Nearly every website now includes a title, according to the Web Almanac.
98% to be exact. Up from 97% last year. Sounds brilliant, right?
Not quite. While most sites tick this box, many titles are still rubbish at actually describing what's on the page. Mobile sites are particularly guilty, with fewer bothering to use four or more words in their titles. Somehow, I doubt 2-3 words are enough to properly describe a page.
Screen reader users suffer most from this laziness. The title is often the first thing they hear when landing on a page.
Seriously, how are 2% of websites still launching without a title element in 2025? We're not talking about some cutting-edge accessibility feature here. This is literally one line of HTML that's been standard practice for decades.
Why would this still be happening?
I have three possible explanations.
- Auto-generated sites and templates. Some sites are spat out by automated systems or dodgy website builders that somehow miss this basic requirement.
- Developer oversight. Maybe someone's rushing through a project, copies a template and genuinely forgets. Shit happens, but it shouldn't make it to production.
- Single-page applications. JavaScript frameworks will sometimes fail to update the title properly when content changes, leaving it blank or generic. And by the framework fails I mean the developers don't tell it to.
Seriously, I think even AI gets this one right. And this says a lot!