Direct answer: the 25 homepages and 36 article pages carry 61 titles, and 45 include a brand suffix (all 36 article pages, but only 9 of 25 homepages). The median title is 20 characters and the longest 73; 22 exceed 30 characters (14 articles, 8 homepages) and five are 10 characters or fewer, all on homepages.
The hyphen is the main separator (37 titles), followed by the underscore (8); 16 titles have no recognisable suffix, all homepages. Article titles follow a consistent "article title-company name" pattern, while homepage titles are shorter and less often branded.
Method: split the title at the last separator
The study reads the 25 homepage caches from study 4 and the 36 usable article pages from study 45 (HTTP 200, HTML ≥5 KB) with zero network requests. Each <title> is stripped of tags, entities and extra whitespace, then split at the last common separator (" - ", "-", "_", "|", "｜", "—", "–", "·", "：", ":"); a non-empty tail counts as a brand suffix. Lengths are visible characters, not pixels.
| Item | Rule | Boundary |
|---|---|---|
| Brand suffix | Non-empty text after the last separator | Whether it is a brand is not checked |
| Length | Visible characters | No pixels or simulated truncation |
| Band | ≤10, 11–20, 21–30, 31–40, >40 | Interval counts only |
| Separator | Fixed list | Other forms fall into "no suffix" |
Result: every article title is branded, fewer than half the homepages
| Measure | Homepages (25) | Articles (36) |
|---|---|---|
| With brand suffix | 9 (36.0%) | 36 (100%) |
| Median length | 14 | 24 |
| Longest | 64 | 73 |
| Over 30 characters | 8 | 14 |
| 10 characters or fewer | 5 | 0 |
| Length band | Homepages | Articles |
|---|---|---|
| ≤10 | 5 | 0 |
| 11–20 | 10 | 17 |
| 21–30 | 1 | 5 |
| 31–40 | 4 | 4 |
| >40 | 4 | 10 |
Articles lead on the longest band (10 over 40 characters, 14 over 30 in total); homepages have fewer long titles but five at 10 characters or fewer, so their lengths split at both ends.
Separators and suffixes
| Separator | Count |
|---|---|
| "-" | 37 |
| "_" | 8 |
| No recognisable separator | 16 |
All 16 suffix-less titles are homepages, five of them 10 characters or fewer — usually just a company name or slogan with no page topic. All 36 article titles split cleanly, a highly consistent pattern.
Relationship to the consistency studies
Studies 78 and 80 compared five title sources; this study looks at the title itself. Both can be true: article titles are structurally consistent (all branded) while five article pages still carry placeholder H1s (study 80); homepage titles are shorter and less branded, and only 7 of 25 have a readable H1 (study 78).
What this means for acceptance
- Set a length ceiling. 22 of 61 titles exceed 30 characters and the longest is 73; 30 for homepages and 35 for articles, with a manual check, is reasonable.
- Homepage titles must name the topic, not just the company. Five are 10 characters or fewer and state nothing about the page.
- Pick one separator. Hyphen and underscore both appear; standardise on one.
- Keep the article suffix. All 36 articles are branded and consistent; the front part is what needs length control.
- Characters are an estimate. This study does not simulate where a specific search result cuts off.
Limits
- Suffix is not proof of a brand: only non-empty text after a separator is detected.
- Characters, not pixels: mixed Chinese and Latin widths differ; 30 characters is approximate.
- Finite separator list: other forms fall into "no suffix".
- Two page types: 25 homepages and 36 article pages, neither randomly sampled.
- Pilot: no industry claim.
Data and reproduction
Anonymised data: equipment-title-composition-2026.csv (61 rows × 9 columns: page type, title length, head length, suffix length, suffix flag, separator and length band). The repository keeps docs/research/2026-11-title-composition.csv.
Parser: scripts/title_composition_probe.py; unit tests: scripts/test_title_composition_probe.py (no network, ten tests). Run:
python -m unittest scripts.test_title_composition_probe
Related: the article title-source pilot, the homepage title-source pilot, and the homepage title and description pilot.
Sources and definitions
- Homepages: 25 sites from study 4 (2026-10-31); articles: 36 pages from study 45 (2026-11-03).
- Split: last common separator divides head and suffix.
- Scan: 2026-11-06, zero network requests.