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.
Meta separators
-
I've been told that pipes are the best separators for title tags. Can anyone tell me the best ones for H1 and H2 tags? Do I go with pipes, commas, hyphens, underscores...?
-
It's true that you can use almost all the separators you mentioned - though some sources suggest to avoid using underscores. The thing to keep in mind is that overuse of separators is typically going to indicate that your title contains a number of terms that don't flow together in normal human spoken/read language - which could be interpreted as keyword stuffing. Try to create titles that have your keywords but also are natural language.
For example on my events site we use titles like this that successfully grade well for the keywords we target: Depeche Mode tickets in London at The O2 on TUE, Nov 19, 2013 — 7:30PM. Certainly could've used more separators, but it wasn't necessary simply to avoid short words like "at" and "on".
-
Header tags can use all the separators you mentioned. The reason pipe is adopted in meta tags is because it gives clear visual separation in the organic search results section.
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
-
What is the best meta description for Category Pages, Tag Pages and Main Article?
Hi, I want to index all my categories and tags. But I fear about duplicating the meta description. for example: I have a tag name "Learn Stock Market", a category name "Learning", and a main article "What is Stock Market". What is your suggestion for meta description of these three pages that looks great for seo google?
On-Page Optimization | | mbmozmb0 -
How to generate an automatic title and meta description for lots of pages
Hi, I'm working on a big website that will have new pages every month. I would like to find a plug-in or something free to generate automatic title and meta description for futur new pages. Thanks you for your help!
On-Page Optimization | | Maely0 -
Does using Yoast variables for meta content overwrite any pages that already have custom meta content?
The question is about the Yoast plugin for WP sites. Let's say I have a site with 200 pages and custom meta descriptions / title tags already in place for the top 30 pages. If I use the Yoast variable tool to complete meta content for the remaining pages (and make my Moz issue tracker look happier), will that only affect the pages without custom meta descriptions or will it overwrite even the pages with the custom meta content that I want? In this situation, I do want to keep the meta content that is already in place on select pages. Thanks! Zack
On-Page Optimization | | rootandbranch0 -
URL keyword separator best practice
Hello. Wanted to reach out see what the consensus is re-keyword separators So just taken on a new client and all their urls are structured like /buybbqpacks rather than buy-bbq-packs - my understanding is that it comes down to readability, which influences click through, rather than search impact on the keyword. So we usually advise on a hyphen, but the guy's going to have to change ALLOT of pages & setup redirects to change it all wasn't sure if it was worth it? Thanks! Stu
On-Page Optimization | | bloomletsgrow0 -
No meta description on category page
Hi Moz is reporting no meta description on a wordpress category page like this one: http://www.dwliverpoolphotography.co.uk/category/uncategorized/ Can I add a meta description to a category? Best wishes. David.
On-Page Optimization | | WallerD0 -
How to separate your - keywords - and | Brand name in the Title Tag
I have traditionally used hyphens (-) and vertical bars (|) to separate out keywords/brands in title tags. A client has asked if other characters will work such as tilde (~), apersat (@), forward slash (/) etc. Are there any special characters we should steer clear of?
On-Page Optimization | | Switch_Digital0 -
Can I use the same text in my meta description as I put in my post excerpt?
Hi, I'm just trying to understand the right way to optimise my blog posts and this is likely a dumb question... but to what extent should the text in my meta description differ from the text in my post excerpts? cheers, Andrew
On-Page Optimization | | seowhiskey0 -
Best practice for Meta-Robots tag in categories and author pages?
For some of our site we use Wordpress, which we really like working with. The question I have is for the categories and authors pages (and similiar pages), i.e. the one looking: http://www.domain.com/authors/. Should you or should you not use follow, noindex for meta-robots? We have a lot of categories/tags/authors which generates a lot of pages. I'm a bit worried that google won't like this and leaning towards adding the follow, noindex. But the more I read about it, the more I see people disagree. What does the community of Seomoz think?
On-Page Optimization | | Lobtec0