Is it best to put the page name before the site name or vice-versa?

Question

The several uses to which the <title> tag is put complicates the question…

• As browser window or search result titles, it would seem to make little difference — there's enough room for everything and the display order is unrelated to the title.

• For tab and taskbar / dock titles, space is at more of a premium. Placing the page name first makes it easier to distinguish between multiple pages on the same site, but if the page names are generic ("Search Results", "Intro to CSS"), it may be more important to distinguish between sites rather than between pages.

• In bookmark titles, having the site name first will both make them easier to find and allow you to group them by doing a simple sort, but users can easily alter the title to their liking (and often do), making the provided "default" title less critical.

What other factors should be considered? Is there a commonly-accepted "best practice"?

Answer 1

Funnily enough, I was pondering this exact question not an hour ago.

As the most important piece of information, I would usually expect the page name to come first. Switching between pages on the same site would be far more cumbersome if a site used the inverse approach.

Frankly, I would expect the page name to come first even in places such as bookmarks; it should be up to the bookmark manager to order the tabs as the user requires - not necessarily based on the page title (e.g. sorted by domain).

In my opinion, even the two generic examples you posted would make sense at the start of a title. A quick glance at my tab bar would easily let me find that "Intro to CSS" I was reading earlier. The title "Search Results" could be rewritten as something along the lines of "Search results for 'Death Star'" which would be immensely useful information.

Also, the Favicon as it is currently implemented does an adequate job of helping users to differentiate which site a page belongs to in a group of tabs. As an aside, I wouldn't mind seeing the Favicon used in the taskbar as the browser's application icon as well (don't some browser's do this already?).

Answer 2

For better SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) put the page name before the site name

Answer 3

If a site has a favicon, that will be a factor too. It will display on the tab and next to the bookmark. The page name should go first to distinguish it within that app.