Bars Verus Hyphens in Title Tags

[DRSearchEngOpt]

It has been quite a while since I have seen an article really talk about this and I am wondering if this even matters anymore?  I prefer the look of a - rather than a | but just wondering if this is still a thing... If you know of a recent article going into findings on this supporting one or the other it would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[maxweb]

The main thin I consider is that the maximum size of the title is defined by the pixel-width, not by the character count. For this reason, I prefer "|" as you can fit more on it. But for individual services on a brand with a short name, "-" can be preferable.

[TomRayner]

Hi Thomas

It really does not matter anymore. If anything, there might be more reason to use a hyphen rather than a |.

Starting about a year ago, Google seemed to be rewriting the title tags of pages that looked like: "Keyword 1 | Keyword 2 | Brand.com" into "Brand.com: Keyword 1 | Keyword 2"  - Here's an article on that.  I've seen it happen with hyphens too but far less often.

But in any case, use whichever option you prefer. I like the hyphen too, but there's nothing right or wrong with either - just be sure to make your title tag designed for the user and for clicks rather than search engines (out with the example I used earlier, in with "Get Keyword 1 with free USA delivery - Brand" style title tags - and make sure it will show up in search and not be shortened.  You can use Moz's title tag tool for that.

Hope this helps.

[EGOL]

Use a colon.   Requires one less space.