Use of '&' in meta title
-
Hi, I know that use of '&' would be helpful to save space and also add more keyword variation to the title tag. But just want to make sure if it matters if I use '&' in most of my title tags? And also is it common to use more than & in one title?
Would the following title be different in Google's perspective regardless of the title length? I am thinking they are all targeting the keywords 'fruit cake' and 'fruit bread', but the first one is the best.
buy fruit cake & bread
buy fruit cake & fruit bread
buy fruit cake and fruit bread
Thanks in advance.
-
Hi Linda,
Thanks for your answer Just wish to confirm if the first option "buy fruit cake & bread" will capture the keywords "fruit cake" and "fruit bread" as I wish to save the space for more other information in title tag.
I guess it is a balance we have to make, to be more clear or to be more concise.
Thanks for all the other answers.
-
Google uses titles as an important step in determining whether a website answers "searchers intent" - should google display that page on the SERP.
The composition of a title is far more complex than the obvious. The title has a strong SEO focus but also it has to be optimised for clickability. So there are trade-offs. An example is we have changed titles - a few words around and seen a 6 times uplift in CTR. So optimising for the customer is integral.
So the first thing to do is determine keywords - then trade off with click ability. I am not sure I would start with the word buy. A standard method is
Most Important keyword | Second most important Keyword | Brand.
Should be a nexus between the two keywords. Also the title can only be 512 pixels long before it truncates. Hence the title has limited space and two competing components clickability & SEO. Big decisions.
To answer your question, from the information at hand on the and v &. It is semantics but i agree with Linda the latter is more attractive and secondly it uses less pixels.
Let me know if need any more information.
-
Hi Russell,
I use '&' and 'and' both but in different scenario. e.g
If keyword is 'artificial plants & trees' (having significant search volume) then I will use 'artificial plants & trees' not 'artificial plants and trees' and If keyword is 'artificial plants and trees' then I will use 'artificial plants and trees' not 'artificial plants & trees'.
So first you should check keyword is with 'and' or '&' and use in title according to that. If you are using 'and' or '&' like separator then it would be better to use pipe(|) or dash (-).
Hope this helps.
Thanks
-
The first one is more ambiguous. Is it fruit cake and bread of some type, or is it fruit cake and fruit bread [the ampersand generally being a joiner]?
If you do the searches, you will see they are all somewhat similar, with the second two being obviously more related. [collinstreet.com is going to wonder about the strange impressions data in their Adwords campaign...]
An ampersand and the word "and" are mostly the same in Google & there are some who feel that a special character in a title can attract more attention & so is a good thing.
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 the meta title written only for google (try to stuff in as many keywords as possible) or is there a user experience aspect as well?
Is the meta title written only for google (try to stuff in as many keywords as possible) or is there a user experience aspect as well?
On-Page Optimization | | whiteonlySEO0 -
Changing site title
I'm wondering what the procedure and implications are of changing my sites tile? I realise that my Having my keyword in my sites title whilst chasing the same keyword in articles may be causing over optimization. The slug also takes on the article title too, in effect giving me the keyword three times before I've even written my article. Example below. Imaginary site title : soap benefits.org Article: The essential guide to making homemade soap Slug: The-essential-guide-to-making-homemade-soap As you can see, soap has now been mentioned three times, not including excerpt/meta description or image alt tags. As most of the article titles would contain my supposed keyword "soap" I'm thinking the best option would be to change site title with allinoneseo (that possible?) and change the slug to something relevant, giving me more room to escape over optimization. Does this sound sensible? I don't have that many articles so if I had to change other things it wouldn't be too much of a hassle. It seems a pity to loose my sites title I picked, but if I end up writing hundreds of articles this would be a problem. Help appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | marangus0 -
Titles
Our site http://villasdini.com is offering beach villas on sunny Diani beach in Kenya. I have a category with beach villas in Diani beach which I want to be shown in serp if somebody search for Diani beach villas, or Diani beach hotels, Diani beach accommodation etc. I have also category with small boutique hotels, which I want to be shown in serp if somebody search for Diani beach villas, or Diani beach hotels, Diani beach accommodation etc. Should I also include Diani beach in titles? Will that not be too much of Diani bech in titles? I am afraid I have anyway already too much of "Diani beach" keyword and perhaps I am even punished for it as I can't rank for this keyword at all almost a year:-( I also want to rank on Diani beach itself and I have created Diani beach page which I want to be shown in serp when somebody search for Diani beach. I am kind of getting crazy of this:-( Any advice what I am doing wrong and what strategy I should rather do? Thank you very much, Iris
On-Page Optimization | | Rebeca10 -
Title tag length
Hi, I am fairly new to SEO and have just noticed the end of my title text has been cut off by Google in the serps results. Everything i have read tells me titles should be maximum of 70 characters, however, Google is only displaying 54. See below Security systems | wireless | battery powered | Police... Nobody else on the page is showing more than 54 characters. Am i missing something obvious? Any and all help gratefully appreciated. Thanks Si
On-Page Optimization | | DaddySmurf0 -
Creating the META title tag?
I am having a hard time figuring out what the best META title tag is for my site. I have a deal blog that focuses on Amazon deals but I also write articles, top ten lists, etc. It is baby and mom related. Is there a tutorial for this? Should I just experiment and watch my organic search results? TIA!
On-Page Optimization | | dealblogger0 -
Title Tag and Company Name
Hello everyone! The company I work for has an e-commerce site that needs to be optimized. I am starting from the title tags which are too long and need optimized for specific keywords. Thing is that each title tag contains the specific keywords for the page and the company name. My question is should I keep the company name within the title tags or should I just keep the keywords I target for those pages? How will it affect my rank? Cheers Oscar
On-Page Optimization | | PremioOscar0 -
On page link question, creating an additional 'county' layer between states and zips/cities
Question We have a large site that has a page for all 50 states. Each of these pages has unique content, but following the content has a MASSIVE amount of links for each zip AND city in that state. I am also in the process of creating unique content for each of these cities and zips HOWEVER, I was wondering would it make sense to create an additional 'county' layer between the states and the zips/cities. Would the additional 'depth' of the links bring down the overall rank of the long tail city and zip pages, or would the fact that the counties would knock the on page link count down from a thousand or so, to a management 50-100 substantially improve the overall quality and ranking of the site? To illustrate, currently I have State -> city and zip pages (1200+ links on each state page) what i want to do is do state -> county (5-300 counties on each state page) -> city + zip (maybe 50-100 links on each county page). What do you guys think? Am I incurring some kind of automatic penalty for having 1000+ links on a page?
On-Page Optimization | | ilyaelbert0 -
Wordpress when to use posts or pages
Hi Guys, I have a network of EMD sites that currently use a homepage and then we have a blog page which has 5-6 posts on. Is this the best way to do it with sites under 10-20 pages? Or should we create say 3-4 new pages/categories and drop the posts relevant to each page/category in there? Thank you Jon
On-Page Optimization | | imrubbish0