Window Title

The window title for a page (often called the "title tag") is, most simply, the text that appears at the top of a visitor's web browser when viewing that page. (The same text also appears in the title bar of Sandvox when working on a site document, preceded by the icon and name of the Sandvox document itself.)

This text is set automatically to be composed of the Page Title, Site Title and, if set, the site author. But you can easily customize it to your own needs in the Page Details.

The Window Title is actually used for a number of purposes:

• The title of the Browser Window
• The title of the menu item representing a page in your browser's history menu
• Keywords used to describe your web page for a search engine's index of your website. If your title contains the the kinds of words that people are likely to be searching for, it will improve the likelihood that your website will be found.
• The headline for the website that the user of a search engine will see when they find your website in the search results. Along with the Meta Description of the page, it comprises your page's listing on search results. This is an important aspect of attracting people to come visit your website, so it is worth composing a compelling Window Title.

For presenting the title to search engine visitors, it appears that Google will show up to the first 65 characters of the window title. (Other search engines will show a similar number.) If your window title goes beyond that length, it will be truncated with ellipses.

With Google being the dominant search engine, Sandvox shows a character counter to warn you when your description is approaching or exceeding 65 characters. You are welcome to continue entering text, but it will probably be truncated when somebody finds your website's listing on Google.

Advanced Tip

You can use Sandvox's Hidden Preferences to set the separator used between the components of the Window Title for any automatically-set titles.

Suggested reading

• All About Title Tags (High Rankings)
• How To Optimize The Title Tag (About.com)
• 10 SEO and Marketing-Friendly Title Tag Formulas (Conversation Marketing)

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