Using alt-codes such as ? in META title / description
-
Noticed a search result recently that really caught my eye and certainly stood out among the other 10 results on the page, the META description contained the following snippet:
"Learn more about our ★★★★★ rated service..."
Any opinions on how using such alt-chars might effect search positioning when used in either the title or description META tags? The starts certainly looked very different to anything else on the page...
The claim of 5 star rated service was pretty much accurate so it was genuine and fair to use it...
-
Just my opinion here, since you have some great answers already:
I might be completely alone on this, but I definitely would encourage testing. Mock up some SERPs and do some user testing with Mechanical Turk to judge if it looks spammy, enticing etc..
Here's an example from Australia - Look for Travel Insurance Direct (should be #1) http://dis.tl/vph36j
I think it might be the only way we can add our personal touch in SERPs and I love creativity. Good luck!
-
I agree if it works them who am i to say it spammy, but then, what works for one person, may turn others off. but if the overall numbers increase then go for it.
Yanniocks example looks ok, not so spammy.
-
From a design standpoint I would say it could definitely be spammy if used obnoxiously. Similar to people using multiple exclamation points to get a point across.
From a marketing standpoint if it improves your CTR to put it into the description I say go for it.
I would however keep it out of the title tag.
Knowing that the title tag is heavily weighted I would try to get the best text in there as possible and provide context that helps your rankings and your CTR.
Finally I believe it has been mentioned in several places that using special characters in title tags is not the best idea as you aren't always sure how they will be treated by bots, or play with the algorithm.
So to me I would say use it tastefully (showing off your star rating is probably OK), and I would probably only put it in the description since this isn't heavily weighed in rankings, and is just used for messaging most of the time anyway.
-
A big player in the clothing retail in The Netherlands (where I live) is using it succesfuly. Look at this query and their results:
http://www.google.nl/search?q=zalando
Use it wisely. I agree with Alan that it can look spammy. So use a meta description viewer so you can immediatly judge if wat you made looks OK in the SE's. It definitely draws in my attention.
-
Well if Google is cool with it and it greatly increases click thru rates, it may be worth exploring.
Maybe not five stars in a row (that looks a bit over the top) but using a heart for example could be a good eye catcher.
-
I agree with Alan that if you put the stars in like that it looks spammy.
Perhaps the stars you are seeing are coming from reviews that are showing because the site is using Schema.org vocabulary on their pages.
See this excellent blog by CraigBradford:
Schema.org - Why You're Behind if You're Not Using It...
These stars are legitimate and the kind worth posting, but it will be some work for you.
HTH
-
My guess is this won't help and can only hurt in the title tag, since it is used for determining rankings, but could be used with no negative or positive rankings effects in the meta description which is not part of the ranking algorithm.
So I would experiment with this as a method of increasing click thru rate and test it on a small number of URLs.This could be an alternative to getting stars on a search result when you don't actually have ratings on a page that can be displayed by using microformatting.
-
i think it looks spammy myself. Just my opinion
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
Meta Data Question
Hi There, I am working on the umbraco CMS and we have a Menu page which sits under one page on the CMS. When accessing this page on the front end and navigating between the food menu / drinks menu, the url changes depending on which content you are on, however i have only one place to input a meta title and description meaning that it is seeing them as duplicate content as both the drinks menu url and food menu url are showing the same meta data. Hopefully this makes sense, does anyone have anything similair where a url change happens when content within the page changes.
Technical SEO | | AlexStanleyGK0 -
Exact Match Domain & Title Tag / URL
I currently own an exact match domain for my keyword. I have it set up with multiple pages and also a blog. The home page essentially serves as a hub and contains links to all the pages and the blog. My targeted keyword is on its own page and I made the title tag the same as my keyword. As an example the URL for my targeted post looks like this: benefitsofrunningshoes.com/benefits-of-running-shoes I have solid, non-spammy content and clean whitehat earned backlinks directing to that specific page. My concern right now is that the URL looks kinda spammy. The website has been live for about a week and the home page ranks well enough but my targeted page is no where to be found. (it does show up if I manually search via search command "site:benefitsofrunningshoes.com"). I'm wondering if it is acceptable to use the exact keyword in title tag / page url if it is also in the domain as an EMD? Should I change the title tag and leave the URL in? Or should I completely change the title tag and URL and 301 redirect to the new page? I appreciate any help!
Technical SEO | | Kusanagi170 -
Http:// to https:// 301 or 302 redirect
I've read over the Q & A in the Community, but am wondering the reasoning behind this issue. I know - 301's are permanent and pass links, and 302s are temporary (due to cache) and don't pass links. But, I've run across two sites now that 302 redirect http:// to https://. Is there a valid reason behind this? From my POV and research, the redirect should 301 if it's permanent, but is there a larger issue I am missing?
Technical SEO | | FOTF_DigitalMarketing1 -
Is any code to prevent duplicate meta description on blog pages
Is any code to prevent duplicate meta description on blog pages I use rell canonical on blog page and to prevent duplicate title y use on page category title de code %%page%% Is there any similar code so to description?
Technical SEO | | maestrosonrisas0 -
Meta Description: How to Implement It?
I'm pretty new to SEO and am starting to implement the knowledge that I've learned into the websites that I'm working on. The websites have already been created but without Meta-descriptions. My problem is that when I try to implement a Meta Description it moves the whole website text and design. I am using Wordpress to manage and edit the sites. Any help would be great. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | amnistech1 -
Missing page titles
Does anyone know why my SeoMoz crawl reads my page titles differen't to what they truly are on my active site? I changed my pages titles and optimised them several months ago. Is my old page titles still been crawled rather than the new ones how do i fix this is?
Technical SEO | | gimes0 -
Best practice: unique meta descriptions on blog 'tag' pages
Hi everyone, I'm curious, are there best practices for introducing unique meta descriptions on blog tag pages (I'm using wordpress)? For instance, using platinum seo, on an original post, the meta description is either the excerpt or a specified custom sentence. It doesn't appear that platinum seo allows for custom descriptions on tag pages. Love to hear your thoughts. Thanks! Peter
Technical SEO | | peterdbaron1 -
Meta description tag missing in crawl diagnostics
Each week I've been looking at my crawl diagnostics and seomoz still flags a few pages with missing meta description although they are definitely in there. Any ideas on why this would be happening?
Technical SEO | | British_Hardwoods0