Give every page a descriptive title
Every page needs a title element in its head, and it has to name that page rather than the site. W3C lists H25 as sufficient for 2.4.2 Page Titled when it is used with G88, the descriptive-titles technique, so the pair is what passes. The element on its own only buys you a non-empty string. One confusion is worth clearing before you start. The title element appears once per document and names the page. The title attribute is a different thing entirely, goes on almost any element, and behaves as a tooltip. They share a name and nothing else. Frames count as documents here, so a framed page needs its own title element, while the frame's title attribute is H64's job. Putting the distinctive words first is our advice rather than W3C's, and the reason is practical. Tabs truncate from the right, and a screen reader speaks the title before anything else on the page. Ten tabs that all open with your brand name are ten unlabeled doors.
How we find it in an audit
We read the tab title on every audited page, and on a single-page app we read it again in every state the routing can reach. Route changes that never update the title are among the most common findings we write on modern sites, and that one is ours rather than W3C's, since the technique predates the pattern. Then a person judges whether the title actually describes the page. A non-empty string satisfies a machine. Untitled satisfies nobody.
How affected users experience it
The title is the first thing a screen reader speaks when a page loads, which makes it both the confirmation that the click worked and the answer to where am I now. Get it right and the listener knows in two words. Get it wrong and they have to start reading the page itself to find out whether they even moved.
Passes vs. fails
Passes
<title>Order your audit | WCAGrules</title>Fails
<title>WCAGrules</title>
<!-- the same title on checkout, learn and order -->How this gets tested
The W3C publishes test rules that define what a checker looks for here.
- HTML page has non-empty titleA tool can check this
- HTML page title is descriptiveA tool can check this
Other ways to satisfy this rule
5 guides on this site are filed under 2.4.2 Page Titled. W3C lists this one as sufficient for that rule only alongside G88, so the pair is what passes and neither half does on its own.
This guide is our interpretation of W3C technique H25: Providing a title using the title element. W3C publishes its techniques as guidance rather than as the standard, and says so on every one of them. The success criterion is what conformance is measured against, and a technique is one documented way to meet it.