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Comments on Should the game name be included in the title?

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Should the game name be included in the title?

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When questions in Video Games are about a specific game, should we expect askers to put that game's name in the title? Or is it enough to merely tag it with that game.

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+4
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The name of the game should go in every question title.

The tag isn't always shown with the question, so it isn't enough context. When I look at the video-games tag I see the following where the tag with the game name isn't shown:

Screenshot of question that is tagged but tag doesn't show up.

From an search engine optimization (SEO) perspective, it would be much better to have the game name in the title of the question and therefore the title of the page. Google uses the title tag as a very strong signal as to what the page is about. If the game isn't specified in the title, search engines are much less likely to rank questions and answers here well.

What is in the title wouldn't have to be the the full name of the game. When people are playing a game and searching for hints, they often search for an abbreviation:

  • BoTW instead of "Zelda Breath of the Wild"
  • CoD instead of "Call of Duty"

For SEO and usability, it would also be much better to have the game name near the end of the title rather than at the beginning. Titles should have the most specific things first (the actual question) and the context at the end (game name, the name of this site.)

There is also the issue of duplication. You could ask "How do I make money early?" in the context of dozens of games. Google is likely to view pages as duplicate and not index one of them if they have the same page title. Google's advice is to always write a unique title for each page.

I would recommend using the convention of tacking "in game name (or abbreviation)" to the end of every question title. For example:

  • How do I make money early on in BoTW?
  • How do I make money early on in CoD?
  • How do I make money early on in Soviet Republic?
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2 comment threads

Technical issue (1 comment)
Not my preference, but upvoted/agreed (1 comment)
Not my preference, but upvoted/agreed
matthewsnyder‭ wrote over 1 year ago

Thank you for the well thought out response! I personally disagree in that I'd rather not see titles, as an aesthetics thing. But for this, I care more about what the community is happy with than my personal preference.

I didn't realize the game tag was hidden. Nice find! That alone is a strong argument.

The SEO is also a great point. It's no secret that right now, things that would help the site grow are very attractive option.