What is the best separator for the title tag for SEO.
This
<title>This is a sample title - mysite.com</title>
or
<title>This is a sample title | mysite.com</title>
In Wordpress the SEO pack's default is |. What is the best separator as it relates to SEO? Why?
Honestly these types of little things don't have much of a factor in SE algorithms.. the real factor in determining ranking is your content, make sure it's accessible and relevant to the user, make sure the crawlers can get to it.
No one knows for sure, because the specifics of search rankings are secret. However, I think it's reasonable to assume that they'd be both fairly equal in effect.
The more important thing is to put the page specific title first, then the site name, which you've done.
No real difference I think, beyond visual effect.
Makes a difference when saving the file (browser usually takes the title as file name) or dragging the URL to a folder (in Windows), as the pipe cannot be used in the file name (.html or .url) so have to be removed or replaced. Pipes are also annoying when I use Make Link Firefox extension with Wiki markup (as pipe is used as separator between link name and URL).
So pipe is slightly more annoying for these cases...
As former answers, it probably does not matter technically but you should consider maximizing the readability so users decide to click yours.
Especially for longer titles "-" is a better separator.