I noticed BBC were making some search engine optimisation changes on their site, and the Guardian have written an article about it.
BBC News stories will now have two headlines – one of around 30 characters which will show on the BBC index pages (and mobile phones), with a longer title of around 55 characters which will show in the serps and in the article itself.
For example, this article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8375439.stm
The link on the BBC News homepage is “Inquiry focuses on Iraq ‘threat’”
Now if we visit the article, the onpage title is “Iraq inquiry told of ‘clear’ threat from Saddam Hussein “, which is the same as we can see in the Serps:
This is of course good SEO practice, as it means they are ranking for a wider variety of Iraq/Saddam searches. I have tested half a dozen variants of both titles and they are position 1 for all of them. Although they may have ranked for them with their old “1 title” system anyway, its not in doubt this new system will bring them more long tail traffic.
Steve Herrmann, editor of the BBC News website said:
“We estimate that about 29% of BBC News website UK traffic comes from search engines.”
It will be interesting to see if they release further numbers in the coming months to see just what sort of effect this has.
As more and more large companies start to “get” SEO, and with Google placing more and more emphasis on domain authority, its going to be a rough ride for those smaller web publishers who fail to adapt.
Martin Adams
