Should I include a "|" for better page title SEO results?
-
I have seen many sites that include the "|" in page titles and was wondering if there is some SEO value in the practice.
Example:
Product Name | Company Name
Instead of:
Product Name by Company Name
I have not seen any value in it myself other than a good way to avoid stop words. I wanted to make sure. Currently I have the "by" included in the page titles.
-
I always prefer the pipe for the following reasons, though I don't think it has any specific SEO value.
a) its reader friendly
b) its a natural separator
c) as Seth says below, it looks cool!
d) Whats good for SEOmoz is good for me!
-
SEO advantage I would suggest is negligible, if any in this case - more a case of aesthetics as has been suggested, as well as character count saving.
Section pages I would go with "Section | Company Name"
Product pages I would go with "Product - Section | Company Name"
-
When it comes to a web page Title Tag Google's Supper Smart Spiders pay no attention to the markup or punctuation used. So it truly comes down to the personal preference of the site owner. As for me and my OCD I prefer the Pipes cause they just look cooler!
To prove this point query the following:
allintitle:"-"
allintitle:"|"
allintitle:"/"
allintitle:""
allintitle:","
All come back with BUPKIS
-
| has my vote! More for readability than anything.
-
| has my vote! More for readability than anything.
-
The pipe and hyphen as already suggested are the way to go for pure usability and space saving for your title tag. In my opinion neither has a direct SEO advantage over the other however they both have a distinct advantage over other techniques. For me keeping the keywords used in the page title to the point help without any extra "by, or, and" breaks the keyword blocks both visually and semantically for the search engines. Now don't get me wrong I don't think this makes or breaks a good SEO effort on a page but for me it's certainly a preference.
-
Sounds like it is just an issue of conserving valuable character real estate while being aesthetically pleasing to the reader.
-
I think people prefer pipe symbol over hyphen..as it takes relatively less space...that's the only benefit I have seen..
-
I use the pipe because SEOmoz uses it. Visually it indicates something different is following. I think it more professional looking than the mere dash.
-
I am not sure the is any technical benefit however more used as Alan and EGOL suggest to separate keywords / phrases and increase CTR
-
I don't think that a pipe or dash or any other character adds or subtracts any SEO value. Certainly what you type after it is more important.
If your brand is widely known and respected then adding it might help increase your clickthroughs or conversions.
If you don't have a popular brand then "free shipping"... "learn the secrets!".... or a kickass price in the title tag will pull the visitors in.
... and if you have something that everyone wants such as "free beer" then you might want to included it in CAPS.
-
There's some disagreement in the industry as to whether the pipe symbol or hyphens are best - either way, one of these two would be recommended for readability purposes. This is especially valid when you've got more than one keyword phrase.
Product Name | Alternate Product Name | Company Name
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
-
SEO Implications of using Images for Article Titles
Hi guys! New to Moz Pro. I just recently completed an online course with Moz... I have a client who is writing some new content for their site, and we are approaching it with SEO in mind. I was wondering about using an image with text on it as the article title, instead of an actual "text on the page" title. Wondering if that's going to "cost" us anything, SEO wise. I guess we could use alt-text/title/description fields to make sure the keywords are crawlable for our article title but do they have less "weight" than a standard title? How does that work? Hope my question makes sense. Article header attached mB0PXsA.jpg
On-Page Optimization | | JakeWarren1 -
Reducing multi-page website to one page & SEO ramifications?
Hello there! I just want to check in before I do this. I am reducing a multi-page website to one page (temporarily, but for at least 4-6 months). I will be 301 redirecting all old pages to the one, new home page. The new home page has a lot more content, long and short keyword phrases. Aside from losing the benefit of internal links, will reducing the number of website pages hurt a ranking? Does having associated keywords on other website pages provide benefit to another (in this case Home) page? Thanks so much for your invaluable advice!
On-Page Optimization | | lulu710 -
Does a JS script who scroll automaticaly into pages could make some content "hidden" ?
Hello everybody, Sorry for my english (I'm French), I will try to do my best... We've got an e-commerce website : kumulusvape.fr
On-Page Optimization | | KumulusVape
On each categories, to improve our conversion rate, we put a javascript to automaticaly scroll into the page to the product list. You can see an example here : http://www.kumulusvape.fr/44-e-liquide-savourea-smookies This script scroll and make some content "hidden".
It's not really a scroll, just changing page position. Do you think that our h1 and our category content could be consider "hidden" by Google ? Thank you very much for your help0 -
"?inline=true" Duplicate Page
I have a new Drupal client and am getting a duplicate page error and indicates "?inline=true" after the domain as the culprit. Google comes up empty 😞
On-Page Optimization | | JimCoarse0 -
Title tags for deep pages
Just pondering what is current best practice for Title tags of pages buried deep within my website? Say I have a page about 'Cheese's of the world' and from that page there is a page about 'Cheshire Cheese' how would you suggest to structure title tags Would for example this be ok - Cheshire Cheese | Cheese's of the World | Brand name Or is this better - Cheshire Cheese | Brand name Just wondering as I'm redesigning my site currently and looking at everything! Ted PS - I like cheese 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | Jon-C0 -
Seo category or specific seo page?
To rank in google.bg for key phrase like "seo optimization for web" which do you thing is better: To make most of the backlinks with anchor text "seo optimization for web" to point to a link that is a category with many seo articles or to point to a single page from this category?
On-Page Optimization | | vladokan0 -
Is it possible to hide some of the on page results?
I have set up on page reports for keywords against specific pages... but I have a whole other bunch of reports which are automatically run by the system (many of them not really relevant at the moment in time) so, I'm wondering if there's a way to filter out just my own reports? This way I can focus on improving my target pages, rather than having to find them in amongst all the sys gen reports. Apologies if this is a rather obtuse questions.... newbie user. Thanks in advance. Khaled
On-Page Optimization | | khaled-hussaindupre0 -
Why there's a full-stop in the title of SEOMOZ's home page?
Hello, I see there's a full-stop (.) in the title of SEOMOZ's home page. Why is it so? Regards
On-Page Optimization | | IM_Learner0