I have a lot of experience in joomla and by the sounds of it without seeing the site, the problem is with the SEF component your using maybe sh404sef and its configuration. There are plenty of components which allow you to control the page titles like JRE-SEF patch. Can you PM me the url and I'll have a look? I have to agree if you stick with joomla, you'll fall in love with it but it is a steep learning curve. By the way, the sites in my sig are built in joomla

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