Should I rename older threads to optimal SEO titles

[Azonaco]

Has anyone experimented with renaming older threads that do not perform well on their forums?

We typically get questions at our forum on specific subjects, but most are titled, "Help!" or "Need info"...would it be good for SEO value to rename those old threads? Or would it penalize any previous rankings?

[Brian Cummiskey]

It's likely a waste of time. While it can help get it better ranking, i suggest that if you're going to rename threads to do it before your sitemap runs that night or not at all.

[webmastersitesi]

When you change title you kill the url by renaming and it's going to hurt your seo slightly. You tocuha reset button for url. Keeping them still is much wise. Unless there is great content with the old threads and you sure about the title change can bring you seo traffic then i would go for it. It may hurt 2-3 weeks then appear in the serps. You should better redirect old thread to new one by 301 but it's really time killing. Not sure if it worths for it.

[Azonaco]

Thanks for the replies so far.

One reason why I'm thinking about doing this, is because my forum is more technical in nature. Usually the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th posts have a bunch of technical info....how important does the title of the thread play into indexing into Google?

[webmastersitesi]

Title is the most important semantic element in a page. If you want to rank higher on a keyword it should be somewhere on title. Otherwise it's going to lost in the million results. The titles are placed on the SERPs where people clicking on it. Optimising titles is very important.

I can suggest you one plugin which helps for it. I use it at my webmaster forum as well. When somebody try to open a thread it search similar threads and offer as an ajax menu. So you tell thread started already some answers (if similar thread opened) and you can tell at the same page to be more careful on writing titles. I gently warm people about the thread titles before they open it. If you have bad titles google will not send you the deserved traffic. It does not directly infulence the indexing process for spiders.