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    Change the Title Tags for your Blog

    May 11, 2008 Filed under: , 42 Comments

    Until recently, the title tags generated for each page of your Blogger blog would display the blog title first, then the name of your post.

    This wasn't so good for SEO (search engine optimization) as this made keywords from your post titles appear after your blog title.

    Luckily, Blogger have come up with a simple fix for this problem for those who use Layouts templates: the <data:blog.pageName/> tag!

    This new tag is already installed for new blogs (or if you change your existing template to one of Blogger's default ones).

    However, if you have customized your template or uploaded a third party template, you will need to change the original <data:blog.pageTitle/> to the new <data:blog.pageName/> tag for this change to take effect.

    But don't worry: this is REALLY easy! Here's what you have to do:

    1. Go to Layout>edit HTML in your Blogger dashboard.
    2. Search for this tag: <data:blog.pageTitle/>
    3. Replace this tag with the following:
      <b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;index&quot;'>
      <title><data:blog.title/></title>
      <b:else/>
      <title><data:blog.pageName/></title>
      </b:if>
    4. Save your template! (See, this is an easy hack!)

    Once you've changed this tag, you'll see that on post pages, the default [blog name] page title format for your post titles in the browser window will be replaced solely by your post title instead.

    This will increase the chances of your posts being picked up in search engine results for keywords which appear in your post titles (and can ultimately help draw more targeted traffic to your blog.

    I hope this little trick will be useful to you all! And for the Blogger team (if you're reading this): Thank you!

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    Posted by Amanda at 12:24 AM

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    42 Comments: to “ Change the Title Tags for your Blog ” so far...

    • Ale       11 May 2008 02:55
       

      This post has been removed by the author.

    • Ale       11 May 2008 03:03
       

      I'm sorry I erased the previous comment, but everything was fine, until I noticed that, it works great on the different posts, but in the www.thepurpleblug.com it shows Mozilla Firefox(not so great).... I'm going back to the original code, please let me know how to fix this...
      Thanks anyway...

    • Amanda       11 May 2008 03:17
       

      Sorry about that, Ale!

      I was so excited to see Blogger have finally implemented this that I hadn't noticed the glitch :)

      I've updated the post above with a slightly different code snippet which will ensure your blog title appears on the home page, but not on post pages.

      So far I've added this to two blogs and this works just fine. Let me know if there are any problems using this revised code!

      Thanks,
      Amanda

    • Liene at Blue Orchid Designs       11 May 2008 03:25
       

      thank you!

    • lissa       11 May 2008 03:42
       

      works fine after you alter the code. thanks!

    • UpHope       11 May 2008 05:39
       

      Hi Amanda
      This is a good ,simple hack for blogger,i have translate it into Chinese and added it in my blog.
      Thank you for your sharing.
      The link: http://uphope.blogspot.com/2008/05/blogger_11.html

    • Vikram       11 May 2008 06:29
       

      Ni and simple hack. Pretty helpful, Thanx blogger buster!!!

    • UpHope       11 May 2008 06:30
       

      Amanda:
      Sorry for the link is:
      http://uphope.blogspot.com/2008/05/bloggertitle.html

      Please delet the above link.
      thanks .

    • Jirel       11 May 2008 09:34
       

      First of all thanks for letting us know about this latest hack.
      For me this is very important because when I had implemented one hack by many bloggers including b:section in the head part, traffic to my blog was increased considerably. When Blogger didn't supported b:section in head few months back, traffic again decreased. But now I hope this developlment will work very fine.

    • Angel       11 May 2008 09:35
       

      I used to use a similar hack with if conditions but Blogger suddenly did not allow ifs/elses outside the head section. Good thing it's back now! :D

    • Banker       11 May 2008 12:35
       

      Just came across this Blog. It will certainly be useful to me.

      Will be checking in.

      Banker

    • synical       11 May 2008 12:45
       

      Thanks for the tip, but I can't find the tag in my template...is there any other way to go around that?

      Keep up the great work!

    • Julian Schoffel       11 May 2008 13:11
       

      Just a quick note for knuckleheads like me:

      You need to replace the entire line "<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>" with the code you have above.

      Including the surrounding <title></title> tags, otherwise they show up in your browser titlebar.

      Anyway thanks Amanda, very helpful tips as always! :-)

    • a husband       11 May 2008 15:19
       

      I was getting on to say the same thing as julian above, that you have to replace the whole line. Without replacing the surrounding "title" tags, you get an awful "title" YOUR BLOG NAME when you open your site.

      Awesome hack, though, thanks!

    • blog-2b       11 May 2008 15:50
       

      Thank you very much))

    • aBookworm       11 May 2008 18:20
       

      Thanks for this great hack! It works fine in both my blogs. I've also implemented some of your other hacks/recommendations and I'm loving them all.

    • Ale       11 May 2008 19:25
       

      Awesome! You are great guys!!! It wasn't something wrong with my blog, it was just me doing it wrong! :-p Now it works great...

    • Sus       11 May 2008 19:49
       

      Thanks! This is great!

    • Waleska Alsieux       11 May 2008 23:17
       

      Thanks!! I was wondering how to get this done.. Awesome!

    • Russell Davis       12 May 2008 00:15
       

      Hi Amanda,

      I'm typing a comment here to BEG you to check your email re: the Blue Steel template. I sent you two emails on the 9th.

      Your site rocks!

    • kleninggan       12 May 2008 03:31
       

      This is definitely good help guide. Have been following your posts. They are extremely helpful. I have even implemented the tabbed navigation widget which is so useful !! :)

    • Rajeev Edmonds       12 May 2008 05:42
       

      Works like a charm, Thanks for sharing.

    • Darwin       12 May 2008 06:46
       

      This is simply amazing, Amanda.

      I implemented it in my blog and, YES, it works with CHARM.

      Many thanks for this great hack.

      Cheers!

    • Arlo Gilbert       12 May 2008 08:59
       

      Amanda thanks for your great advice!

    • Kelleigh       12 May 2008 12:03
       

      thanx! that worked beautifully!

    • robin hood       12 May 2008 12:19
       

      As someone who gets a bit of revenue from google ads, this is good advice. However, before I try it, does it affect any links to and from my blog pages?

    • Rodney SANKINKA       12 May 2008 13:03
       

      Hi Amanda, Hi have a problem, this tag "title" which appear before the title (of the blog or the post title). How to solve it ?

    • Alcarcalimo       12 May 2008 13:14
       

      Hi Andrea,

      Another great post, I say!

      However, I did notice something in the Title tag: "title Alcarcalimo's....." did it supposed to have that?

    • Erin       12 May 2008 14:57
       

      Amanda, I love love love this site. and right now, i am confused. i can't find the < data:blog. pageTitle/ > at all. this could be because it's monday and i'm exhausted, but can you point me in the general direction?

    • synical       12 May 2008 15:12
       

      This post has been removed by the author.

    • synical       12 May 2008 15:14
       

      If you can't find it, try this instead: http://blogfresh.blogspot.com/2005/09/page-title-optimisation-blogger-hacks.html

    • Erin       12 May 2008 16:14
       

      thanks synical! that worked!

    • nick@podxies       13 May 2008 00:51
       

      Trust Amanda to always come up with the best hacks ever!!!

    • Theresa Komor       13 May 2008 03:40
       

      Thank you, Amanda! This is great to be able to do to my blog.

    • Jay Ehret       13 May 2008 04:00
       

      I tried and got the "title" in my title until I did what Julian said to do in his comment.

      Thanks Amanda and Julian

    • cik tun teja       13 May 2008 07:16
       

      hai Amanda..i try change my tag as u said and already edit my HTML code, but then in my blog it's just appeared like this : (title)~Hujan~

      why it wont display my page name in that (title) column?

      thank amanda! have a nice day!

    • The Survey Survival Network Blogs       13 May 2008 07:35
       

      Good Info Mate !!

      Thanks :)

    • IADina       13 May 2008 20:57
       

      Wow thanks I love your blog :) God Bless You.

    • Michael Child       13 May 2008 21:31
       

      here in the UK I had to do something so much more basic on my blog a savvy 20 something asked me what’s a blog yesterday

    • Michael Child       13 May 2008 22:18
       

      thanks for coming over so quick and leaving your comment I am relatively new to blogging and any advice on improving what I am doing would be greatly appreciated, do you think I am linking too many pictures for instance

    • Melissa       14 May 2008 20:26
       

      This kicked butt, thanks so much. Like many others before me have said, remember to delete the entire title line to avoid trouble. Thanks again!

    • Sandra       14 May 2008 21:21
       

      Hi Amanda
      I applied this to my blog, but opposed to what it was supposed to happen, I noticed a decrease in my traffic. So I checked on google, and I saw that my last posts are not indexed. Could this be for this change I made? Should I go back to my original code? Please let me know if this is a problem with this code or just a coincidence.
      Thanks

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