Titles vs URL - Which is more important to get right?

1. 80

   Wesman Todd Shawposted 7 years ago

   I'm hoping to get some feedback here from some of the more experienced and knowledgeable persons, of which there are many, on the website.
   
   I'm wondering if the URL is more important than the title of a page. I often start something off with a pretty generic working title which winds up being the url. But after I get to work I figure out what I'm doing could have a much more specific title.
   
   Should I delete the unfinished page and start again with the new title which will match the URL, or should I just go ahead and do what I'm doing, and wind up with a title that does not match the URL?

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 7 years agoin reply to this

      It's my understanding that as long as there is something in the title that relates to the URL you're OK.  It doesn't have to be a strong relationship, but there does have to be one.  I think a hub does much better if the two match, but I also think that people search for topics, not URLs.

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      1. 87

         Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         Actually I agree with Lobobrandon, it's actually better if the two do NOT match.  Though I'm usually too lazy to do that, I must admit!
         
         The reason is because you want to use the maximum number of keywords in your URL and title BUT you want a nice short URL (for ease of sharing) and you can't have a title that's too long either.  So how do you fit in all your keywords?  You use the most important ones in the title and the rest in the URL!
         
         That being said, it's certainly not a tragedy if the URL doesn't contain any  keywords. It doesn't even have to be related to the topic - it's just an address.  You can get a benefit from having keywords in it, but it's not the end of the world if you don't.  HubPages might object if you used irrelevant words in the URL though.

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2. 93

   Sherry Hewinsposted 7 years ago

   I probably don't know any more about it than you do, but I have never bothered about it. I often fiddle with the title long after the hub is published, so most of my titles do not match the URL.

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   1. 80

      Wesman Todd Shawposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Yeah. I THINK the URL isn't so important any more as the title. But I wish I knew if I should just delete one I started and start again where the URL will match the title I wound up choosing.
      
      I might should just do it and stop fretting over the question.

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      1. 87

         Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         If the Hub has only been in existence for a few days, then by all means delete it and start all over again.   Having a good URL does help somewhat.
         
         However, if it's been published long enough for Google to notice it, don't delete it.  Just change the title.  The URL is not that important.

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         1. 80

            Wesman Todd Shawposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            I was hoping you'd see this post. I was posting about one which isn't published. I got going and then decided it should go in a different direction from the URL. So I will delete it and start it again with a new URL. I probably should have just done that and not bothered with the forum post.

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   2. 89

      Dr Billy Kiddposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Very important to "fiddle with the titles." I change a title when the one I used is not working very good. Sometimes I hit the jackpot.

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3. 70

   makingamarkposted 7 years ago

   I'm a great believer in getting them both right!
   
   However I changed the title on a Squidoo lens once to one which was more succinct and appealing to its potential audience and saw the site rocket in popularity.
   
   That site bought me quite a few things over the years.....

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4. 96

   DrMark1961posted 7 years ago

   I read in one of those SEO blogs (sorry but I cannot remember which one) that when you write an article, give it a title and put in on a social media to see the response. If it does not do well, change the title and see if it does better, and keep changing it to find the title that does best.
   I use a very general URL and change my title several times. I would definitely not delete just to make my title equal to the URL.

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5. 85

   julieann26posted 7 years ago

   The title is the most important one to get right as Google and other search engines are not looking for links but text.
   
   When we look at a web page we don't see what the search engines see - they see the web coding/programming.  The search engine will look at the stuff that it is the easiest to access first  e.g. the meta tags at the top of every web page.  Then it will try to look at the coding if it isn't hidden (this depends on the web programming language used to design the page).
   
   Another way of putting it is to just look at a typical search engine page - everything is listed by title first not by the link.

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6. 88

   lobobrandonposted 7 years ago

   They are both important. My Title and URL almost never match, in fact it is better if they aren't perfect matches, but somewhat related - synonyms for instance. Anyway, if you're writing on HP or anywhere on the internet and you want to receive search traffic you're going to need to do your keyword research first to find out what terms people are looking for and also check out the competition to determine which one you want to go after.
   
   Once you picked your keyword use that in the URL. The title on the other hand should be related to the topic and flow well so that it looks natural and receives clicks if your page does happen to rank well.

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