• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. On-Page Optimization
        4. Is it ok to use encoded special characters in meta titles?

        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.

        Is it ok to use encoded special characters in meta titles?

        On-Page Optimization
        2
        6
        13707
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • BostonWright
          BostonWright last edited by

          I've read blog posts stating that encoding special characters in title tags is both ok and not ok. Any definitive answer out there?

          Do the extra characters from adding encoding count towards the total number of characters that Google displays in SERPs? Or do they just count as one character?

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • BostonWright
            BostonWright last edited by

            Thanks that was very helpful!

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • RyanKent
              RyanKent @BostonWright last edited by

              I performed the following Google.com search "SE test insite:seomoz". The result is the page found at: http://www.seomoz.org/q/se-test-jon-goldberg-123-91-389412345678951234567

              The search result appears with the complete title including the full appended " | SEOmoz Q&A" added to the end. All characters appear as entered with none converted.

              Do these results answer your question?

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • RyanKent
                RyanKent @BostonWright last edited by

                I am pretty sure the answer is going to be no. I think the SEs will see the hard-coded characters as what you entered and wont convert them. There is probably a way to get the characters you entered recognized, but I am not sure what the process would be.

                As a test, I made a new Q&A. The title is exactly 57 characters. SEOmoz appends " | SEOmoz Q&A" to the end of each title which is an additional 13 characters. We can check later when the page gets indexed and see what happened.

                http://www.seomoz.org/q/se-test-jon-goldberg-123-91-389412345678951234567

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • BostonWright
                  BostonWright @RyanKent last edited by

                  Sorry for not being more specific. I meant, is it ok to use { in place of { and [ in place of [. I am more concerned with using hard coded special characters having a negative impact on rankings than title length. I've read that Bing tells webmasters not to use <>{} but I've seen elsewhere that these are ok on Google. Would hard coding these make their use acceptable on all SEs?

                  RyanKent 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • RyanKent
                    RyanKent last edited by

                    Do the extra characters from adding encoding count towards the total number of characters that Google displays in SERPs? Or do they just count as one character?

                    Are you referring to foreign characters? Titles such as "Здравейте българи"?

                    They each count as one character.

                    I am basing that understanding on an example I located. When I search the above page in Google the 2nd result shows a title with 60+ visible characters. When I view page source on Google, I see the very long encoded characters which far exceed the 70 character title limit.

                    Example:<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.mydomain.com/Здравейте-българи/" />

                    I know Roger complains during SEOmoz crawls. I wish Roger could be as smart as the Google crawler 🙂

                    BostonWright 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • 1 / 1
                    • First post
                      Last post

                    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.

                    • See all categories

                    Related Questions

                    • annegretwidmer

                      titles length, URL length and meta descriptions on a subdomain effecting SEO on main domain?

                      subdomains optimization

                      Hi all, I am currently evaluating areas for optimization on my main domain. When doing this, Moz has identified multiple titles and urls that should be shortened and missing meta descriptions on my subdomain (a help center of sorts). As far as I am aware, we have not set up any "no-index" rules for this subdomain. Are these items affecting SEO on my main domain? Thanks,
                      Kasey

                      On-Page Optimization | | annegretwidmer
                      0
                    • themegroup

                      Meta descriptions for subpages in the SERPs

                      Hey Mozzers! Something occurred to me the other day was that, while we can write title tags and meta descriptions to be within the character count and therefore appear nice and neatly in the SERPs, when Google et al decide to pull subpages out as further site links, it seems to still pull the normal meta description but with a far lower character count. As this looks untidy and could potentially impact CTR, is there a way I can amend the preferred text for the shortened version, via Webmaster Tools, for example? Thanks in advance for your help! Nick.

                      On-Page Optimization | | themegroup
                      0
                    • JohnHuynh

                      The page is missing meta language information.

                      Hi, I saw my website have a problem about meta language, I do some search and found that I need to add  on the , with 'll' is language code and 'cc' is country code. But I am confused what should I do, because my website is world wide, not launch at specific any language and country. Please give me an advice in this case. Thanks,

                      On-Page Optimization | | JohnHuynh
                      0
                    • DaddySmurf

                      Title tag length

                      Hi, I am fairly new to SEO and have just noticed the end of my title text has been cut off by Google in the serps results. Everything i have read tells me titles should be maximum of 70 characters, however, Google is only displaying 54. See below Security systems | wireless | battery powered | Police... Nobody else on the page is showing more than 54 characters. Am i missing something obvious? Any and all help gratefully appreciated. Thanks Si

                      On-Page Optimization | | DaddySmurf
                      0
                    • ese

                      Prices in title tag

                      At our ecommerce site adwords ads generally perform a lot better when the product price is included in the ad title. Does anyone here have any experience and data on CTR with including product prices in title tags of product / category pages?

                      On-Page Optimization | | ese
                      0
                    • kbaltzell

                      Page Title in Local SEO Title Tags?

                      Hi All, Still working on my title tag usage for local SEO, and I was hoping for some more feedback. My question is this: In Local SEO titles, I'm using location + keyword combinations, unique on each page. However, since each page has a specific title for the client, I figure I should be placing that at the front. My thought here was that this helps with the overall usability to the reader of the website. Ex. Contact Us page for Pizza shop Contact Us | Springfield IN Gourmet Pizza | Moe's Italian Pizza Anyone have thoughts on this one? Thank you!

                      On-Page Optimization | | kbaltzell
                      0
                    • 77Agency

                      URL best practices, use folders or not ?

                      Hi I have a question about URLs. Client have all URL written after domain and have only one / slash in all URLs. Is this best practice or i need to use categories,folders? Thanks

                      On-Page Optimization | | 77Agency
                      0
                    • MichaelWeisbaum

                      Page title getting cut off in SERPS even though it's under 70 characters?

                      I re-wrote the page title of a home page for a site I'm working on and made sure it's under 70 characters (68 to be exact) to comply with best practices and make sure it doesn't get cut-off in the SERPS.  It's still getting cut-off though and right when it gets to the brand/website name.  Does a "-" have anything to do with it?  Does that translate to an elipsis? Format: keywords - website/brand.com Can anybody tell me why this would be happening?

                      On-Page Optimization | | MichaelWeisbaum
                      0

                    Get started with Moz Pro!

                    Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                    Start my free trial
                    Products
                    • Moz Pro
                    • Moz Local
                    • Moz API
                    • Moz Data
                    • STAT
                    • Product Updates
                    Moz Solutions
                    • SMB Solutions
                    • Agency Solutions
                    • Enterprise Solutions
                    • Digital Marketers
                    Free SEO Tools
                    • Domain Authority Checker
                    • Link Explorer
                    • Keyword Explorer
                    • Competitive Research
                    • Brand Authority Checker
                    • Local Citation Checker
                    • MozBar Extension
                    • MozCast
                    Resources
                    • Blog
                    • SEO Learning Center
                    • Help Hub
                    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                    • How-to Guides
                    • Moz Academy
                    • API Docs
                    About Moz
                    • About
                    • Team
                    • Careers
                    • Contact
                    Why Moz
                    • Case Studies
                    • Testimonials
                    Get Involved
                    • Become an Affiliate
                    • MozCon
                    • Webinars
                    • Practical Marketer Series
                    • MozPod
                    Connect with us

                    Contact the Help team

                    Join our newsletter
                    Moz logo
                    © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                    • Accessibility
                    • Terms of Use
                    • Privacy

                    Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.