• ramc-7JcUnB

        See all notifications

        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.

          Enhance Keyword Discovery with Bulk Analysis
          Moz Pro

          Enhance Keyword Discovery with Bulk Analysis

          Learn more
        • 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

          Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing
          Moz API

          Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing

          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
        • My Q&A
        • 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. Dash or vertical bar in titles?

        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.

        Dash or vertical bar in titles?

        On-Page Optimization
        4
        5
        10287
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • nyc-seo
          nyc-seo last edited by

          Hello.

          Should I use a dash or a vertical line in title tags?

          Thank you!

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

            Matt Cutts says those are symbols and that they are looked at as spaces.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
            • Boodreaux
              Boodreaux @Boodreaux last edited by

              My bad...I was thinking url's not title tags.

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

                I think there's no agreement on that, it normally depends on personal choice. Normally I prefer to use all the separators just to make the site a little different and don't use always the same structure. However if I need to choose one I'll use user experience and readability for it, and personally I find the pipe much more readable than the hyphen just because separates better the sentences, However you may use a combination of both if the two portion of text are related.

                Examples:

                • Guide to Ibiza - Boat trip to Ibiza | IBIZATRAVELS.COM
                • Hotel Ibiza | Bars and Restaurant in Ibiza

                The first sentence (the last part is just for branding if you want although I don't love so much having the domain in the title), got an hyphen in the first part because boat trip seems to clarify which part of the guide to ibiza we're speaking about. The site name is not related that's why I put a pipe. In the same way I separated the two parts in the second option just because they're both about tourism in ibiza but they're not co-related in this case.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • Boodreaux
                  Boodreaux last edited by

                  I have seen that most responses to that questions over time have been the slash line that separates words in the title. Not a dash but the slated vertical line.

                  Boodreaux 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                  • 1 / 1
                  • First post
                    Last post

                  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

                  • Kevin_P

                    When Google rewrites a title tag, do you get the SEO impact for the original version?

                    title tags on page optimization on-page meta data meta tags

                    Let's say you're writing a homepage title tag like this: KEYWORD | BRAND and Google rewrites it as BRAND | KEYWORD From Moz and best practices, we believe that keywords closer to the beginning of a title tag may have more impact on search rankings. So, when Google rewrites the title tag, do you get the impact you would have made with the keyword being closer to the front? Or, does Google give you the impact you would have received with the keyword being at the end?

                    On-Page Optimization | | Kevin_P
                    0
                  • lina_digital

                    Using a hyphen in title tags and the impact of spaces

                    Hi I am trying to arrive at a best practice template for a title tag for my organization so does the following template still holds Primary Keyword - Secondary Keyword | Brand Name will anything be impacted  if I eliminate the spaces between the hyphen, will search bots be still able to treat the first one as a priority and the second as the secondary? Primary Keyword-Secondary Keyword | Brand Name thank you

                    On-Page Optimization | | lina_digital
                    0
                  • amybethmegjo

                    Page Title versus H1 title

                    What's the difference between the Page Title and the H1 title? It seems like both summarize the page. Is it a wasted opportunity to make them the same? Should they be similar but slightly different?

                    On-Page Optimization | | amybethmegjo
                    1
                  • heymarshall

                    How to Handle duplicate pages/titles in Wordpress

                    The wordpress blog causes problems with page titles. If you go to the second page of blog posts it there's a different URL but with the same page title. for example: page 1: site/blog page 2: site/blog/page/2 Each page gets flagged for duplicate page titles. Thanks in advance for your thoughts,

                    On-Page Optimization | | heymarshall
                    1
                  • beehiive

                    Can I add multi location business cities to homepage meta title or desc.?

                    I have a business with 6 locations (in the same state) but very different cities. We we expanded from one location with the city name in the URL we followed best practices to move to the new domain without the singular city name in the URL. We definitly took a hit on the organic side and I'm trying to figure out best practice for where to add geo info. Currently I have geo info: -In footer
                    -Contact Page -On local page It's a WP site and each location has it's own page (ie. locations/geolocation_keyword). I know all other locations will take sometime but my concern is the hit we took on the original location that had geo-target URL. I guess really my question is simply can I include city names in homepage meta title and desc.?
                    and is there anything else I can do to bounce back organically on the original city faster?

                    On-Page Optimization | | beehiive
                    0
                  • muminaydin

                    Url structure with dash or slash

                    Hi There We have a content website. We don't rank well category image related searches but we get quite good traffic for those keywords. Those keywords are mostly like "category images". We want to change our url structure and we have 2 options now. 1- domain.com/category/category-images 2-domain.com/category/images option 1 repeats the category name so it looks spammy option 2 doesn't really have the keyword. any ideas which one tho choose? Thanks! ps: we don't want to use domain.com/category-images (too many root link)

                    On-Page Optimization | | muminaydin
                    0
                  • kcourtem

                    Colons in title tag?

                    Does Google view the colon as a keyword separator like it does with the pipe (|) character? Currently, our site automatically constructs the title tag based on the page name given by the user.  Long ago, we started using the colon character to visually separate the brand & model of the product from the size, and as a result, all of our title tags have been constructed this way. This was done more to make it easier to read for humans than for search engines.  My question is - should I consider getting rid of the colon from our title tags? To give more info, our website sells tires. So, for any given model of tire, there might be 25-100 different individual sizes.  The tags are constructed as follows:  (brand)(model) : (size).   Here's an example from our site: GENERAL ALTIMAX ARCTIC : 225/45R17 91Q The brand is General Tire, the model is the Altimax Arctic and the size is 225/45R17 91Q Since this entire string really constitutes the full product name, should I remove the colon so that Google views it that way?  Or, since I have used a colon instead of a pipe, will Google simply ignore it and treat the entire string as one keyword phrase?

                    On-Page Optimization | | kcourtem
                    0
                  • walidalsaqqaf

                    Title tag for category page

                    I'd like to know your views on the best approach for title tags for category pages for ecommerce sites. 3 examples A) Category name | Free delivery on $50 purchase | Brand name B) Discover best "category name" on brand name C) Category Name | 1st Keyword, 2nd keyword | Brand name Thanks!

                    On-Page Optimization | | walidalsaqqaf
                    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.