Hi Matt. More and more websites started using comma (,) as a separator in title tag (less pipes or dashes). Is comma really a separator OR if it’s better for the visitors it’s better for SEO ? Thanks ! Adrian, Europe
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Why is upload removing underscores or hyphens when I drag and drop my file? I use spaces around the underscores or hyphens so it should not be a problem.
One thing he did not mention by name are slashes (forward slash or back slash). Are they just as good as a hyphen or pipe? I would assume yes but I'd love to get a clarification from the source.
Yes, Comma help to separate each keywords.
So, is the comma a seperator? Or, does the comma get ignored so that, if tbere is no space after the comma, the words concatenate? e.g., for google search does the title "Boot Cuffs,Boho" become "Boot CuffsBoho", or, "Boot Cuffs Boho"?…ALSO, are Boot Cuffs and Boho treated as 2 seperate keywords? Thanks
Acceptable <title> tag separator/delimiters per Matt's answer are: " empty space " " comma , " " pipe | " " hyphen – " " colon : " but, Matt also says starting 21 seconds into the video that "the only separator that isn't a good one is", " underscore _ " because of a technical programming issue it causes when used ( words are combined by underscore and loose their intended meaning).
thanks, Matt
So it's , | – _
Are titles with the following structure ideal for SEO, they certainly seem usable by humans "Topic Title | Guide | Product Name – Company Name" ? If the topic title was "Getting Started" for the user guide of "Uber Product", will Google correctly understand that this is the "Getting Started" topic for the context of "Uber Product" and that another "Getting Started" topic would relate to "Other Uber Product"?
i.e.
<title>Getting Started | Guide | Uber Product – Acme Limited</title>
<h1>Getting Started</h1>
<title>Getting Started | Guide | Other Uber Product – Acme Limited</title>
<h1>Getting Started</h1>
The MDN website has root-level headings in their document outline which only make sense in the context of their <title>. For example, they have similar topics for each section of their site HTML, CSS, etc.
This is something which I find highly confusing and some input would be very useful 🙂
Separators, which make the title tags most comprehensive or readable for the users, can be used. However, Google can’t recognize ’’Underscore’’ as a separator, therefor, it’s better to avoid. Thanks a lot Matt!!
Thanks for that info, was just talking about it today and good to have your verification on it too.
Good grief guys, this guy is just answering someone's question which is very helpful, less nit picking please! :-0
@ShawnKHall He's just saying Google won't treat it as a separator, not that it's inherently bad. If I had to guess why, I'd say the reason is regular expression engines lump in underscores with letters and digits, and that Google makes use of regex engines in its search. A "w" in a regular expression, the "word character", matches letters, digits, and underscores, and I assume this makes it harder (computationally) to treat underscores as a separator. Again, this is just a guess. 🙂
Matt Cutts, in absence of facts or testing, hating on underscores again. I guess the billion+ results at Google for [intitle:_] aren't really there.
Not that I think it's a good idea to use an underscore in the *title* of a page as a separator – it's not (readability foliks!), but you sure do seem to have a chip on your shoulder about underscores.