Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. On-Page Optimization
    4. Using commas in the title tag?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Using commas in the title tag?

    On-Page Optimization
    4
    6
    8482
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • Audiohype
      Audiohype last edited by

      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"?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • RKanfi
        RKanfi last edited by

        Anyone has any thoughts as far as "-" as a way to designate keyword string as in funny-greeting-cards vs. funny greeting cards,....

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • MartinOddy
          MartinOddy last edited by

          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.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
          • StalkerB
            StalkerB @Audiohype last edited by

            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.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • Audiohype
              Audiohype @StalkerB last edited by

              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?

              StalkerB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • StalkerB
                StalkerB last edited by

                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.

                Audiohype 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • 1 / 1
                • First post
                  Last post

                Got a burning SEO question?

                Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                Start my free trial


                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.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • xdunningx

                  Using Bold text for keywords

                  Hello I am updating an old e-commerce website of mine and many keywords are in bold - shall I remove the bold tag or keep them there? This is for SEO.

                  On-Page Optimization | | xdunningx
                  0
                • wearehappymedia

                  Duplicate content with tagging and categories

                  Hello, Moz is showing that a site has duplicate content - which appears to be because of tags and categories. It is a relatively new site, with only a few blog publications so far. This means that the same articles are displayed under a number of different tags and categories... Is this something I should worry about, or just wait until I have more content? The 'tag' and 'category' pages are not really pages I would expect or aim for anyone to find in google results anyway. Would be glad to here any advice / opinions on this Thanks!

                  On-Page Optimization | | wearehappymedia
                  1
                • mrdavidingram

                  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 | | mrdavidingram
                  2
                • Firestarter-SEO

                  How does Google treat Dynamic Titles?

                  Let's say my website can be accessed in only 3 states Colorado, Arizona and Ohio. I want to display different information to each visitor based on where they are located. For this I would also like the title to change based on their location. Not quite sure how Google we treat the title and rank the site.... Any resources you can provide would be helpful. Thanks

                  On-Page Optimization | | Firestarter-SEO
                  0
                • wianno168

                  Is it OK to include name of your town to the title tag or H1 tag on a blog to enhance local search results

                  I recently attended a webinar by ETNA Interactive on local search SEO. The presenter recommended including the name of your town in the title of the blog to increase local search SEO. Is this OK? Ive always been concerned that it is such an obvious attempt to rank locally that Google would consider it "spammy" ? black hat, "sketchy" or otherwise manipulative. Have the rules changed? Is it OK to do? Brooke

                  On-Page Optimization | | wianno168
                  0
                • kbaltzell

                  Page Title in Local SEO Title Tags?

                  Hi All, Still working on my title tag usage for local SEO, and I was hoping for some more feedback. My question is this: In Local SEO titles, I'm using location + keyword combinations, unique on each page. However, since each page has a specific title for the client, I figure I should be placing that at the front. My thought here was that this helps with the overall usability to the reader of the website. Ex. Contact Us page for Pizza shop Contact Us | Springfield IN Gourmet Pizza | Moe's Italian Pizza Anyone have thoughts on this one? Thank you!

                  On-Page Optimization | | kbaltzell
                  0
                • travelclickseo

                  H1 tag in the footer?

                  Quick question: I have been scouring SEOMoz.org along with webmaster forums looking for an answer, but we have a person who insists that the H1 tag be located in the Footer. I feel that is is fundamentally wrong because it is not the intent of the H1 tag, and I do not believe it is a best practice. That being said would we see what little value the H1 tag has disappear if we put it in the footer, would we be penalized, or am I being too vanilla by wanting to keep it in the Title position?

                  On-Page Optimization | | travelclickseo
                  0
                • jaybrn1

                  Should I use my blog posts in a sub folder

                  Ok I did a search and didn't see an answer to this exact question.  Most of them were about if a blog should be in a sub folder and not the blog posts themselves... so here it goes.  I have a blog on my website the blog itself is in /blog/ but the blog posts themselves are situated in the root folder so it looks something like mydomain.com/cool-seo-blog-post/ Is there any reason I should change this and make it read mydomain.com/blog/cool-seo-blog-post/

                  On-Page Optimization | | jaybrn1
                  0

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                • Digital Marketers
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • Local Citation Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.