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 changing my Title
I noticed today that Google is showing a different Title in searches for the homepage. It is showing a title which I believe was active as of late last year or early January. The new title is in the title tag, in Google cache and in MOZ crawls as well. Not sure why it would still be showing a different title in the search and wanted to see if anyone can explain the reason. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | campaigneast0 -
Image Titles and Descriptions Question
Hello, I have a question about optimizing the SEO on my pages through image titles and descriptions. There are a few times on my website that I use the same image on multiple pages. I am under the impression that giving it a title such as "social-media-marketing-agency-graphic.jpg" will help the SEO for the phrase "social media marketing agency" on that page. My question was, if I want to use the same image on multiple pages, am I better off uploading an entirely new image with a new title to make it more relevant to the new page? Or will this not make large enough of a difference? Or is there an easier solution? Please let me know your thoughts on how to best optimize the pages
On-Page Optimization | | brightsocial0 -
Using Canonical Tags on Every Page
I'm doing competitive research and noticed that one of our competitors (who outranks us) uses canonical tags on every page on their site. The canonical tags reference the page they are on. For example. www.competitor.com/product has a canonical tag of www.competitor.com/product. Does anyone use this practice? It seems strange to me. Thank you, Kristen
On-Page Optimization | | Ksink0 -
Unkown H1-Tag on my webshop
Dear community, I have a unknown and undetecable H1-tag on my webshop. I'm currently optimizing my webshop and get stuck by two H1-tags on every page. Does anyone know where i can remove this H1-tag? My webshop URL: www.rijwielcashencarry.nl Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | rijwielcashencarry0400 -
Google not showing the proper title
I noticed that google is not showing the proper title in the search results. If you search for PhraseExpander, the title that google reports is: PhraseExpander: Text Expander for Windows but in the title of the page I've set Text Expander for Windows - PhraseExpander Why is that? How can I make google report the proper title? Thanks. Andrea
On-Page Optimization | | nagar0 -
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 -
How to Define Best Structure of Title Tag and Meta Description?
I want to define best structure of Title Tag and Meta Description for my eCommerce website. There are too many categories over there and many be increase in near future. There are 7K+ products live on website so, it's quite hard to develop Title Tag and Meta Description for all product pages. That's why I have set automatic Title Tag and Meta Description creation with help of developers. I want to do similar stuff for my category pages. Can anyone suggest me structure of Title Tag and Meta Description which suppose to help me in well over Google's organic result. I have define structure as follow. Title Tag: Category Name: FREE Shipping & Discount Category Name | Vista Stores Meta Description: Category Name with FREE shipping, 100% price guarantee, Buy and save 20% to 40% on attractive, modern and discount Category Name. Meta Keywords: Category Name I also want to give real time example with specific URL. (http://www.vistastores.com/69_21/outdoor/patio-umbrellas.html) Category Name = Patio Umbrellas so with help of above structure Title Tag and Meta Description will be as follow. Title Tag: Patio Umbrellas: FREE Shipping & Discount Patio Umbrellas | Vista Stores Meta Description: Patio Umbrellas with FREE shipping, 100% price guarantee, Buy and save 20% to 40% on attractive, modern and discount Patio Umbrellas. Meta Keywords: Patio Umbrellas So, Does it matter for good performance? If any inputs in same direction so I am eager to read it.
On-Page Optimization | | CommercePundit0 -
H1 tags the same on all pages - problem?
I generally use wordpress as a CMS and have the H1 tag coded in the header.php include file. This results as it being the same in all page - I normally do something like Keyword - Company name and set the company logo as the background and move the text off screen using text indent (CSS). Is having the same on every page a bad thing? I might be tricky to change so their all unique.
On-Page Optimization | | JamesJacobs0
