Headlines: Deep Throat dies

Deep Throat has died at the age of 95.

Former FBI official Mark Felt admitted in 2005 that he was the anonymous source used by Bob Woodward during his investigation of the Watergate scandal which brought down President Nixon.

Headline writers have come to various conclusions about how much detail to include at the top of this story.

Watergate scandal informant dies
BBC News

Watergate's Deep Throat, Mark Felt, dies
Guardian

W. Mark Felt, Watergate Deep Throat, Dies at 95
New York Times

For search engine optimisation you probably want Deep Throat to be prominent but it seems a disrespectful way to refer to someone who has just died. The BBC uses only the keyword Watergate.

Most other news sources use Deep Throat, but also include his name, Mark Felt, producing a more elegant, if longer, head. The name may also be a term some people search on.

The NY Times, Washington Post, Daily Telegraph and others include his age. This is important in defining the scale of the news story. For most readers, there is a big difference between someone dying at 25 and at 95. However, this produces a longer headline: NY Times is 8 words compared with the BBC's 4.

Search engines also care about which word comes first. Here is the first word chosen by some news sources:

Watergate
BBC News
Guardian
Telegraph
Times

Deep
Washington Post

W Mark
New York Times

Search engine optimisation means working out the significant words in a story and pushing those words towards the beginning of the story. The first word in the headline is particularly important. In this story the following words are significant:
Watergate
Deep Throat
Mark Felt
dies
95
Nixon
FBI
scandal
source
Woodward

The most significant should appear in head. The others should appear early in the story.