Page Title Tag operands , - |

[bjs2010]

Hi,

Anyone have any good suggestions about using commas, hyphens, vertical bar in the title tag and how it affects rankings?

Thanks.

[bjs2010]

Thanks everyone for you giving me your viewpoint. I was particularly interested with MorganNw answer, but I have not found any data to support this (as much as it would have been great if it was like that!)

[KeriMorgret]

We've run out of indents in Q&A. Can you clarify which is your understanding of title tags? It's not clear which person you're responding to. Thanks!

[MattAntonino]

This is exactly my understanding of title tags as well. From our own work, this is exactly how it works.

[Chris.Menke]

I'd love to know your source for that info.

What happens when the marketer does the following for the title and would there be any any difference between that and not using pipes?

3D | Printing | Video | Computer | Movies | Jail

[KeriMorgret]

Hi Morgan,

I'm familiar with using the pipe as an OR operator in some searches (also works on Craigslist now, thankfully), but I have not seen anything about it having any type of meaning to the search engines like that when used in a title tag. Could you share any references you have about how the search engines evaluate characters like this in a title tag, rather than a search query?

Thanks!

[benjaminmarcinc]

Also to make a comment, it seems that when you put a | at the end then but the brand name the search engines move that to the front in the title tag in the search engine results page.

[DonnaDuncan]

Character width is now a consideration when deciding what to put in your title tags. Keep that in mind too. I think the pipe most likely consumes the least real estate.

[MorganNw]

Hi!

The pipe ( | ) is a search engine operator that tells the search algorithms that the phrases on either side are of equal importance. When a string of words in a tag is evaluated, the first word inherits the highest weight, the last word the lowest and the steps are determined by how many words are in the string. The pipe makes the first word after it the same weight as the first word. While a hyphen ( – ) connects the words in a title and the comma ( , ) separates phrases but does not restart the weighting process so words following a comma are not considered important.

That's the main reason why I would recommend the pipe ( | ) and also because I personally find it more user friendly and more readable. It separates better the sentences or keywords you are targeting in your page title.

Have fun

[TomRayner]

Neither make any difference for rankings, strictly from an SEO point of view.

This video way back in 2009 discusses as such and in my years of testing and looking around I've never seen a notable difference in which separator was used. Pipes (|) and Hypens (-) are the most common.  I mention that because you should consider what separator you use for user experience and click through purposes.

You might want to test which version gets better click throughs - or trump for the one that you think looks the best (this might be influenced on your competitors for your keywords.  If everyone is using pipes, you'd immediately stand out if you used hyphens).  I don't buy into the fact that clickthrough rate (CTR) affects SEO rankings (although some do), but all things considered you will want to use separators that will help increase your CTR, and as a rule of thumb either pipes or hyphens will help you with that. Commas can often look clunky and dated in SERPs (although that's more of a personal opinion).

Hope this helps.