Writing HTML Title Tags for Humans, Google & Bing

Still, I'd agree they probably should shorten the title to be focused around two or three key terms they want to be found more. I think it would be a more attractive headline that would encourage clickthrough.

I did indeed debate whether to put the link right in the lead. I did indeed not want people to immediately click out to read and potentially not read what I wrote. There was no "dishonesty" in doing that. The point of writing something is for people to actually read it.

You've got three main people who will read the article.

First, most of my own readers, who probably don't know John and don't particularly worry about what he has to say on the SEO front. The don't need a link to his article right from the opening. They came to read what our authors have to say on a topic.

Second, people who eventually will find this article years from now to learn about HTML title tags. At the time they come, the particular debate on this day won't matter. The advice, however, will. I actually debated whether I should even mention John's article in the opening for that reason, so as not to potentially date a future resource.

Third, people who may have read John's article and then somehow learned of my article. They aren't looking for a link right in the opening -- they read the article.

To make up for it being further down, to emphasize it more, I deliberately chose to link using the title of his article, rather than say from something like "write" or "post."

In terms of being "stingy" with links, Search Engine Land links out all the time. All the time. My article contains seven external links. The internal links to our own articles also contain external links.

If you're being downvoted, it's because you came in with an inaccurate comment and yourself got all angry about it. You missed the link, probably because you didn't bother to actually read the article, rather than it being so invisible as you'd like to make it out to be. Then, in your rush to condemn me, you didn't even bother to viewsource to double check that there was a link there, something that would have taken all of about five seconds to do.

When I pointed out your mistake, rather than apologize, say "oops, I missed it" and maybe suggest it could be more visible, you got even more defensive about it. You were wrong in your comment. You still haven't bothered to apologize for being wrong. Instead, you compound the error with allegations that my site is link "stingy" and that I somehow have "dishonest" link placement (if I were really trying to be "dishonest" from an SEO perspective, I'd have nofollowed the link).

I'm sorry I parroted your tone. That got to me, the attitude you displayed. I should have simply responded that yes, there was a link in the story. Now I've added a further one right in the lead of the story, which perhaps you'll find more reassuring.

Of course, Google seems to give anchor text credit to the first reference of a link, so that means John's article is now likely to be relevant for the word "dishing" rather than "Title Junk," but that's another consideration that I had in mind that was probably lost on you.