Punctuation at the Start of Page Titles
-
one of my clients appears to be using an exclamation mark (e.g. "! Graphic Prints By Mirrorin - Fun Childrens Graphic Prints") and to be completely honest, I have no idea if this is bad practice or if it wont have any affect from an SEO point of view?
Any help would be appreciated because it is site wide, therefore if it is an issue I would like to be able to get it sorted asap!
Thanks
-
Some fantastic Replies, thank you very much.
I think I will be removing the exclamation marks simply due to the number of titles that have too many characters anyway. The point about the positioning of the keyword was also good, that had completely skipped my mind on this occasion! I'll see what difference removing them makes to the CTR and weigh up the options.
Thanks
-
1. Remove the punctuation. Although it doesn't really damage search listings or impact how SERP's look at your site for rankings, as Chris said, you only have so many characters to work with in the <title>field and it's best to really optimize the <title> to improve end-user experience :)</p> <p>2. Craft custom <titles> for each and every page, and consider where you place the KW in the field. Importance will be taken into account as well as position and meaning of the KW in relation to the <title>. Try mixing things up to see where you impact ranking positions. I would still remove all punctuation (but perhaps, keep a few pages ranking now, with punctuation to see if you impact the rankings) See #3 below.</p> <p>3. Look at choosing a few test pages in the domain to work with to monitor rankings for this very test, and analytic's data like bounce, exit, click through, etc. </p> <p>4. Doing this will also help you reveal how the customer reacts to the page once they click in, after the find it in the organic SERP listings. Did the punctuation impact your rankings, and if so, was the click through higher, while also decreasing the bounce and/or exit rates from said pages from end-user? A great experiment and test platform :)</p> <p>It's not an exact science, but more a art and science mixed together ;). I wish you all the best with this, as it sounds very interesting. Keep us all posted on your findings!!</p> <p>Cheers.</p></title>
-
Normally, I would say don't do it because wasting character space in the title area is a pet peeve of mine but maybe it helps you with click through--maybe not. At number 10, it doesn't seem to be hurting your rankings but maybe it is-- have you tried it without the exclamation point to see if your result moves up?
-
I don't believe that this would be 'damaging,' per se. But there's still correlation between rankings for a keywords and not only the inclusion of that word in the title, but the position of that word in the title. I would therefore recommend the titles all begin with a letter - preferably the first letter of the most relevant keyword/phrase for that page.
Is there a reason for the exclamation mark? Maybe an attempt at manipulating CTR or something?
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
-
Snippet showing as domain name with apostrophe, instead of page title when searching for the domain name.
Hi, We have an issue with one of our websites, with the snippet dispaying differently in Google serps when searching for the domain or the website name rather than a search term. When searching for a search term, the page title shows as expected, but when searching for the site by the domain name either with or without the tld, it shows the snippet as the domain name with an apostrophe at the end. Domain is subli.co.uk Thanks in advance for any advice!
On-Page Optimization | | K3v1n0 -
SVG image files causing multiple title tags on page - SEO issue?
Does anyone have any experience with SVG image files and on-page SEO? A client is using them and it seems they use the title tag in the same way a regular image (JPG/PNG) would use an image ALT tag. I'm concerned that search engines will see the multiple title tags on the page and that this will cause SEO issues. Regular crawlers like Moz flag it as a second title tag, however it's outside the header and in a SVG wrap so the crawlers really should understand that this is a SVG title rather than a second page title. But is this the case? If anyone has experience with this, I'd love to hear about it.
On-Page Optimization | | mrdavidingram2 -
Temporary Redirect pages
Hi, Temporary Redirect pages example when a non member goes to http://www.Somesite.com/detail/Username-Mike As he clicks the user names the user is directed to the login page http://www.Somesite.com/user/login We have 50K user accounts and 50K pages of content and each page has an option to comment and to comment user should be a member Moz campaing i get these 1,000's of links in Temporary Redirect page What is the action i can take thanks
On-Page Optimization | | mtthompsons0 -
Page Title - What is better?
Hi SEO Heads, I have another question if someone would be so kind in answering What page title of the 2 below is better for SEO (i) Chocolate Cake|Chocolate Cake Recipe|Xmas Cake or (ii) Chocolate Cake | Chocolate Cake Recipe | Xmas Cake As you can see (ii) Page Title has a space before and after the | (vertical bar) I know the second page title looks better to human eyes but on some pages I had to forego the space so i could fit my keywords in the page title. is this a good idea? Can anyone help me? Cheers Aidan
On-Page Optimization | | aidanlawlor0 -
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 -
I am optimizing my webpages according to suggestions from the On Page Report Card. Should I have more than one keyword for a page?
I am optimizing my webpages according to suggestions from the On Page Report Card. Should I have more than one keyword for a page or should I make separate pages for each keyword even when they are similar? Will Google penalize me for making similar pages? Imagine selling, bargain milk chocolate peanut clusters. Keywords examples could be: Bargain chocolate Bargain milk chocolate Bargain milk chocolate peanut clusters Bargain chocolate peanut clusters Chocolate peanut cluster bargains Milk chocolate peanut cluster bargains Etc. Will one page called http://mycompany/bargainmilkchocolatepeanutclusters.com be OK or should I have one called http://mycompany/bargainmilkchocolate.com and one called http://mycompany/bargainmilkchocolatepeanutclusters.com and one called http://mycompany/chocolatepeanutclusterbargains.com , etc.? Thanks for your advice.
On-Page Optimization | | KSHAYY0 -
Title tag for category page
I'd like to know your views on the best approach for title tags for category pages for ecommerce sites. 3 examples A) Category name | Free delivery on $50 purchase | Brand name B) Discover best "category name" on brand name C) Category Name | 1st Keyword, 2nd keyword | Brand name Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | walidalsaqqaf0