Titles are not only important, but they are useful. They are useful to us as members because they help us know what's going on where, but they are also extremely important to search engines, so they have considerable bearing on our ratings.

Sometimes some of us forget to put a title in our replies to forum topics or in comments we make to blog entries, Plant ID's, articles or photos -- or even peoples' trade lists. When we fail to provide a title, what inevitably happens is the first part of your reply or comment will appear as the title, and that can get rather wordy. (I confess to having been a culprit here myself!)

I would like to issue a challenge to everyone! It will help the site out greatly! I would like for everyone to try to provide titles for everything they post from now on. When trying to come up with an appropriate title for something, focus on something short and sweet. When it comes to titles, the rule of thumb should be "LESS IS MORE." A short and sweet but very descriptive title is invaluable to both other members and the search engines. It will make it infinitely easier for all of us to find things more quickly when we are searching for them, and it will help us greatly in our attempt to get the highest possible ratings in the search engines. Higher ratings translates to more and better advertising, and that in turn translates into more revenue for the site.

Try to keep titles to no more than 3 to 5 words. There is a real art to being able to say what you need to say in the fewest possible words. If you're writing an article, a blog entry or posting a plant ID and need help coming up with a proper title, please don't hesitate to ask other members, forum leaders, forum team leaders, photo editors, photo team leaders, chat eaders, chat team leaders, calender leaders, the calendar team leader or myself or Al. This site is what it is because we are a community of contributors, and helping one another is just part of what we all do.

We will edit titles as part of our effort to improve our content by elevating it to the highest level it can possibly be.