Smart Traffic SEO Tip #2 – Hyphens versus Pipe Signs – Which one to use in Page Titles?
When putting together a good unique page title for your page you may well need to use a separator between keyphrases and words. The most popular 2 types are hyphens (-) or pipe signs (|) and you will see them widely used throughout the top sites in Google’s index. Of the 2 we prefer the hyphen as we have noticed possible issues with the pipe sign. It appears that sometimes Google has problems reading them when used in a search query.
For example, this page:
http://www.comet.co.uk/shopcomet/category/1954/Laptops has a page title of ‘Laptops | Laptops | Comet’.
When searching for this in Google you would expect to see it listed number one as it would mean it is being seen as authoritative for its own page title. If not we could assume there may be some sort of penalty on the page.
However, for this page it is not ranking first, see here:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=Laptops+|
+Laptops+|+Comet&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=
If we remove the pipe signs and replace with hyphens like this: ‘Laptops – Laptops – Comet’ it does rank first, see here:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=Laptops+-+Laptops+-+Comet&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=
We have noticed on quite a few occasions on different sites and is why we prefer to recommend the hyphen sign as a divider between words just in case it is an issue.
