Unexpected behaviour when using a comma in the post title

This question has come up previously with respect not only to all punctuation in the title (I just finished a blog post where WPSEO found no matches among any fields involved) with respect to the URL or keyword but also to all other relevant fields like meta-descriptions. One simply cannot punctuate a permalink, yet WPSEO cannot match a permalink to a punctuated page title or meta-description.

I don’t know that I’d describe it as either on purpose or a bug, but rather as a still unsolved problem in the core architecture of the plugin as its users employ it.

I also don’t know whether this is done on purpose which is why I used the term ‘unexpected behaviour’.

In practice this means that you can never get a ‘green dot’ when you use a comma in your post title after a focus keyword. I am fully aware that not getting a ‘green dot’ isn’t a dealbreaker but it sure does confuse users.

That is why it would be great if anyone from Yoast could shed some light on this.

Guys,

The “green dot” doesn’t mean anything. It is purely for our reference. It is a teaching aid to get us to create SEO content. Just because the plugin isn’t catching this doesn’t mean that your keyword doesn’t exist in that position. Use the green dot as more of a guide. Is it yellow without that one keyword instance? If so, you know that you would be green if it caught this keyword. Thus, your page is optimized well, despite the color of a button on the plugin. You have to remember that except for the meta stuff that the plugin takes care of, the plugin isn’t doing your SEO. It is simply teaching us how to. Know that google will strip that comma and read your keyword.

Did you actually read my comment? The usefulness of the coloured indicator has nothing to do with the issue I have reported.

This issue is about the fact that there are users who try to optimize their blogposts and then get confused because the indicator does not work when they use a comma (or a hyphen, dot etc.) in the post title.

So the indicator, which is as you say purely for reference, gives an unreliable signal. The value of the indicator has been discussed before but that is not the issue here.