Ampersand Character Codes And The Title Tag Options

[b-cubed]

Hi,

Just wondering what is the best practice when it comes to ampersand character codes in the title tag.

By ampersand character codes I mean & for an ampersand (&) and > for greater than (>) etc.

Do you

1) leave them as "&"
2) change then the "&"
3) modify the title so that it contains the word "and"

Thanks for any responses in advance.

[dharrison]

The few times I've used them, I've used & which seems to work.

HTH

[rolf]

As far as I can tell it's fine whatever way you do it, so & vs. & makes no difference and & vs. and should be made based on what you think looks best.

I believe most (all?) of the engines consider and/or/not/etc. to be boolean, so it doesn't even matter from a search query point of view either.

[dharrison]

If you're validating your pages, the W3C validator chokes on '&'

Either "&" or "and" is the workaround.

HTH

[b-cubed]

As far as I can tell it's fine whatever way you do it, so & vs. & makes no difference and & vs. and should be made based on what you think looks best.

I believe most (all?) of the engines consider and/or/not/etc. to be boolean, so it doesn't even matter from a search query point of view either.

mmmm I think that they must consider "and" different to "&"...

as my site has a different ranking in google if you use "x and y" rather than "x & y" but it is a phrase that normally contains an "and" (like salt and pepper / cheese and onion)

what should you do in cases like this?

stick to 1 phrase or go 50/50?

[Jill]

My guess is that most people use the word "and" when searching, not the & since you have to hit the shift key to use it.

[b-cubed]

My guess is that most people use the word "and" when searching, not the & since you have to hit the shift key to use it.

That's logical.

I will make most of my pages use "and" but leave at least one using "&" just in case anyone does use that in their search.

[qwerty]

I wonder what percentage of searchers have taken the "The "AND" operator is unnecessary -- we include all search terms by default" message to heart and started searching for [this that] instead of [this and that]. Personally, I drop the conjunction unless I'm searching for an exact phrase, or I'm selecting text that happens to include it and searching on that from a right click.

[drmadcow]

I usually base these things on Validations. If the validator doesn't complain its fine (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[torka]

Uhmmm, maybe I'm missing something. But how does a validator tell you which version of the phrase the real human users are going to be using in search? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dntknw.gif) Cuz, ideally, that would be the one you'd want to optimize for, I would think. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/goodjob.gif)

--Torka (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mf_prop.gif)

[oneofthe3lions]

I personally have tested both these versions.

'and' is still used more than '&' by searchers. However with the serps trying to dismiss the and type words the difference in serps in negligable and only really with 'exact' phrase matching'.

We choose to keep '&' (entered as &amp) as it looks tidier in my opinion to the viewer. Also I dont have the 'should i capitalise the first letter of the word' situation.

Also, it can depend on the way we speak of course.. I would suggest that we actually say & ('n' 'un' etc) mentally as oppose to 'and' So to most of us 'cheese n onion' not 'cheese and onion' therefore the sound of the word can make a impact.. I think that '&' keeps the connection between the words better.

[webd]

If you want an ampersand it is correct to use & and not &. It won't validate because certain characters (like ampersand and angle brackets) should be substituted with html entities.

For more information search Google for html entities...