Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Is there any benefit to removing brand name from the title tag?
- 
					
					
					
					
 I just signed up for Moz recently, and have noticed that in my crawl errors, I have hundreds of issues with my title tag being too long. My business is selling prints for landscape/travel/nature photography, and I've built these pages dynamically to where the title tag for pages selling individual photos has the title of the photo for sale followed by a hyphen and then the brand name. The same goes for gallery pages "Gallery Name | Brand Name". Would it be worth it to shorten the title tags by removing the brand name from these pages? Or will that actually harm more than help? Thanks in advance! 
- 
					
					
					
					
 I know this question is answered already but my 2c based on what we've changed about our onsites. If your brand name includes a main keyphrase, we typically don't include it on every page. You basically end up "competing" with yourself for that keyphrase. There's no point having: Syracuse Wedding Photographers | MyCompany Photography and using that brand bit on every single page. You're over-telling Google that the page is photo related. (Photographers in general have this issue but it applies to MyCompany Plumbing and MyCompany Iphone Repair too.) 
- 
					
					
					
					
 I always include the brand name where I can, but if it is too long because of that I do not hesitate to drop the brand name. For the titles, whilst I think about it from an SEO perspective, it is also important to think of it from a CTR perspective too. Sometimes you need that extra bit of description at the expense of the brand name. To give an example, on some articles I find it better to put the month and year at the end instead of the brand name to increase CTR. So basically, no I don't think it particularly matters, but it will vary on a case by case basis. 
- 
					
					
					
					
 Hey Mickey, While brand is important on the site, I think you could probably get away with dropping it from depending on: 
 a. are general keywords ultimately driving more sales and traffic? - my guess is that being in the industry that you're in the answer is yes since it can expand your reach and audience much greater.
 b. how often are you using the brand name throughout the rest of the site? - you could supplement the brand copy mentions with logo alt tags, H1 mentions, etc.I would include the brand ending on any title tag that it will fit in and definitely try to include it in the home page. Hope that helps a bit! 
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
- 
		
		Moz ToolsChat with the community about the Moz tools. 
- 
		
		SEO TacticsDiscuss the SEO process with fellow marketers 
- 
		
		CommunityDiscuss industry events, jobs, and news! 
- 
		
		Digital MarketingChat about tactics outside of SEO 
- 
		
		Research & TrendsDive into research and trends in the search industry. 
- 
		
		SupportConnect on product support and feature requests. 
Related Questions
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		Logo Image H1 Tag SquareSpace
 We have a site hosted on SquareSpace: Roomhance.com Going through the on-page optimizaton tool, we noticed that the H1 tags weren't fully optimized. If you click on view source on the page, it shows 2 H1 tags on the home page: id="logoImage"><a <span="" class="html-attribute-name">href</a><a <span="" class="html-attribute-name">="</a>/">src="//static1.squarespace.com/static/5bcca055ab1a62465f5b9ee7/t/5c18feb270a6adf771765799/1588613682225/?format=1500w" alt="Virtual Staging For Real Estate | Roomhance" /> style="text-align:center;white-space:pre-wrap;">Virtual Staging The 2nd one shown above it the H1 tag we want. I'm wondering if the H1 tag in the logo image is hurting us for SEO? Can't figure out how to modify it in SquareSpace. On-Page Optimization | | vikasnwu0
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		How can I outrank a website whose brand is named specifically after a product / service (and mine is not!) ?
 Hi everyone, I've been working hard on my on-page SEO lately so I can gain visibility for my website. The results have been great and I am now on top of the SERP for the services I propose. I think that my content is almost fully optimize and** I've respected all the best practices (both on-page and technical SEO)**. However, there is one problem I just can't deal with for I don't have the knowledge, hence this post. I'm pretty sure that this issue is quite common for SEO experts. Here the thing: I offer dental emergency services, which is my core business. I'm ranked 4th for that request in my area, which is good, but I'd like to rank 1st as** I have a better DA and content than the 3 websites outranking me**. Also, I'm the first result for any other related services such as "dental services" or "dentist". However, when it comes to the theme "dental emergency", I'm constantly outranked by the same 3 websites. I ran an audit on their website but **my content and technical SEO is way better **than theirs. I suppose that the only reason I'm behind them is because they used "dental emergency" in their **Brand name **and, therefore, in the Home page URL. Every time someone is looking up online for "dental emergency", these websites will be on top of the SERP as I think that Google is unable to know whether the users are specifically looking for their websites (aka Brand) or for "dental emergency" services. Here is an example of a competitor: https://www.urgencedentairedemontreal.com/ (urgence meaning emergency in French). His whole Brand name and URL have been built after the "dental emergency." service. On the contrary, **my Brand name does not mention "urgence". ** I see that as a trick that is confusing Google. The fact that my competitors named their Brand after a specific service I also offer is real pain for my SEO. I also think it's really unfair as I've put a lot of effort in designing a nice website with great UX and content. This is the kind of practice that should be penalized in my opinion. Please, does anyone know any way to resolve this issue? On-Page Optimization | | AlexTL0
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		Using a hyphen in title tags and the impact of spaces
 Hi I am trying to arrive at a best practice template for a title tag for my organization so does the following template still holds Primary Keyword - Secondary Keyword | Brand Name will anything be impacted if I eliminate the spaces between the hyphen, will search bots be still able to treat the first one as a priority and the second as the secondary? Primary Keyword-Secondary Keyword | Brand Name thank you On-Page Optimization | | lina_digital0
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		Multiple Cities in Title Tag
 My question is how to avoid having a spammy title. Currently I'm working on a project where a business serves four cities, but two of them are out of its home state. I'm trying to create a title tag that is appealing to the eyes, and meets what I need it to do at the same time. I was wondering what everyone though of this sample Brand X Dealer Serving Newark, DE; New Castle, DE; Glens Mills, PA; and Springfield, PA I know that too much repetition can be a bad thing, but this might not be a big deal since they are separate instances. Let me know what you all think. Thanks! On-Page Optimization | | OOMDODigital0
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		How To Change Wordpress Category Title
 My categories are indexed and I want to change the category page title. At present it just defaults to the category name but I want to set a different page title. For example I want the category to be 'Motor Cars' but I want the category page title to be 'Buy Motor Cars - New And Used'. How can I do this? On-Page Optimization | | SamCUK0
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		Hyphens in Domain Name
 I have a client who is a business broker. I have just begun working with them, and they are trying to determine the best domain name to use - they have several. business-broker-alabama.com vs businessbrokeralabama.com Which one of these has more value? I know that search engines have somewhat devalued keywords. The first one probably has a little more SEO value, but is going to be a drag in terms of marketing -- saying "business hyphen broker hyphen alabama" is going to get old for them. Thanks! On-Page Optimization | | csmithal0
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		Image file name, is it important
 If I use the same image all over my site, do I need to change the file name to avoid duplicate? Different alt text will be use on those images On-Page Optimization | | BigBlaze2050
 
			
		 
			
		 
			
		 
			
		 
					
				 
					
				 
					
				 
					
				 
					
				 
					
				 
					
				