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Page titles

Web page titles are used in a number of ways. They:

  • appear in the title bar of a web browser window
  • appear as the hyperlinked text in search results
  • are used to file pages saved in browser favourite or bookmarks lists
  • are used to create the history list that shows users their recently visited pages.

Where can I find the page title?

If you are using a visual web page editor, you may need to look at the HTML source code view of the page to see the page title. It will be located inside the <head> tags at the top of the document, within the <title> tags. It should look like this:

<title>Page title</title>

Guidelines for writing page titles

Page titles must be written so that they:

  • are clear and accurate descriptions of the content of a page
  • show important words first
  • are unique to enable users to distinguish one page from another
  • are between 40-60 characters or less; long titles get truncated in browser bookmarks and history lists
  • are easy to scan; users frequently scan through search results, bookmarks and history lists
  • are written in mixed case for ease of visual scanning
  • omit unnecessary words (e.g. "Welcome to...")
  • do not use "a", "an", "the"
  • avoid the use of special characters, such as accented characters, unless creating multilingual content
  • avoid institutional jargon
  • do not use abbreviations or acronyms
  • are spelled correctly.

A title should start with the specific and move to the general. Begin with a title that reflects the content of that page and then move to include the context in which the page exists. When describing an organisational unit, abbreviate as much as possible. For publicly accessible Masterbrand sites, refer to the organisation as "Monash University".

Do not use:

<title>Monash University, Prospective Students Office, Prospective Students</title>

Use this approach instead:

<title>Prospective students, Monash University</title>

Do not use:

<title>Usability guidelines, Web Style Guide, Monash University</title>

Use this approach instead:

<title>Usability guidelines, Monash Web Style Guide</title>

Relationship between page title and page heading

The page title and the page heading (<h1>Page heading<h1>) will convey similar information. When a user reads the page heading, the rest of the page helps gives context to the user. For example the logo, branding, breadcrumbs, section navigation, etc, all help the user understand where they are and what they are looking at.

Page titles are often read out of context, for example in a search results page, browser favourite or bookmarks lists, or in a browser history list. Because of this the page title needs to contain more information than the page heading to give more context to the user.

Examples
Page title Page heading
Page titles, Monash Web Style Guide Page titles
Usability goals, Monash Web Style Guide Usability goals
Courses for prospective students, Monash University Courses

Page titles and search engine indexing

Most search engines use the words in the page title to index the page. Accurate and descriptive page titles will make it easier the page easier to select from the listing of results. It also means that it will be placed nearer to the top of the search engine's results.

See also