Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Special Characters in Title Tags & Meta Descriptions
-
Do special characters, such as the "&" symbol or a "," in title tags and meta descriptions negatively affect your ranking in search engines? Any feedback is much appreciated.
Thank you!
-
They will not negatively effect your SEO. In general the pipe character " | " is used to separate title segments. Further situations make sense as well like "&" is used to shorten "and" since "and" is generally of no value. Thus, "&" saves you 2 characters.
For example the title of this page is:
Special Characters in Title Tags & Meta Descriptions | Moz Q&A
Hope this helps,
Don
-
Interesting information. Thank you.
-
For your reference:
- http://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/community/q/is-it-ok-to-use-encoded-special-characters-in-meta-titles
- http://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/community/q/are-ampersands-in-title-tags-helpful-or-harmful
- http://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/community/q/using-commas-in-the-tittle-tag
The general thought is that they will take up valuable ranking landscape, since your title lengths are limited to begin with.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Problems with Meta Title on Bing
On the Bing search engine, it isn't showing the actual meta title we have for a website. It's showing something different. However, the correct meta title is showing on the Google search engine. Has anyone had the same issue? Has anyone been able to fix this issue? Thanks for your help!
Technical SEO | | Harrison.Stickboy0 -
If you use canonicals do the meta descriptions need to be different?
For example, we have 3 different subsites with the same pages. We will put canonicals so they reference the main pages. Do the meta descriptions have to be different for each of the three pages? How does Google handle meta data when using canonicals?
Technical SEO | | Shirley.Fenlason0 -
How long does Google takes to re-index title tags?
Hi, We have carried out changes in our website title tags. However, when I search for these pages on Google, I still see the old title tags in the search results. Is there any way to speed this process up? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Kilgray0 -
Templates for Meta Description, Good or Bad?
Hello, We have a website where users can browse photos of different categories. For each photo we are using a meta description template such as: Are you looking for a nice and cool photo? [Photo name] is the photo which might be of interest to you. And in the keywords tags we are using: [Photo name] photos, [Photo name] free photos, [Photo name] best photos. I'm wondering, is this any safe method? it's very difficult to write a manual description when you have 3,000+ photos in the database. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | TheSEOGuy10 -
Page titles in browser not matching WP page title
I have an issue with a few page titles not matching the title I have In WordPress. I have 2 pages, blog & creative gallery, that show the homepage title, which is causing duplicate title errors. This has been going on for 5 weeks, so its not an a crawl issue. Any ideas what could cause this? To clarify, I have the page title set in WP, and I checked "Disable PSP title format on this page/post:"...but this page is still showing the homepage title. Is there an additional title setting for a page in WP?
Technical SEO | | Branden_S0 -
Yoast SEO Plugin and Theme Conflict - Meta Tags
I have installed yoast seo plugin and a theme that I purchased.
Technical SEO | | vivadata
I have added site title and meta description for the index page through yoast seo plugin see here http://screencast.com/t/AdjMynym8Tm however this does not work as can be seen on the test site
http://importingtips.com/test/ does anyone have any advice? Thanks0 -
SEO plugin by Yoast messing up my title/meta description
Hey guys, I'm having some issues with my wordpress blog, and I believe SEO plugin by Yoast could be the one causing it. I have set a title for my wordpress blog, and a tagline. This was set in dashboard > settings > general Under "titles and metas" > home in the plugin it says, title: %%sitename%% %%page%% %%sep%% %%sitedesc%%, and meta description is blank. The reports on seomoz says my title is title+meta description - making it to long (to many characters). What could be the issue here? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | danielpett0 -
Special characters in URL
Hi There, We're in the process of changing our URL structure to be more SEO friendly. Right now I'm struggling to find a good way to handle slashes that are part of a targeted keyword. For example, if I have a product page and my product title is "1/2 ct Diamond Earrings in 14K Gold" which of the following URLs is the right way to go if I'm targeting the product title as the search keyword? example.com/jewelry/1-2-ct-diamond-earrings-in-14k-gold example.com/jewelry/12-ct-diamond-earrings-in-14k-gold example.com/jewelry/1_2-ct-diamond-earrings-in-14k-gold example.com/jewelry/1%2F2-ct-diamond-earrings-in-14k-gold Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Richline_Digital0