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
-
SEO advice on ecommerce url structure where categories contain "/c/"
Hi! We use Hybris as plattform and I would like input on which url to choose. We must keep "/c/" before the actual category. c stands for category. I.e. this current url format will be shortened and cleaned:
Technical SEO | | hampgunn
https://www.granngarden.se/Sortiment/Husdjur/Hund/Hundfoder-%26-Hundmat/c/hundfoder To either: a.
https://www.granngarden.se/husdjur/hund/hundfoder/c/hundfoder b.
https://www.granngarden.se/husdjur/hund/c/hundfoder (hundfoder means dogfood) The question is whether we should keep the duplicated category name (hundfoder) before the "/c/" or not. Will there be SEO disadvantages by removing the duplicate "hundfoder" before the "/c/"? I prefer the shorter version ofc, but do not want to jeopardize any SEO rankings or send confusing signals to search engines or customers due to the "/c/" breaking up the url breadcrumb. What do you guys say and prefer from the above alternatives? Thanks /Hampus0 -
Duplicate Title Tags How harmful is it?
I recently updated a site to use a new WordPress theme. This theme in conjunction with Yoast SEO plugin is causing duplicate Title tags. The tags have the same title in them. I discovered this when adding new keywords and pages to the page optimizer in moz. I have since turned off moz to stop the duplicate title tag issue however I am wondering if tuning off yoast is worse then the duplicate title tags. Any clarification on the duplicate page title issue and its consequences would be greatly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | donsilvernail0 -
Duplicate Product Descriptions
Hi All, After a bit of advice please, we will be selling similar products e.g. A chair which comes in different fabrics and finishes, but is basically the same product. Most, if not all of the ‘long’ product descriptions are identical with only the ‘short’ product descriptions being unique. The ‘long’ product descriptions contain all the manufacturing information, leg option/colour information, graphics, dimensions, weight etc etc. I’m concerned that by having 300+ products all with identical ‘long’ descriptions its going to be seen negatively by google and effect the sites SEO. My question is will this be viewed as duplicate content? If so, are there any best practices I should be following for handling this, other than writing completely unique descriptions for each product, which would be extremely difficult given its basically the same products re-hashed. Many thanks in advance for any advice.
Technical SEO | | Jon-S0 -
New Page Showing Up On My Reports w/o Page Title, Words, etc - However, I didn't create it
I have a WordPress site and I was doing a crawl for errors and it is now showing up as of today that this page : https://thinkbiglearnsmart.com/event-registration/?event_id=551&name_of_event=HTML5 CSS3 is new and has no page title, words, etc. I am not even sure where this page or URL came from. I was messing with the robots.txt file to allow some /category/ posts that were being hidden, but I didn't re-allow anything with the above appendages. I just want to make sure that I didn't screw something up that is now going to impact my rankings - this was just a really odd message to come up as I didn't create this page recently - and that shouldnt even be a page accessible to the public. When I edit the page - it is using an Event Espresso (WordPress plugin) shortcode - and I don't want to noindex this page as it is all of my events. Sorry this post is confusing, any help or insight would be appreciated! I am also interested in hiring someone for some hourly consulting work on SEO type issues if anyone has any references. Thank you!
Technical SEO | | webbmason0 -
Links under Meta Description when performing a search
Doing research for clients, I have came across seeing sites displaying hyperlinks underneath their own meta description. keywords that I have googled that result with hyperlinks displaying under meta descriptions: Google'd: iacquire (brand) bmw wheels (Beyern Wheels, position 1) aftermarket bmw wheels (MMR Wheels, position 2) These companys have hyperlinks underneath their descriptions. Anyone have any ideas why this happens or how it happens?
Technical SEO | | frnprz0 -
Magento CMS Page Meta Titles?
Hey All, I'm experiencing a bit of a problem with creating a custom, separate Meta Title for CMS pages in Magento 1.6.1.0. I know this can be added through _CMS => Page => Page Information => Page Title, _but this method presents issues, as a length of 70 characters is a little too long for breadcrumbs. I would like a way to add a second specific meta title field that overrides this first Page Title field_. _ I did find something that does this in Magento Connect for around $50.00USD, but this seems like something that should be easy and free to do. Any suggestions as to a workaround or alternative free plugin would be most welcome! Thanks!
Technical SEO | | G2W0 -
Title Tags in 2013
For blog posts do you think it is better to use something like "Atlanta Plumbing Company" or "Choosing an Atlanta Plumbing Company" (article title). I have been using the article titles but I think it might be hindering rankings a bit. I use to use the keyword but it seems a bit spammy now. I want to create titles for the readers but rank well too. Any suggestions? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | SeattleJoe0 -
Track Backs how to use them
Hi i am trying to learn how to use track backs as a way to get link exposure. Cana anyone please explain to me the importance of them and how to use them please. Would i use one by putting a link back to my site or am i wrong on this. any help would be great
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860