Special characters in URL
-
Will registered trademark symbol within a URL be bad? I know some special characters are unsafe (#, >, etc.) but can not find anything that mentions registered trademark.
Thanks!
-
Jen - I agree with Eli. It's best not to use the TM symbol in a URL string - it will confuse the end user when it's URL encoded and scrambled. Rather, put the mark on your pages and in images.
If you have gone through the registration process with the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office), you should be using the
symbol next to your mark, and not the TM symbol.
According to the Trademark FAQs on the USPTO site: http://www.uspto.gov/faq/trademarks.jsp#_Toc275426682
Do federal regulations govern the use of the designations "TM" or "SM" or the
symbol?
If you claim rights to use a mark, you may use the "TM" (trademark) or "SM" (service mark) designation to alert the public to your claim of a “common-law” mark. No registration is necessary to use a "TM" or "SM" symbol and you may continue to use these symbols even if the USPTO refuses to register your mark. Those symbols put people on notice that you claim rights in the mark, although common law doesn't give you all the rights and benefits of federal registration.
You may only use the federal registration symbol "
" after the USPTO actually registers a mark, not while an application is pending. And it may only be used on or in connection with the goods/services listed in the federal trademark registration and while the registration is still alive (you may not continue to use it if you don’t maintain the registration or it expires). Although there are no specific requirements on where the symbol should be placed relative to the mark, most businesses use the symbol in the upper right corner of the mark. Note: Because several foreign countries use “
” to indicate that a mark is registered in that country, use of the symbol by the holder of a foreign registration may be proper.
From another section_: There are no specific requirements on where the “
” symbol should be placed relative to the mark, but most businesses use the symbol in the upper right corner of the mark._
Hope this helps!
-- Jeff -
Jen,
I'm not sure if it will be bad based on research, but based on what you aim for in a URL (clarity, what the article is about, user experience, descriptive keywords, etc...) the TM Registered may not fit well.
Plus, be careful, your TM (if using symbols) will get changed to
(
) or
(
) in the URL - making it less user friendly to type in (let alone look at)..
Hope this Helps!
Eli Overbey
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
-
Changing URLs for SEO
Hi, Currently we have a page, /business, but we have shifted our strategy to optimize for this page for the keyword "enterprise" instead of "business". The page authority of this page is 18 and our domain authority is 35. I've already updated content and title tags to more of an enterprise focus. Would it be wise to move the page to /enterprise and create a 301 redirect from /business to /enterprise? Or is this too risky from an SEO standpoint? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | mikekeeper0 -
Need help please with url guidelines.
Hi SEO PROS, I have a website and I am planing to change all the urls. I need to know what is the right way of making the urls. Here is some information. We are based in Brooklyn NY and we sell our services to Manhattan clients and Manhattan has few names. NY, NYC, Manhattan and NY. So by looking at my service area I came up with this url. http://www.signsny.com/brooklyn-ny/awnings this is my current url. http://www.signsny.com/sign-types/awnings-canopies-brooklyn-NYC. This is what I am planning to change it to. Please guide me to the right direction, so in future I don't have to re-do them again. Thanks Abie
Technical SEO | | signsny0 -
Case sensitive url's
Hi, Really appreciate advice on this one in advance! We had a problem with case sensitive urls (eg: /web-jobs or /Web-jobs) We added a code to convert all urls into lowercase letters and added 301 redirection. We are now experiencing problems with duplicate page content. Each time a url contains caps letter it is converted and redirected to small letter url. I can convert all urls into lowercase letters (all places) but the problem now is google have already indexed urls so they may cause duplicate content issue. The solution: Remove 301 redirection added to convert url into small letter. Add canonical url which converts url into complete small letter, so google index content only from canonical url. But I am little confused about what will happen to already indexed pages with caps in url. Appreciate any advice you can give? Simon
Technical SEO | | simmo2350 -
Changed URL of all web pages to a new updated one - Keywords still pick the old URL
A month ago we updated our website and with that we created new URLs for each page. Under "On-Page", the keywords we put to check ranking on are still giving information on the old urls of our websites. Slowly, some new URLs are popping up. I'm wondering if there's a way I can manually make the keywords feedback information from the new urls.
Technical SEO | | Champions0 -
Building URL's is there a difference between = and - ?
I have a Product Based Search site where the URL's are built dynamically based on the User input Parameters Currently I use the '=' t o built the URL based on the search parameters for eg: /condition=New/keywords=Ford+Focus/category=Exterior etc Is there any value in using hypen's instead of = ? Could you please help me in any general guidelines to follow
Technical SEO | | Chaits0 -
GWT, URL Parameters, and Magento
I'm getting into the URL parameters in Google Webmaster Tools and I was just wondering if anyone that uses Magento has used this functionality to make sure filter pages aren't being indexed. Basically, I know what the different parameters (manufacturer, price, etc.) are doing to the content - narrowing. I was just wondering what you choose after you tell Google what the parameter's function is. For narrowing, it gives the following options: Which URLs with this parameter should Googlebot crawl? <label for="cup-crawl-LET_GOOGLEBOT_DECIDE">Let Googlebot decide</label> (Default) <label for="cup-crawl-EVERY_URL">Every URL</label> (the page content changes for each value) <label style="color: #5e5e5e;" for="cup-crawl-ONLY_URLS_WITH_VALUE">Only URLs with value</label> ▼(may hide content from Googlebot) <label for="cup-crawl-NO_URLS">No URLs</label> I'm not sure which one I want. Something tells me probably "No URLs", as this content isn't something a user will see unless they filter the results (and, therefore, should not come through on a search to this page). However, the page content does change for each value.I want to make sure I don't exclude the wrong thing and end up with a bunch of pages disappearing from Google.Any help with this is greatly appreciated!
Technical SEO | | Marketing.SCG0 -
Should we introduce subfolders into the URLs on a new site?
A site we are working on currently gives no indication of the subfolders in the URL. Eg. the site uses: www.examplesite.com/brand-name Rather than: www.examplesite.com/popular-products/brand-name There are breadcrumbs on site to show the user what part of the site they are in and how they navigated there. We are building a new site and have to decide what route to take: Since the site is already performing relatively well in the SERPs and the URLs are nice and short this way, is it a good idea to keep them like this or is it better for usability to include the subfolders? This post suggests that we would be best off to keep the URLs as they are - particularly since less would be changed http://www.seomoz.org/blog/should-i-change-my-urls-for-seo Thanks in advance for your opinions! Liz @lizstraws
Technical SEO | | oneresult0 -
Someone is redirecting their url to mine
Hello, I have just discovered that a company in Poland www.realpilot.pl is directing their domain to ours www.transair.co.uk. We have not authorised this, neither do we want this. I have contacted the company and the webmaster to get it removed. If you search for the domain name www.realpilot.pl we (www.transair.co.uk) come up top. My biggest worry is that we will get penalised by Google for this re-direct as it appears to be done using some kind of frame. Does anyone know anything about this kind of thing? Many Thanks Rob Martin
Technical SEO | | brightonseorob0