diff --git a/public/src/utils.js b/public/src/utils.js
index 944929e486..7be7618225 100644
--- a/public/src/utils.js
+++ b/public/src/utils.js
@@ -126,6 +126,9 @@
 			return str;
 		},
 
+		removePunctuation: function(str) {
+			return str.replace(/[\.,-\/#!$%\^&\*;:{}=\-_`~()?]/g, '');
+		},
 
 		isEmailValid: function(email) {
 			return typeof email === 'string' && email.length && email.indexOf('@') !== -1;
diff --git a/src/topics/create.js b/src/topics/create.js
index 64c95983af..de9b51d87d 100644
--- a/src/topics/create.js
+++ b/src/topics/create.js
@@ -54,14 +54,13 @@ module.exports = function(Topics) {
 				db.sortedSetAdd('topics:tid', timestamp, tid);
 				plugins.fireHook('action:topic.save', tid);
 
+				Topics.createTags(data.tags, tid, timestamp);
 				user.addTopicIdToUser(uid, tid, timestamp);
 
 				db.sortedSetAdd('categories:' + cid + ':tid', timestamp, tid);
 				db.incrObjectField('category:' + cid, 'topic_count');
 				db.incrObjectField('global', 'topicCount');
 
-				Topics.createTags(data.tags, tid, timestamp);
-
 				callback(null, tid);
 			});
 		});
diff --git a/src/topics/tags.js b/src/topics/tags.js
index 7d36c8c678..275eb2dd94 100644
--- a/src/topics/tags.js
+++ b/src/topics/tags.js
@@ -2,14 +2,16 @@
 'use strict';
 
 var async = require('async'),
-	db = require('../database');
+	db = require('../database'),
+	utils = require('../../public/src/utils');
 
 module.exports = function(Topics) {
 
 	Topics.createTags = function(tags, tid, timestamp) {
 		if(Array.isArray(tags)) {
 			for (var i=0; i<tags.length; ++i) {
-				tags[i] = tags[i].trim().toLowerCase();
+				tags[i] = utils.removePunctuation(tags[i].trim().toLowerCase()).substr(0, 20); // TODO: make max length configurable
+
 				db.sortedSetAdd('tag:' + tags[i] + ':topics', timestamp, tid);
 				db.setAdd('topic:' + tid + ':tags', tags[i]);
 				db.setAdd('tags', tags[i]);