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Title tag is present and reasonable length

ab-002530 · site-health-check.seo-discoverability.title-tag
Severity: highactive

Why it matters

The title tag is the single most weighted on-page signal Google uses to rank and display your page. A missing, placeholder, or truncated title means search result listings show the URL or an auto-generated fragment, tanking click-through rate and destroying findability for branded and unbranded queries alike. Shipping with defaults like "React App" or "Create Next App" signals an abandoned or unfinished site to both users and crawlers.

Severity rationale

High because a broken title directly suppresses organic search visibility and click-through for every indexed page.

Remediation

Set a unique, descriptive title between 30 and 60 characters in the document head. In Next.js App Router, export it from the route segment: export const metadata = { title: 'Product Name — Specific Value Proposition' }. For static HTML, put it directly in <head>:

<title>Product Name — Specific Value Proposition</title>

Detection

  • ID: site-health-check.seo-discoverability.title-tag

  • Severity: high

  • What to look for: Count the number of <title> tags in the HTML document. Before evaluating, extract and quote the exact text content of the first <title> tag. Measure its character length — it must be at least 10 characters and no more than 70 characters. Check against the known placeholder list: "React App", "Vite App", "Create Next App", "Document", "Home", "Index", "Untitled", "Welcome to React", "My App".

  • Pass criteria: Exactly 1 <title> tag exists in the HTML with meaningful text content between 10 and 70 characters (inclusive). The title must not match any known default placeholder string. Report the actual character count and the title text.

  • Fail criteria: No <title> tag found, title content is empty, character count is outside the 10-70 range, or the title matches a known default placeholder.

  • Skip (N/A) when: The response Content-Type is not HTML (e.g., JSON API, XML feed, plain text).

  • Error when: SPA detected (see SPA Detection).

  • Detail on fail: "Title tag missing" or "Title is 'React App' — a default placeholder" or "Title is 3 characters — too short for SEO"

  • Remediation: The title tag is the most important on-page SEO element — it appears in search results and browser tabs. Set it in your HTML <head>:

    <head>
  <title>Your Product Name — Brief Value Proposition</title>
</head>

    In Next.js App Router, use the metadata export: export const metadata = { title: 'Your Product Name — Brief Value Proposition' }. Aim for 30-60 characters to avoid truncation in search results.

Taxons

findability

History