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.
Are ALL CAPS construed as spamming if they are used in a meta description tag call to action?
-
I know this seems like an old school question. As a long time SEO I would never use ALL CAPS in a title tag (unless a brand name is capitalized). However I recently came across a Moz video about creating better calls to action in the meta description tags. Some of the examples had CTAs that were using all caps (i.e. CALL NOW! or LOWEST QUOTES!)
I realize there is a debate about the user experience implications. However I'm more concerned about search engines penalizing websites that are using ALL CAPS CTAs in their meta description tags.
Any feedback/advice would be appreciated.
Thanks
-
Hi,
I'm using CTA in all caps and many other SEO's also used and not heard any penalty due to this ever. Second meta description is not a ranking factor it is just to increase CTR.
**Don't use whole meta description in caps only CTA part in caps e.g FREE DELIVERY OR FREE SHIPPING.
Thanks
-
Hi Rosemary,
I know ALL CAPS have been known to hurt CTR. If I am searching google and I see a title tag or meta description with phrases in all caps like CHEAP, BUY HERE, etc., I tend to lean toward the opinion of thinking the content is spammy and click on something that looks a bit more professional.
Also, take a look at Googles product search editorial guidelines here. https://support.google.com/manufacturers/answer/6124110?hl=en
In it they state, "Avoid any repeated and unnecessary use of punctuation, capitalization or symbols. Don't use exclamation points in your product titles. The use of symbols, numbers, and letters should adhere to the true meaning of the symbol."
I would err on the side of caution purely because CAPS can hurt CTR. I don't think there is a consensus on whether or not CAPS can help/hurt your ranking in the SERPs (there has been evidence that suggests both) from an SEO perspective.
Hope that helps!
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
-
How does product category description affect SEO?
Hi - we are a website that sells tours. We have category pages that list the tours in that category (by city, by length of time, theme, etc). At the top of each category page, before the buttons linking to the tours, there is a category description. It is a pretty long paragraph. We are redesigning the website and think it would look nicer to show 2-3 lines of text and then have a down arrow and 'read' more so people can click and it would expand to show the full category description if they want to read it and it won't take up so much room that way. My question is - will this affect SEA at all? Or because the text is still there, just hidden, it won't do anything? Our site ranks very high in organic searches on google and we do not want to do anything that will hurt SEO. thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Shirapn0 -
Meta-description issue in SERPs for different countries
I'm working with a US client on the SEO for their large ecommerce website, I'm working on it from the UK. We've now optimised several of the pages including updating the meta-descriptions etc. The problem is when I search on the keyword iin the UK I see the new updated version of the meta-description in SERPs results. BUT when my client searches on the same keyword in the US they're see the old version of the meta-description. Does any one have any idea why this is happening and how we can resolve it? Thanks Tanya
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TanyaKorteling0 -
Video titles and descriptions
Hi everyone, I have a question about embedding videos on a website: if you optimize the title and description for the video in Youtube, will these be taken into account for the ranking of the page where the video is embedded? Or will only the Youtube link for the video show in SERP's, instead of the page itself? I've read in a post of Phil Nottingham that it's usually not a good idea to embed a Youtube video on your own site, but use Wistia instead, exactly to avoid cannibalisation of your own rankings. Is this correct? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mat_C0 -
Changing title tags - any potential issues?
Hello all, I am planning to change the title tags throughout a site and am vaguely aware (perhaps wrongly!) that changing title tags across a site is a risk factor - can be a spam flag if changes (to a specific title tag) are implemented too regularly, for example. Would you change title tags across a site in one go, or implement changes gradually - to avoid any risk of upsetting Google. Do you have any insights/tips on the implementation of title tag changes?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart1 -
Description vs meta description
I have an e-commerce website and am trying to create product category pages. I am under the impression that Description is the text that would appear under the title on a google search and I believe the meta description is just what google reads? Is having BOTH important or just description? Is it ok to duplicate the description for the meta description? I know its not good to duplicate descriptions on other products and pages.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nchachula0 -
Should you use a canonical tag on translated content in a multi-language country?
A customer of ours has a website in Belgium. There two main languages in Belgium: Dutch and French.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Zanox
At first there was only a Dutch version with a .be extension. Right now they are implementing the French Belgium version on the URL website.be/fr. All of the content and comments will be translated. Also the URL’s will change from Dutch to French, so you've got two URL’s with the same content but in another language. Question: Should you use a canonical tag on translated content in a multi-language country? I think Google will understand this is just for the usability for a Multilanguage country. What do you guys think???0 -
Noindex a meta refresh site
I have a client's site that is a vanity URL, i.e. www.example.com, that is setup as a meta refresh to the client's flagship site: www22.example.com, however we have been seeing Google include the Vanity URL in the index, in some cases ahead of the flagship site. What we'd like to do is to de-index that vanity URL. We have included a no-index meta tag to the vanity URL, however we noticed within 24 hours, actually less, the flagship site also went away as well. When we removed the noindex, both vanity and flagship sites came back. We noticed in Google Webmaster that the flagship site's robots.txt file was corrupt and was also in need of fixing, and we are in process of fixing that - Question: Is there a way to noindex vanity URL and NOT flagship site? Was it due to meta refresh redirect that the noindex moved out the flagship as well? Was it maybe due to my conducting a google fetch and then submitting the flagship home page that the site reappeared? The robots.txt is still not corrected, so we don't believe that's tied in here. To add to the additional complexity, the client is UNABLE to employ a 301 redirect, which was what I recommended initially. Anyone have any thoughts at all, MUCH appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ACNINTERACTIVE0
