Page Titled
Tier 1 · The normative floor
Baseline compliance
What the normative text of WCAG 2.2 requires, and nothing more. Only a failure of this tier is a WCAG failure.
The bare minimum
Pages have titles that describe their topic or purpose.
Normative text
Verbatim from WCAG 2.2, W3C Recommendation 12 December 2024. Underlined terms are defined below.
Web pages have titles that describe topic or purpose.
Known failures
These fail this criterion or a related one named in the text. Log them as WCAG failures.
- The same title, such as the site name, on every page doesn't describe each page's topic or purpose. W3C documents this as failure F25 (informative).
Not required by the normative text
Common claims that this criterion does not support. Don't log these as WCAG failures.
- Unique titles for every page. Two pages can share a title if it describes both, but a title that only names the site doesn't describe any page.
- A particular format, such as "Page – Site".
Definitions used (1)
Glossary definitions are normative. Their notes are informative.
- web page
-
a non-embedded resource obtained from a single URI using HTTP plus any other resources that are used in the rendering or intended to be rendered together with it by a user agent
Informative notes (2)
Although any "other resources" would be rendered together with the primary resource, they would not necessarily be rendered simultaneously with each other.
For the purposes of conformance with these guidelines, a resource must be "non-embedded" within the scope of conformance to be considered a web page.
Tier 2 · The gap
Usability & user impact
Where content can meet this criterion and still make things harder for people with disabilities. These are not failures of SC 2.4.2, so raise them as usability defects. Known failures, including failures of related criteria, are listed in Tier 1.
Descriptive titles with the site name first get cut off in narrow browser tabs, so users can't tell tabs apart.
Tier 3 · The golden path
Recommended best practice
The pattern that meets the floor, closes the gap, and avoids audit disputes. A recommendation, not a requirement.
Put the specific page first, then the site name, and update the title on single-page-app route changes.
W3C's Understanding document and techniques for SC 2.4.2 ↗ are informative: sufficient techniques show ways to pass, and documented failures show common ways to fail, but neither changes what the criterion requires.
How SC 2.4.2 maps to the WCAG 3 draft
From this site's reviewed map to the WCAG 3 editor's draft. It's an interpretation: W3C has not published a mapping.
Successor provisions
From WCAG 2.2, section 5.1: “The main content of WCAG 2.2 is normative and defines requirements that impact conformance claims. Introductory material, appendices, sections marked as "non-normative", diagrams, examples, and notes are informative (non-normative). Non-normative material provides advisory information to help interpret the guidelines but does not create requirements that impact a conformance claim.”