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I love how you can see the original less-clickbait headlines of 'Who charges those electric bird scooters?' in the title tag and 'charging-electric-scooters-is-

I love how you can see the original less-clickbait headlines of 'Who charges those electric bird scooters?' in the title tag and 'charging-electric-scooters-is-a-cutthroat-business' in the url.

danso 8y ago
How do you know that the <title> tag contains the "original" headline? It seems to be more tailored for SEO, i.e. to attract the people who wonder (and then Google), "Who charges the electric scooters?"
- Illniyar 8y ago
  Never thought about that. Do they really do different titles for different entry points? The webarchive supports that this has always been the title. https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/05/charging-electric-scooters-is-a-cutthroat-business/560747/?single_page=true https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.theatlantic.com/te...
  - danso 8y ago
    Not sure what content-management system The Atlantic uses, but WordPress (or at least its popular SEO plugins) allow you to specify different values for <title> and article <h1> headlines. A lot of news orgs are now savvy enough to use varied titles for different formats. For example, this week's New Yorker print issue has a story titled, "Behind the Wall", which works in print because your eyeball can scan the article's entire presentation and see the headline in context with a photo and subhed "As the U.S. abandons diplomacy, an Ambassador resigns in protests". In the online version, the story's title is "The Diplomat Who Quit the Trump Administration", and the subhed (which is also the <meta> description) contains proper nouns: "For John Feeley, the Ambassador to Panama, moral failings at home seemed to compound tactical failings abroad" https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/05/28/the-diplomat-who-quit-the-trump-administration https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/05/28/the-diplomat-w...
  - namdas 8y ago
    For a popular article that will earn a lot of links its also a good strategy to change the title multiple times during its viral phase. Since many people/cm systems link with the title tag it means you get a wider mix of anchor text which can help the article to rank for a more diverse set of key phrases
    - tedmiston 8y ago
      I've noticed New York Times does this too. https://mobile.twitter.com/nyt_diff https://mobile.twitter.com/nyt_diff
- kzrdude 8y ago
  I'd assume that google actually penalizes title mismatches like that
Ambroos 8y ago
Any decent CMS allows for these to be configured differently for each page because they serve different audiences. Your title tag, open graph title tag, Google metadata title and actual <h1> all serve very different purposes. For Facebook you might want something clickbaity, while for Google a clearer title will usually do better. For most content this sort of optimization would be a bit much, but for a piece like this it could definitely work.
asdsa5325 8y ago
They A/B test the titles. The title I got was "Electric Scooter Charger Culture Is Out of Control"

I love how you can see the original less-clickbait headlines of 'Who charges those electric bird scooters?' in the title tag and 'charging-electric-scooters-is-a-cutthroat-business' in the url.

danso 8y ago

How do you know that the <title> tag contains the "original" headline? It seems to be more tailored for SEO, i.e. to attract the people who wonder (and then Google), "Who charges the electric scooters?"

Illniyar 8y ago
Never thought about that. Do they really do different titles for different entry points? The webarchive supports that this has always been the title. https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/05/charging-electric-scooters-is-a-cutthroat-business/560747/?single_page=true https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.theatlantic.com/te...
- danso 8y ago
  Not sure what content-management system The Atlantic uses, but WordPress (or at least its popular SEO plugins) allow you to specify different values for <title> and article <h1> headlines. A lot of news orgs are now savvy enough to use varied titles for different formats. For example, this week's New Yorker print issue has a story titled, "Behind the Wall", which works in print because your eyeball can scan the article's entire presentation and see the headline in context with a photo and subhed "As the U.S. abandons diplomacy, an Ambassador resigns in protests". In the online version, the story's title is "The Diplomat Who Quit the Trump Administration", and the subhed (which is also the <meta> description) contains proper nouns: "For John Feeley, the Ambassador to Panama, moral failings at home seemed to compound tactical failings abroad" https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/05/28/the-diplomat-who-quit-the-trump-administration https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/05/28/the-diplomat-w...
- namdas 8y ago
  For a popular article that will earn a lot of links its also a good strategy to change the title multiple times during its viral phase. Since many people/cm systems link with the title tag it means you get a wider mix of anchor text which can help the article to rank for a more diverse set of key phrases
  - tedmiston 8y ago
    I've noticed New York Times does this too. https://mobile.twitter.com/nyt_diff https://mobile.twitter.com/nyt_diff
kzrdude 8y ago
I'd assume that google actually penalizes title mismatches like that

Ambroos 8y ago

Any decent CMS allows for these to be configured differently for each page because they serve different audiences. Your title tag, open graph title tag, Google metadata title and actual <h1> all serve very different purposes. For Facebook you might want something clickbaity, while for Google a clearer title will usually do better. For most content this sort of optimization would be a bit much, but for a piece like this it could definitely work.

asdsa5325 8y ago

They A/B test the titles. The title I got was "Electric Scooter Charger Culture Is Out of Control"