Does Title Tag location in a page's source code matter?

[Istoresinc]

Currently our meta description is on line 8 for our page - http://www.paintball-online.com/Paintball-Guns-And-Markers-0Y.aspx

The title tag, however sits below a bunch of code on line 237

Does the location of the title tag, meta tags, and any structured data have any influence with respect to SEO and search engines? Put another way, could we benefit from moving the title tag up to the top?

I "surfed 'n surfed" and could not find any articles about this.

I would really appreciate any help on this as our site got decimated organically last May and we are looking for any help with SEO.

NIck

[BlueprintMarketing]

Hi Nick,

I noticed that as well it is definitely in the header, but it is currently not been found by tools that mimic google bot.

I am running a DeepCrawl.co.uk scan of the site as we speak I will post it when it is finished.

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[Istoresinc]

Thomas,

I looked at the page source and found the the title tag; it sits at the very end of the head section; not sure if that makes a difference or not. Do you know if there are any instances where we can see the title tag in the page source but some how it is not seen by search engines?

Nick

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[Istoresinc]

Beautiful Thomas! Thank you so much for taking the time to analyze the site. I may have to look into recommendation of authoritydev.com

[Ray-pp]

It's true that it wouldn't matter to the user, such as 'above the fold' real estate. But, to the bots do pay attention to the parts invisible to the user and should be optimized too.

[BlueprintMarketing]

The page that you are having trouble with is not showing up as rendering a title in more than one tool

** title tag search**

http://cl.ly/1D1k1R1l3m3L

Screaming Frog

http://cl.ly/2q0Y3R121X2a

**  crawl review**

http://cl.ly/471S0S1t0I0k

** internal URLs**

http://cl.ly/2c1Y28431x2S

** feedthebot.com**

http://cl.ly/2G253M3E4142

** I went deeper**

http://cl.ly/0C002503212N

http://cl.ly/1r3c1t3K0J1U

** your server is either slow or the coding is killing it is most likely the coding.**

Google pagespeed score 

68 out of 100
This webpage is on the slow side of average. See below the reasons why your page is slow.

Load time 

Page begins to be seen in: 1582 milliseconds

I have pasted it a lot of graphics below in order to show you that the URL

http://www.paintball-online.com/Paintball-Guns-And-Markers-0Y.aspx

is not showing a title tag to search engines nor is it something four tools have been able to find the title tag regarding that link.

More disturbing is amount of URLs without  title tags in the more in-depth crawls.

My strongest suggestion is that you contact a developer.

I can recommend the authoritydev.com

they are very good.

Sincerely,

Thomas

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[spencerhjustice]

I mean I'm not saying that it's not possible, but above the fold is relevant to the user because it's actually something they see. The section is completely invisible to a user, hence shouldn't be relevant.

[spencerhjustice]

I honestly don't think that the <title>tag location is your issue.</p> <p>One issue that I'm seeing is that your page load time is pretty abysmal. According to tools.pingdom.com your page load time is around 8 seconds. This probably has to do with the massive amount of code that your site is using. That is at least one thing you may look into improving.</p></title>

[Ray-pp]

Yeah, maybe not. But, 'above the fold' is understood to be better real estate on a web page - why not higher up on a document too?

[spencerhjustice]

I'm not sure that I agree with this. If this were about the

or any element that is actually visibile on the page then I'd be inclined to agree but there is really no reason that you should need to put the <title>tag higher up as long as it is within the <head> section. It really shouldn't affect anything in my opinion.</p></title>

[Ray-pp]

Does the location of the title tag, meta tags, and any structured data have any influence with respect to SEO and search engines? Put another way, could we benefit from moving the title tag up to the top?

Yes, location does matter.

Let's consider this extreme scenario: A competitor and you are competing for the same term and have the following...

• The term being targeted is exactly the same
• Both you and your competitors' domain have the same authority
• You both have the same inbound links and internal link structure
• Both properties' content is optimized

Basically, you and your competitor have the same internal/external optimizations - so all other factors are equal aside from the <title>location.</p> <p>Pages are rendered from top to bottom. Crawlers read pages from top to bottom. Your competitors' <title> tag is higher on the page than yours. When Google crawls the site, they understand this (the location of the title tag in relation to the page). How will they decide between your page and your competitors' page? Your competitor puts the title tag up higher on the page than you do, it must be more important.</p> <p>Now, this is a very extreme scenario that is super difficult to replicate (you'd need to control both sites to do it properly). But, using this extreme can show why location of the <title> tag is important. It may be a very slight difference, but sometimes that is all that is needed.</p></title>

[iSTORM-New-Media]

As long as it is in the section of your page. Crawlers look for tagging information in this section first so it may be missed if it is anywhere else.

If you are concerned about the amount of code in the top head section, you could move all that javascript into a external js file and reference it.