How does Google treat special characters in titles?
-
Seems like a stupid question, but one that I never really gave much thought about before. How exactly does Google treat special characters in titles? Do they all get seen as spaces?
e.g. Does
Awesome Product - OptionA/OptionB/OptionC available
get seen the same way as
**Awesome Product - OptionA, OptionB, **OptionC available
? Or even
**Awesome Product - OptionA OptionB **OptionC available
? Or will Google see the first title as **OptionA/OptionB/OptionC **being a whole "keyword" due to there being no space between them? Like I've always just assumed that with apostrophised words will be seen as keyword s. And when using commas, there's always a space after the comma anyway. Are all "special characters" treated the same?
-
Thanks for your input, Dan. I won't be using slashes but I was curious as to how they would work with Google.
The category page I had in mind at the time, I had just merged the multiple subcategory pages into the one main category due to cannibalisation evident in rankings (and I was experimenting with how to optimise browser title for previous subcategory-related keywords). The single page is already outperforming the separate pages, but thanks for your suggestion
-
Hi Ria
99.9% certain Google 'sees' all of those as the same in terms of character/word separation. I don't think OptionA/OptionB etc will be seen all as one keyword.
However Patrick has the right idea - to question if you really need one page or if things can be broken into separate pages.
I'd also optimize for readability and clicks too
-Dan
-
I usually use commas as option separators, etc. But when pixel width is limited, sometimes the extra 3 or 4 characters comes in handy for things like Blue/Red/Black/White instead of Blue, Red, Black, White.
The specific example I had in mind in the OP (Awesome Product - OptionA/OptionB/OptionC available), I was actually thinking of a category page I'm working on and not a product (I realise now my choice of example title was confusing).
Originally, category structure was this:
Awesome Product
-
OptionA
-
Lots of products
-
OptionB
-
Lots of products
-
OptionC
-
Lots of products
-
etc
But subcategories have been noticeably slipping over the past year, and I've attributed this down to the landing pages cannibalising each other. So I'm in the process of flattening the whole category and using filters to separate the different product options, and working on strengthening the main category page to accommodate all user search patterns. While drafting a new title for the category page to incorporate the deleted subcategories, I was just curious how Google treats the forward slashes as I'm usually a comma person too. And whether it makes a difference at all to Google.
**TL;DR: **I'll probably stick with the commas because it does look more readable for users, just wondering how Google reads characters like that and whether it extracts the separate keywords OptionA/OptionB/OptionC.
-
-
Hi there
I like the commas - the way you have the /'s in your title make it look like one word. You could do...
Awesome Product - OptionA / OptionB / OptionC available
...but is that really the best title? I'd challenge you to come up with some different titles. If the variants are different enough to warrant their own pages with their own URLs, own descriptions, and markup, then you could create unique page titles that are dedicated to one product.
Hope this helps! Good luck!
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
-
Title Tags for Medical Names
Hi Everyone! I just transitioned into SEO in the medical spectrum and have never come across such long names. In terms of recommendations for character counts in title tags, what would be the recommendation? Write until it gets truncated (which is current state)? Use the abbreviation? Try to ensure the "plain language" words appear towards the front? Any viewpoints would be appreciated!
Keyword Research | | yaelslater1 -
Google and connector words
Hello and straight to the point, How does google treat connector words (the, in, on etc) in relation to keywords ? For example if people are searching for "hardware sydney" but the content on the page uses the phrase "hardware in sydney" does this make a difference to the way Google views the page content? Cheers David.
Keyword Research | | techdesign0 -
Google Adwords Keyword Planner Question
Is the keyword volume data shown the number of google adword clicks people made after searching with the used keyword, or is it the exact match search volume??
Keyword Research | | jennie.evans0 -
Ignore keywords that have no data in the Google Keyword Tool?
Hello, There are some keywords that have no monthly search data in the Google Keyword Tool. In many cases, this is because there have been very few searches for the keyword. Would you recommend focusing on other keywords that do have search data in the Google Keyword Tool? Perhaps focusing too far out on the long tail of search results can be less productive than focusing on keywords that have proven that at least some people care about them. What do you think? Thanks!
Keyword Research | | nyc-seo0 -
Are the Volume numbers from the Keyword Difficulty Tool identical to Google Adwords Keyword Tool?
I use the Keyword Difficulty Tool daily. Because of the troubles with Google's API I can no longer see the search volumes. I still want to use the tool for difficulty numbers because I think this is a much better number than the Google Adwords Competitive bar. If I use the Adwords keyword tool for volume numbers, will that be sufficient? Is this the same as what Moz usually provides? If no, where is the best place to gather volume numbers? Thanks!
Keyword Research | | KevinBloom0 -
Article rewrite tools: do they really do the job to meet google's requirements?
Dear all, I need to produce around 100 articles. I came across several tools which replace some of the words with synonyms. 1- How many words does it need to replace out of 100 words? 2- Which tools do you recommend? 3- Human re writers seems to use the same tools. Which human re writer company do you suggest? 4- Is there any content writing company you suggest? Thanks in advance
Keyword Research | | sarenausa0 -
Does Google gropup similar phrases together as teh same search phrase ?
We have recently been doing a bit of Keyword research using Googles Adwords Keyword tool. This highlighted many variations of a similar search phrase and indicated all had the same number of searches per month. Sush as; "web design in glasgow"
Keyword Research | | kiswebsltd
"website designers glasgow"
"website designer glasgow"
"glasgow web designers" If someone searches on Google for "web design in glasgow" will google rank pages optimised for "website designer glasgow" ? Thank you. Alan0 -
Unusual Words - How to Check what Google Recognises
I want to check which words Google is aware of, I remember Danny Dover talking about "SeoMoz.org" and theorising that Google couldn't understand that SEO was in the URL because it didn't understand that "Moz" was a word and therefore couldn't seperate the 2 words "SEO and "Moz" out. Any ideas, I thought about using Google Instant but as it comes up with "seomoz" when i type in "seom" so am assuming that this detail is taken from a diffrent source. Justin
Keyword Research | | GrouchyKids0