Title too long - SEO implications?

Question

From things I read around, it seems like page title has an impact on SEO rating. As far as I understand, it is recommended to put a relevant keywords inside it.

I'm developing a website for jobs search. So, in a job page I put into its title the job title + company name of that job.

When I'm running SEO analyzing tools, such as DeepCrawl, it warns that I have many titles that are too long.

So, now I have to choose: ignore these warnings or make titles shorter (for example, put only job title without company name).

What should I chose to get better SEO ranking? What is a penalty for having long titles? Is there any other alternatives?

Answer 1

They are just warnings. You can ignore them.

Very short titles for SEO was a thing about 7 years ago. At that point the best way to rank was to create a page for every search phrase with a title that exactly matched. At this point Google isn't rewarding short titles that exactly match search phrases.

When you have a long title, the worst that is going to happen is:

• The title gets truncated in the search results
• The title gets truncated in the users tab title
• Google uses words in the title to determine the subject of the page. In a very long title, Google has a lot of choice and may end up focusing on the wrong thing

It isn't always better to have a short title. A title should accurately reflect the content of the page. It sometimes takes a longer title to do that. I often edit posts here to add important details to the title of a question. For example if this question were just titled "Title Too Long", that isn't enough. It leaves out the SEO context. Some searchers might assume that the question could help them decide about the the length of the title of their next book. They would click and then leave disappointed. Disappointing users is far worse than shaving some words out of the title.

That being said, it is always better to fit a title in about 60 characters if you can reword it without losing meaning. Google truncates at about 60 characters usually. If you can put three descriptive words near the beginning, that will help users find the right tab in their browser. So the most specific and unique stuff should go in the title first.

The other thing that can be important for a title is to include a call to action or proof of quality. Those probably are not important on your individual job postings pages, but they might be on your company job page. Consider a page listing all of a company's jobs. You could choose between a very short title such as "Deldemeco Jobs" or a more compelling title such as "50+ Deldemoco Jobs, Apply Today".

Answer 2

My answwer to similar question of one of my clients here in Slovenia: What happens if the "SEO Title" is too long or longer than recommended number of characters? Does Google punish it? Or does the latter simply not show up? Are the words - “keywords” in the deleted (not shown) part taken into account in searches?

There is no Google penalty to penalize a site for having too long (or too short) an SEO title.

If the SEO address is too short, it simply means that you have not used all the space that Google makes available for the SEO address (which is, by the way, the most important CTR factor / decision maker whether Google users will click on your site or compete).

Google for SEO address (currently) allows approx. 65 characters (or limits the length of titles according to the length of pixels (according to the device in which it displays the SEO title).

If the SEO title is too long, Google cuts off the rest and displays 3 dots instead.

If “cut words” were considered as an SEO factor in the higher ranking of websites on Google, in theory we could “impose” thousands of keywords in the title, but this is a non-functioning and at the same time, old, “black hat SEO” tactic because Google, despite not displaying the full SEO title, when visiting the site, sees and reads the full title, and at the same time understands very well when the title (and everywhere else in terms of content) for these keyword stuffing.