Re: Page Titles - Unnecesarily wrong, Review Them

Post by Nelsaidi »

Yeah, I Was going to suggest taht too at first, but to me it seems somewhat logical to have site name at first provided it is not long. However, you are right - especially when a favicon exists (which are a more effective way of telling people which site they are at) - On that topic an easier way of updating favicon would help if shifting the title to the last place.
Last edited by Nelsaidi on Thu Apr 08, 2010 8:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

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onehundredandtwo
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Re: Page Titles - Unnecesarily wrong, Review Them

Post by onehundredandtwo »

Oh, and another point - rather then having "Sitename • Information", can't we have more descriptive titles?
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idiotnesia
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Re: Page Titles - Unnecesarily wrong, Review Them

Post by idiotnesia »

Don't forget to add the page number in title for page that have multipage.

Code: Select all

<title>forum/topic title - page pagenumber</title>
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naderman
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Re: Page Titles - Unnecesarily wrong, Review Them

Post by naderman »

I agree we should improve these, anybody want to write a patch?

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MattF
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Re: Page Titles - Unnecesarily wrong, Review Them

Post by MattF »

naderman wrote:I agree we should improve these, anybody want to write a patch?
I have a MOD that does most of this with the titles, but am not sure how to send it as a patch to your GIT repo.

EDIT: I added a patch to the Ascreus RFC forum: viewtopic.php?f=84&t=32742
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