Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Using commas in the title tag?
-
Is there a disadvantage/advantage to using commas to separate words in the title tag. Which will be more effective as a title tag: "keyword1 keyword2 - Brand" OR "keyword1, keyword2 - Brand"?
-
Anyone has any thoughts as far as "-" as a way to designate keyword string as in funny-greeting-cards vs. funny greeting cards,....
-
Like Barry, I've not tested this conclusively; however, I'd be very surprised if natural comma usage has much if any negative effect.
In this instance you'd probably be better off with a comma splitting the two (very similar) keywords just for the human factor: "cheap books free books" looks spammy and is likely to put people (and potentially Google, depending on how far you take it) off.
-
I see.
Well, I certainly used to put a few keywords in titles using commas assuming it acted as a separator, however (and again anecdotally) I now write (as does everybody I'm comparing myself to) titles in the format "Cheap Books and Free Books".
Stick 'poker' into Google and look at everybody's titles. A few years back that would have looked like 'Poker, Online Poker, Texas Holdem | PokerSite" where as now it's "Poker and Online Poker including Texas Holdem at PokerSite".
However, stick 'travel' into Google and you'll see everybody still using commas.
So, as I say, I can't think how it would adversely effect you but I think with Google trying to extract meaning from people's searches that, in the long term, more natural sentences over a list of keywords would serve you better.
-
Thanks for your quick response Barry. I understand what you are saying, but I think I am coming at it more from a point of the search engines figuring out the difference between keywords.
Say for example the title tag was "cheap books free books" would the search engines be able to figure out that there should be two sets of keywords there as opposed to four inidividual words. Do commas help to define this?
How do search engines treat the comma?
-
Hmm, I've not tested conclusively but I can't think how a comma would adversely effect you. However, anecdotally, I've seen lots of sites move away from commas and pipes in titles so I'd have to assume that something was up.
I don't think stop words are being treated the same as the used to be with Google trying to figure out intent more and more, plus I'm not a huge fan of special characters (not that a comma is that special) in the title so unless it looked ridiculous I'd consider not using it.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
H1 tag positioning impact
Hello, I am currently working with a dev team to develop a new site. We have designed the title tags to sit below a banner image on each page but the technical team are insisting the h1 title tags must come above the banner for maximum SEO impact. I am sceptical about this, can anybody please shed some light and/or share any up to date resource on this? I have attached a side by side wireframe to illustrate the pages with the h1 tags in both positions. Thank you! HnWcLTx
On-Page Optimization | | Popidev0 -
Issues with Multiple H1 tags on homepage?
Hi folks, My homepage has 3 identical H1 tags due to the fact that I have had to create individual hero images (with headings) for desktop, tablet and mobile. I couldn't get my theme to display the layout in exactly the way I wanted on each device without doing a specific hero image and tag for each device type. Does this have a major impact on my SEO? Thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | Veevlimike
Mike.0 -
Duplicate page titles and Content in Woocommerce
Hi Guys, I'm new to Moz and really liking it so far!
On-Page Optimization | | jeeyer
I run a eCommerce site on Wordpress + WooCommerce and ofcourse use Yoast for SEO optimalisation I've got a question about my first Crawl report which showed over 600 issues! 😐 I've read that this is something that happens more often (http://moz.com/blog/setup-wordpress-for-seo-success). Most of them are categorized under:
1. Duplicate Page Titles or;
2. Duplicate Page Content. Duplicate Page Titles:
These are almost only: product category pages and product tags. Is this problem beeing solved by giving them the right SEO SERP? I see that a lot of categories don't have a proper SEO SERP set up in yoast! Do I need to add this to clear this issue, or do I need to change the actual Title? And how about the Product tags? Another point (bit more off-topic) I've read here: http://moz.com/community/q/yoast-seo-plugin-to-index-or-not-to-index-categories that it's advised to noindex/follow Categories and Tags but isn't that a wierd idea to do for a eCommerce site?! Duplicate Page Content:
Same goes here almost only Product Categories and product tags that are displayed as duplicate Page content! When I check the results I can click on a blue button for example "+ 17 duplicates" and that shows me (in this case 17 URLS) but they are not related to the fist in any way so not sure where to start here? Thanks for taking the time to help out!
Joost0 -
How To Change Wordpress Category Title
My categories are indexed and I want to change the category page title. At present it just defaults to the category name but I want to set a different page title. For example I want the category to be 'Motor Cars' but I want the category page title to be 'Buy Motor Cars - New And Used'. How can I do this?
On-Page Optimization | | SamCUK0 -
How bad is it going over 70 character for title tag length?
I know less than 70 is recommended. I am about to run a script to create some title tags and a few will be between 71-74. Is going just the few characters over ok until I can get in there and manually do them?
On-Page Optimization | | EcommerceSite0 -
Keyword Stuffing in Alt Tags!
Hello, I have on a main page over 50 images. The first page i want to optimize it for MAINKW (let's say). Now, if i use in the alt tags "MAINKW KW1", "MAINKW KW2", "MAINKW KW3" ... "MAINKW KW50" then Google may say that i stuff the MAINKW in that page? Those images are reprezentative for main Categories and i have direct links to them from the main page with the anchors KW1, KW2...KW50.
On-Page Optimization | | VertiStudio0 -
Missing meta descriptions on indexed pages, portfolio, tags, author and archive pages. I am using SEO all in one, any advice?
I am having a few problems that I can't seem to work out.....I am fairly new to this and can't seem to work out the following: Any help would be greatly appreciated 🙂 1. I am missing alot of meta description tags. I have installed "All in One SEO" but there seems to be no options to add meta descriptions in portfolio posts. I have also written meta descriptions for 'tags' and whilst I can see them in WP they don't seem to be activated. 2. The blog has pages indexed by WP- called Part 2 (/page/2), Part 3 (/page/3) etc. How do I solve this issue of meta descriptions and indexed pages? 3. There is also a page for myself, the author, that has multiple indexes for all the blog posts I have written, and I can't edit these archives to add meta descriptions. This also applies to the month archives for the blog. 4. Also, SEOmoz tells me that I have too many links on my blog page (also indexed) and their consequent tags. This also applies to the author pages (myself ). How do I fix this? Thanks for your help 🙂 Regards Nadia
On-Page Optimization | | PHDAustralia680 -
Are Amazon meta tags efficient?
We are probably all familiar with general and Google guidelines for writing title and description tags. But Amazon. com often create another structure where they put in a) amazon.com, b) product name or description and c) the Amazon category the product is featured in, like this: | Amazon.com: Mac Motion Chairs Model 2-Piece Recliner with Matching Ottoman Mocha Microfiber with Walnut Frame: Home & Garden Is this a well developed description tag? |
On-Page Optimization | | KnutDSvendsen
|0