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
-
Google is putting brandname: in title tag
Hello, I was wondering why this is happening? In html for example the title tag is something like this: keyword 1 | keyword 2 | Brand name. Title is 67 characters.. When I search in google, I see the site but it shows brandname: keyword 1 | keyword 2 Is this bad? does this mean that google doesn't like the title tag that is in the html? I tried looking it up on google, but they were outdated and I honestly didn't really see an answer to what it means when this happens. Does the brandname: affect rankings?? Have any of you dealt with this, or noticed this?
On-Page Optimization | | donnieath0 -
Should the title tag now be 50 characters long?
Hi, I'm fairly new to SEO and as a rule so far I have been making every page title around 70 characters in length, after analysing the a website that I'm currently working on in the MOZ tool it say's that the page title element is to long. Does anyone know if I should carry on writing titles 70 characters in length or if I should go down to 50, I have been using this tool (http://www.seomofo.com/snippet-optimizer.html) as a guide if you know of any others then that would be great and any advice will be greatly appreciated. Regards Chris
On-Page Optimization | | chrissmithps0 -
How do I remove a Canonical URL Tag?
Some of my report cards say I have too many canonical URL tags. However, there is no information no how to delete one. Can someone give me a link or explain? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | dealblogger0 -
Head description tag, what now
Recently I heard Google virtually dropping the description tag for seo scoring? and it takes the data off the page, however one of my clients description is just pulling a url rather than any content from the page. is there some way thats ethical to suggest a description to google?
On-Page Optimization | | Shuffled0 -
Website title question
Say you have a website url of a rather competitive keyword phrase, would it be beneficial for me to go ahead and name my site title the same as the url? And also should my site title go through every page, or should i consider having slight variations throughout the pages? for example: page title | site title or page title| slight varation of title on sub page? **edit - to further expand on the question a bit also, if my google places has the company name on _there - would it be effective to go ahead and use the company name in my site title? _ _Also if i have the main keyword in the breadcrumb as the home, does that effect my SEO credibility if it shows up on all the pages? _
On-Page Optimization | | tgr0ss0 -
Appropriate Use of Rel Canonical
When I'm checking my page on SEOmoz should I use http://www. or http:// or www. or just keyword.com? And I get this for my check Appropriate Use of Rel Canonical Moderate fix <dl> <dt>Canonical URL</dt> <dd>XXX</dd> <dt>Explanation</dt> <dd>If the canonical tag is pointing to a different URL, engines will not count this page as the reference resource and thus, it won't have an opportunity to rank. Make sure you're targeting the right page (if this isn't it, you can reset the target above) and then change the canonical tag to reference that URL.</dd> <dt>Recommendation</dt> <dd>We check to make sure that IF you use canonical URL tags, it points to the right page. If the canonical tag points to a different URL, engines will not count this page as the reference resource and thus, it won't have an opportunity to rank. If you've not made this page the rel=canonical target, change the reference to this URL. NOTE: For pages not employing canonical URL tags, this factor does not apply.</dd> <dd>I have absolutely NO idea what this means 😞
On-Page Optimization | | 678648631264
</dd> </dl>0 -
Can I use the first sentence of my page content as a meta description tag as well?
I just want to copy my content on the page and use the first or as well the second sentence of the content self for my meta description tag. Is that OK? Or should the Meta description tag be different?
On-Page Optimization | | paulinap19830 -
Canonical Tag for a 404 page
Hi i have a got a 404 page for example : www.example.com/404.aspx can i use canonical tag on this page so that when the search engine hits the page www.example.com/123123123 13123 it will say Will this be right method ?
On-Page Optimization | | usef4u0