On late Dec 16th I upgraded TheDocBlog to Wordpress 2.7, on this day the main Title Tag on the front of TheDocBlog broke. I noticed the error quickly but figured it was a perfect time to test and see how important the main page Title Tag is for Search Engine Traffic. I allowed the missing title tag to remain until late on the Dec 27th, so this little test went on for 11 days.
This post was originally published on: Jan 4, 2009. Having an SEO Test article with incorrect information isn't going to help anyone. Most article errors are simply corrected but major changes and updates to the knowledge will always require a republish of the original article. ~Doc
In the comments below, SiN2.0 correctly pointed out that TheDocBlog was also missing the h1 tag on the main page. Which is a rather major factor!
It could have been a fluke, but it appears the Search Engine traffic took a drop on the 16th, however in the stats I don't see a loss in the number of keywords that sent traffic. The following two days didn't improve any and by the 19th it was without question that a drop was coming.
By the 21st, a full 5 days afterwards about 75% of the Search traffic had dropped off and by the 24th, it was almost dead. By this point, TheDocBlog's main page was no longer listed and other than some very random keywords, any relevant search traffic was gone.
The Search Engines didn't Ban TheDocBlog, they simply removed the vast mixture of the listings it had. ~ Bastards
It's amazing what one error, while is a big one, it's still only a single title tag missing from one page. It didn't make a difference that every other page and title throughout the entire blog remained the same, links didn't change, structure didn't change.. simply, the document title was totally missing!
It took until the 30th to start getting back any noticeable traffic, 3 days after the correction was made. By January 2nd both Google and Yahoo traffic was quickly returning to it's previous levels. At least errors can be corrected rather quickly with both Search Engines.
The missing title test really opened my eyes at how important it is to create and of course use a document title, on the front page of your Website. I thought with all the other relevant and linked pages that contain proper titles I would only see a small drop in traffic. Rather, I saw almost a complete removal of listings across the entire domain.
I know not having a Document Title and getting a total loss in SE traffic is kind of a Duh, but I didn't know your entire site would go poof.
Now, in my eyes if Google and Yahoo can't figure out what a page is about when it's missing a document title, then that's a massive coding flaw in the algo. As a coder and an owner, I would be going flippin nuts that the top of food chain for my algo is the stupid ass Document title.
They gather, store and sort through more information than God and they can't figure out what a Document is about, based on links in and on the site, on page text, come on...
What a massive hole, no wonder you can buy a keyword domain, toss a title and link up on the page, then get one forum link to it and you instantly get search engine traffic... Thanks to the amateur coders at Google and Yahoo for creating this amateur tip!
/rant done!
When the correction was made, I spent a little extra time trying to improve the title text. After looking over the returned listings, it appears I have gained a few spots on some keywords. Time will only tell if the new title change was beneficial or not.
One thing I'm now sure of though, a missing title tag in an html document a missing HTML Title or h1 Document Title - the documents title, will destroy all of your Search Engine traffic.
~TheDoc
