Should I include a "|" for better page title SEO results?
-
I have seen many sites that include the "|" in page titles and was wondering if there is some SEO value in the practice.
Example:
Product Name | Company Name
Instead of:
Product Name by Company Name
I have not seen any value in it myself other than a good way to avoid stop words. I wanted to make sure. Currently I have the "by" included in the page titles.
-
I always prefer the pipe for the following reasons, though I don't think it has any specific SEO value.
a) its reader friendly
b) its a natural separator
c) as Seth says below, it looks cool!
d) Whats good for SEOmoz is good for me!
-
SEO advantage I would suggest is negligible, if any in this case - more a case of aesthetics as has been suggested, as well as character count saving.
Section pages I would go with "Section | Company Name"
Product pages I would go with "Product - Section | Company Name"
-
When it comes to a web page Title Tag Google's Supper Smart Spiders pay no attention to the markup or punctuation used. So it truly comes down to the personal preference of the site owner. As for me and my OCD I prefer the Pipes cause they just look cooler!
To prove this point query the following:
allintitle:"-"
allintitle:"|"
allintitle:"/"
allintitle:""
allintitle:","
All come back with BUPKIS
-
| has my vote! More for readability than anything.
-
| has my vote! More for readability than anything.
-
The pipe and hyphen as already suggested are the way to go for pure usability and space saving for your title tag. In my opinion neither has a direct SEO advantage over the other however they both have a distinct advantage over other techniques. For me keeping the keywords used in the page title to the point help without any extra "by, or, and" breaks the keyword blocks both visually and semantically for the search engines. Now don't get me wrong I don't think this makes or breaks a good SEO effort on a page but for me it's certainly a preference.
-
Sounds like it is just an issue of conserving valuable character real estate while being aesthetically pleasing to the reader.
-
I think people prefer pipe symbol over hyphen..as it takes relatively less space...that's the only benefit I have seen..
-
I use the pipe because SEOmoz uses it. Visually it indicates something different is following. I think it more professional looking than the mere dash.
-
I am not sure the is any technical benefit however more used as Alan and EGOL suggest to separate keywords / phrases and increase CTR
-
I don't think that a pipe or dash or any other character adds or subtracts any SEO value. Certainly what you type after it is more important.
If your brand is widely known and respected then adding it might help increase your clickthroughs or conversions.
If you don't have a popular brand then "free shipping"... "learn the secrets!".... or a kickass price in the title tag will pull the visitors in.
... and if you have something that everyone wants such as "free beer" then you might want to included it in CAPS.
-
There's some disagreement in the industry as to whether the pipe symbol or hyphens are best - either way, one of these two would be recommended for readability purposes. This is especially valid when you've got more than one keyword phrase.
Product Name | Alternate Product Name | Company Name
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
-
How happy should we be about a Page 1 “See results about” SERP?
A site fell off Page 1 organic listings but now regularly appears in the right-side “See results about“ SERP. How valuable are such results, especially compared to the 1-10 organic result listing? And, are “see results about” SERPs national?
On-Page Optimization | | PKI_Niles0 -
Home Page SEO and city specific targeting?
From What I have read you should target one keyword for each page on your site with the exception of the home page. Is this correct? If the most searched keywords for a Dentist in the area are Dentist "city name"
On-Page Optimization | | scott315
Cosmetic Dentist "city name"
Family Dentist "city name" Should you try and add content on the home page with h1 tags of each of these? If so then what about the page title/url Also if you are targeting keyword Dentist "city name" but like 4 different cities, should you have a separate page for each of this cities and then if so would that not be duplicate content with the exception of city name? Thanks1 -
Rel="Canonical"
Hi!, We´ve just launched a new website and on this web we are using a lot Call to Actions on every page of the web and all of this CTA`s goes to the same Landing Page. (Ej: http://www.landing page.com) The problem comes when Google says this Landing Page is duplicate content because we are using some parameters like, for instance, http://www.landing page.com/?fuente=Soporteensalesforce So now we have just 1 Landing Page but Google sees 13 pages, because of this parameters and Moz alerted me that Google is seeing it as duplicate content. Yesterday I put this on the head of the only Landing Page we have so Google can see it in the proper way, as just one landing, but I don´t know if it is enough or should I do anything else? What I put on the Head: Hope someone can help me about this because I´ve tried to find a solution and this is the only thing that came up to me, and don´t know if it´s the right thing. Thanks for your time!
On-Page Optimization | | Manuel_LeadClic0 -
Fixed horrible title tag on home page, and lost ranking. Will it come back?
I was helping out someone on their site and its home page ranked on page 2 for their term, and the title tag was horrible. It was 160 characters long with lots of near repetitive keywords ([keyword] - adjective [keyword] - adjective [keyword] - adjective [keyword] etc.) -- typical title that Google would penalize when it got around to it. So I created a title that made sense, for the keyword, and that followed the best practices of Google recommendations. Now it's dropped off the index. (EDIT: sorry, still in index, just not even in top 1000) Is this something I should not have done? I was just trying to keep them from getting slammed. And, how long should I expect it to take to get my ranking back? This is the only page title I changed.
On-Page Optimization | | bizzer0 -
Page Title
My website was hacked last November and then again last week. Prior to the hacking we were at number one in Google.co.uk for our main search term "nile cruises' for years. After last November's hacking we dropped to about position 4 and after last week we are at position 7. Ima rebuilding the lost data and I am having to create new Title and Description meta data for each of the indexed pages. I am taking the opportunity to try and ensure my titles and descriptions are good and the correct length, etc but wondered about the best title format. I set our home page title over the weekend as: Nile Cruise | Leading ABTA & ATOL Bonded UK Nile Cruise Specialist I was going to try and cover 3 keyphrases in the title like this: Nile Cruise | Nile Cruises | Nile Cruise Bargains But I thought that might look a bit spammy because the 3 phrases are very similar. I wondered what anyone else might suggest? Thanks, Colin
On-Page Optimization | | NileCruises0 -
Duplicate Page Titles and Keywords
Still new to this SEO world, so please bear with me. I have an eCommerce site so one of the issues is duplicate content and page titles. So what I was thinking was this...for each product that I sell I have 4 or 5 keywords that I have targeted. For example for personalized iPhone cases I have decided on: iphone 4 case personalized, monogrammed iphone 4 case, personalized and monogrammed iphone case, preppy phone case, personalized iPhone case, monogrammed iPhone case For each of my products I was going to a product description (ie: trendy color block diagonal stripes) and a targeted keyword. But I was going to rotate the keywords through so as to try to avoid the duplicate page title issue. Will that help? Thanks much, Shara
On-Page Optimization | | Confections0 -
Should H1s be used in the logo? If they are and it is dynamic on each page to relate to the page content, is this detrimental to the site rather than having it in the page content?
On some sites, the H1 is contained within the logo and remains consistent throughout the site (i.e. the company name is in the of the logo). If the h1 in a logo is dynamic for each page (i.e. on the homepage it is company name - homepage) is this better or worse to have it changed out on the logo rather than having it in the page content?
On-Page Optimization | | CabbageTree0 -
Follow up on "Canonical Tag Placement - Every Page?"
But if it is like Pete said, I don't understand why e.g. SEO Moz has a Canonical Tag on this Page http://www.seomoz.org/blog/canonical-url-tag-the-most-important-advancement-in-seo-practices-since-sitemaps Which leads to the exact same page!? What is the benefit of doing so? Regards
On-Page Optimization | | Here4You0