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what is the best way to write long seo-friendly titles in sidebars?

<h3 title="My long title, the very seo one">Menu</h3>
OR:
<h3>My long title, the very seo one</h3> // hidden via css
<div class="title">Menu</div>

what else? thanks!

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2 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

FYI, if you're hiding that <h3> via CSS in a live site that's called cloaking and will get you banned if you get caught by the search engines doing that.

Your first example is the proper way to do it as that is what the title attribute is for. It allows you to provide extra text that gives the user more information about an element. Usually it is used with links but it does apply to headings as well.

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thanks! what about <h3 style="text-overflow:ellipsis">long seo title</h3> ? – skyline26 Apr 12 '12 at 14:27
That's perfectly fine although it may awkward for users – John Conde♦ Apr 12 '12 at 14:34
i will show the full title on mouseover! thanks ;) – skyline26 Apr 12 '12 at 15:28
up vote 1 down vote

For your SEO, that is not really important (it was in 2001, but that is some time ago).

For your users however, both isn't the best solution. "Menu" or any other generic one-word does not tell the user anything about the content of the section.

Use something like Short title that gives the user a clue about the sections contents and displays more info onmouseover.

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