Separation Characters in Title Tag

[gouri]

What format of the title tag does Google prefer?

Building Widgets - Without Machines or Building Widgets ¦ Without Machines

Does one format help to rank higher in the SERP?

[Receptional Andy]

You may be interested in a quick overview of the effect of punctuation on Google results [webmasterworld.com] - some punctuation characters are indexed, some aren't.

Personally, I favour punctuation that isn't indexed, and that naturally appears directly adjacent to a letter. This saves a character and ensures as many words as possible are visible to searchers. But I'm picky ;)

E.g.

My Example Page Title: Example.com

You're unlikely to see any ranking improvement for different punctuation though, unless Google indexes the character, and searches actually include it in their searches. Just use separators that you think look nice :)

[gouri]

Hi Andy,

Is My Example Page Title: Example.com your title tag? Instead of

My Example Page Title - Example.com
or
My Example Page Title ¦ Example.com

I see how this saves a character.

Regarding ranking in the SERP, I think you are saying that you can go with any three of these?

[Receptional Andy]

Essentially those characters are treated as spaces, which are not going to have any noticeable impact on your page's performance.

[gouri]

I hear that but I have to include one of them in some of my title tags for it to make better sense? I guess I have to decide which one to go with.

[MadeWillis]

Possibly look at the current serps you are trying to rank for. Do any of the top 10 use these?

In theory any of the above would be okay, so what would make your listing stand out from others?

I've had some good resutls from just trying to look different, without pushing the limits of crazy obscure characters.

[gouri]

I looked at the current serp and I do see these characters being used. I am not sure if using one of these characters would help my sites to stand out, it would be great if it did, but I think this is something that I have to use so the phrases make better sense.

I have to think about which one to go with.

[johnnie]

I would go for "Widget Building without machines" to be honest. No separator and a nice one for mid- to longtail.