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    4. Commas in Meta Title and Description Okay?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

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    Commas in Meta Title and Description Okay?

    Technical SEO
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    • MrGlobalization
      MrGlobalization last edited by

      Hey there guys, have heard some recent information from some experts that utilizing commas in headings, meta titles or descriptions is not good for ranking. Can you guys please shed some light on this?

      Thank you!

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

        Alick300, Thank you. That was the true evidence straight from the Google source that validates this question my client had! Thank you again.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • Alick300
          Alick300 last edited by

          Hi Josh,

          No absolutely not . We can use comma or pipes, dashes as a separator in meta title, description or heading but not underscore. You can also watch below video to know more.

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHSqLYUPq8w

          Thanks

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
          • RyanPurkey
            RyanPurkey last edited by

            Within titles a comma is often seen as wasted space since the character count is so limited, but sites with them in their title still rank, see: https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=lions%20tigers%20bears.  Headings tend to be as short as titles which is probably what dictates comma usage more than anything. Meta Descriptions using commas are fine and fairly common since they're written with less space constraints as the above.

            Do you have the source on where you heard this first? Would be interesting to see how they're discussing it.  Cheers!

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
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