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
-
Is using a H1 tag in a logo image bad for SEO?
We have brand logos on certain pages that have H1 tags in them - the H1 text being the brand's name, as this is what we'd want the title of the page to be. The logos are at the top of the page instead of a written title. But is this the best option for SEO? Do search engines value H1 tags in images as highly as a standard H1 tag?Would it be better for SEO to add an alt tag to the logo and add a separate H1 tag on the page that's also the name of the brand?
On-Page Optimization | | DVLighting0 -
Downsides on shortening article title?
Hi there, I'm new to Moz: great tool so far! I just tried the page optimization feature and see that (for instance for this article) page titles are often too long. Now it's tempting to just shorten the title straight away, but I have a memory of someone once telling me changing the title will change the URL. And changing the URL is something not appreciated by Google. Could someone please explain if and why this is/isn't the case? And if there are any downsides/things to consider before changing the article's title? Thank you in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | RaoulWB1 -
Avoiding Duplicate Title Tags and Duplicate Content
Hi - I have a question on how to both avoid duplicate title tags and duplicate content AND still create a good user experience. I have a lot of SEO basics to do as the company has not done any SEO to this point. I work for a small cruise line. We have a page for each cruise. Each cruise is associated with a unique itinerary. However the ports of call are not necessarily unique to each itinerary. For each port on the itinerary there are also a set of excursions and if the port is the embark/disembark port, hotels that are associated. The availability of the excursions and hotels depends on the dates associated with the cruise. Today, we have two pages associated with each cruise for the excursions and hotels: mycruisecompany.com/cruise/name-of-cruise/port/excursion/?date=dateinport mycruisecompany.com/cruise/name-of-cruise/port/hotel/?date=dateinport When someone navigates to these pages, they can see a list of relevant content. From a user perspective the list I see is only associated with the relevant date (which is determined by a set of query parameters). Unfortunately, there are situations where the same content is on multiple pages. For instance the exact same set of hotels or excursions might be available for two different cruises or on multiple dates of the same cruise. This is causing a couple of different challenges. For instance, with regard to title tags, we have <title>Hotels in Rome</title> multiple times. I know that isn't good. If I tried to just have a hub page with hotels and a hub page with excursions available from each cruise and then a page for each hotel and excursion, each with a unique title tag, then the challenge is that I don't know how to not make the customer have to work through whether the hotel they are looking for is actually available on the dates in question. So while I can guarantee unique content/title tags, I end up asking the user to think too much. Thoughts?
On-Page Optimization | | Marston_Gould1 -
Does Title Tag have to be in the HEAD tag?
We are using templates that load the same header for every page. I'd like to just include a different title tag in the "body" template of each page. If I was to do this, does it affect SEO at all?
On-Page Optimization | | moziodavid0 -
Local SEO Title-Tag Optimization
Hi Everyone! A bit of a greenhorn SEO here, and I'm trying to learn a bit more about some of the best practices in local SEO. I'm wondering if anyone can help me with the following scenario: Business: Dental Care & Surgery Location: Springfield IN Name: Springfield Dental Care Experts (example) Website: 18 content pages, pages dedicated to each service Since there are 18 pages to work with, there are plenty of places for us to mix-up the title tags. However, I am still unclear as to what the best way would be to do this. I understand that the Geo-modifiers should go at the front, and that the brand name is considered optional. Would tags such as this make sense? Springfield IN Dentist | Springfield Dental Care Experts Nearby town Mountainview IN Dental Care | Springfield Dental Care Experts Last question: The website has pages for each of the services offered by the dentist, ex: Dental Cleanings, Consultations, Fillings, Surgery, etc. Should each of the pages be included in the title tag? Springfield IN Dentist | Springfield Dental Care Experts - Dental Surgery My concern is that buy adding this, the title tag would be too long. Thank you for taking the time to read and respond!
On-Page Optimization | | kbaltzell0 -
Using a more relevant brand title for blog
I'm a newbee here so I appologize in advance for asking a question that might already be aswered ( i looked I promise). The question is this, I've been fiddling with the title tags and came upon the need to make a decision about separating our blog brand to be more specific to it's content. We're a moving company, our primary website talks about services and is branded with our name (%page_name% | 2 Brothers Moving & Delivery Portland Oregon), our blog is a work in progress "Moving Guide" (%post_title% | Portland Moving Guide). Should I stick with the standard brand name on the blog or call it something keyword specific like above? As a side question what do you all think about my titles in the first place? In case you'd like to take a look: www.2brothersmoving.net www.2brothersmoving.net/blog
On-Page Optimization | | r1200gsa0 -
SERPs Showing H1s Instead of Title Tags?
Hi, I'm noticing two strange things in search results recently. Often I find that if I search for a client's company name, I see just the company name in SERPs where the title tag would normally be displayed. Examples: 'aci northwest' 'lanz heating' As strange as that is, I'm tempted to assume this is just Google's way of "getting smarter" and showing more relevant results (though I'm not sure exactly where it's pulling from). But it gets stranger. For the first example, 'aci northwest', when search that key phrase on Bing/Yahoo!, etc. I'm not only not seeing the title tag where it would normally be, but I'm seeing the H1 in it's place: "When your projects demand more, demand ACI." Any idea what's happening here? Thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | VTDesignWorks0 -
Is it ok to use encoded special characters in meta titles?
I've read blog posts stating that encoding special characters in title tags is both ok and not ok. Any definitive answer out there? Do the extra characters from adding encoding count towards the total number of characters that Google displays in SERPs? Or do they just count as one character?
On-Page Optimization | | BostonWright0