Wednesday, 10 August 2016

Using non-standard characters ☁ Må®¢ë££å™ • Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ. in the page title and meta description

Using non-standard characters in the page title and meta description tag seems to be a growing trend in many industries. The idea is that by using eye-catching non-standard characters readers attention is drawn to their result first, even in preference to results that may be above them.
The practice of optimising search results to maximise click-through-rate is not a new one and has been used in PPC advertising to good effect for years, but where PPC ads have to go through an approval process (where many techniques are outlawed) meta descriptions and organic results do not, so boundaries can be pushed much further.

Is it ok to use encoded special characters in meta titles?

I've read blog posts stating that encoding special characters in title tags is both ok and not ok. Any definitive answer out there?

Do the extra characters from adding encoding count towards the total number of characters that Google displays in SERPs? Or do they just count as one character?

Tuesday, 9 August 2016

Miscellaneous Symbols


☀2600
☁2601
☂2602
☃2603
☄2604
★2605
☆2606
☇2607
☈2608
☉2609
☊260a
☋260b
☌260c
☍260d
☎260e
☏260f
☐2610
☑2611
☒2612
☓2613
☔2614
☕2615
☖2616
☗2617
☘2618
☙2619
☚261a
☛261b
☜261c
☝261d
☞261e
☟261f
☠2620
☡2621
☢2622
☣2623
☤2624
☥2625
☦2626
☧2627
☨2628
☩2629
☪262a
☫262b
☬262c
☭262d
☮262e
☯262f
☰2630
☱2631
☲2632
☳2633
☴2634
☵2635
☶2636
☷2637
☸2638
☹2639
☺263a
☻263b
☼263c
☽263d
☾263e
☿263f

The following emoji have explicit gender, based on the name and explicit, intentional contrasts with other characters.

U+1F466 boy
U+1F467 girl
U+1F468 man
U+1F469 woman
U+1F474 older man
U+1F475 older woman
U+1F46B man and woman holding hands
U+1F46C two men holding hands
U+1F46D two women holding hands
U+1F6B9 mens symbol
U+1F6BA womens symbol

U+1F478 princess
U+1F46F woman with bunny ears
U+1F470 bride with veil
U+1F472 man with gua pi mao
U+1F473 man with turban
U+1F574 man in business suit levitating
U+1F385 father christmas

Using Special Characters or Unicode in Title Tag or Meta Description

Using non-standard or special character sets within the web page html title and Meta description tag is apparently a growing craze in lots of industrial sectors.

The concept is that by using eye-catching special characters or unicode in title or description tag, searchers focus first is drawn to those websites in search engine result pages, even instead of results that may be above of them.

The method of optimizing Meta tags to increase click-through-rate isn’t a latest one and has been utilized in Pay-per-click advertising for good impact, but where PPC ads need to go through an authorization procedure (where lots of methods are outlawed) Meta tags and search engine organic results don’t, so limits can be pushed much further. Read more. http://www.revenuel.com/using-special-characters-unicode-title-tag-meta-description/

Monday, 8 August 2016

UTF-8 Miscellaneous Symbols

☀97282600 BLACK SUN WITH RAYS
☁97292601 CLOUD
☂97302602 UMBRELLA
☃97312603 SNOWMAN
☄97322604 COMET
★97332605 BLACK STAR
☆97342606 WHITE STAR
☇97352607 LIGHTNING
☈97362608 THUNDERSTORM
☉97372609 SUN
☊9738260A ASCENDING NODE
☋9739260B DESCENDING NODE
☌9740260C CONJUNCTION
☍9741260D OPPOSITION
☎9742260E BLACK TELEPHONE
☏9743260F WHITE TELEPHONE
☐97442610 BALLOT BOX
☑97452611 BALLOT BOX WITH CHECK
☒97462612 BALLOT BOX WITH X
☓97472613 SALTIRE
☔97482614 UMBRELLA WITH RAIN DROPS
☕97492615 HOT BEVERAGE
☖97502616 WHITE SHOGI PIECE
☗97512617 BLACK SHOGI PIECE
☘97522618 SHAMROCK
☙97532619 REVERSED ROTATED FLORAL HEART BULLET
☚9754261A BLACK LEFT POINTING INDEX
☛9755261B BLACK RIGHT POINTING INDEX
☜9756261C WHITE LEFT POINTING INDEX
☝9757261D WHITE UP POINTING INDEX
☞9758261E WHITE RIGHT POINTING INDEX
☟9759261F WHITE DOWN POINTING INDEX
☠97602620 SKULL AND CROSSBONES
☡97612621 CAUTION SIGN
☢97622622 RADIOACTIVE SIGN
☣97632623 BIOHAZARD SIGN
☤97642624 CADUCEUS
☥97652625 ANKH
☦97662626 ORTHODOX CROSS
☧97672627 CHI RHO
☨97682628 CROSS OF LORRAINE
☩97692629 CROSS OF JERUSALEM
☪9770262A STAR AND CRESCENT
☫9771262B FARSI SYMBOL
☬9772262C ADI SHAKTI
☭9773262D HAMMER AND SICKLE
☮9774262E PEACE SYMBOL
☯9775262F YIN YANG
☰97762630 TRIGRAM FOR HEAVEN
☱97772631 TRIGRAM FOR LAKE
☲97782632 TRIGRAM FOR FIRE
☳97792633 TRIGRAM FOR THUNDER
☴97802634 TRIGRAM FOR WIND
☵97812635 TRIGRAM FOR WATER
☶97822636 TRIGRAM FOR MOUNTAIN
☷97832637 TRIGRAM FOR EARTH
☸97842638 WHEEL OF DHARMA
☹97852639 WHITE FROWNING FACE
☺9786263A WHITE SMILING FACE
☻9787263B BLACK SMILING FACE
☼9788263C WHITE SUN WITH RAYS
☽9789263D FIRST QUARTER MOON
☾9790263E LAST QUARTER MOON
☿9791263F MERCURY
♀97922640 FEMALE SIGN

A Guide To Special Character Use In Title Tags

Over the past few months I’ve noticed more title tags and meta descriptions using different types of characters to stand out in the search results. PPC has led the way with uses of planes, bullet points, trade mark symbols. Problem is many adverts get disapproved by Google.
Organically it’s about testing what can and can’t indexed. So below I’ve made a list of characters that will get indexed in a title tag and display in the search engine results. Before the list a few interesting points from this experiment.
  • Using the intitle: command doesn’t work, for example try “intitle:£” in Google and it returns nothing. Yet there are plenty of title tags with the £ symbol.
  • A symbol can be hard-coded into a title tag but when you use a CMS it may try to convert it. Thus meaning to get some of the symbols into titles you’ll need to bypass your CMS or change the way it works.
  • If you have a symbol in the title tag that Google won’t index they’ll skip the character when displaying the title tag in the search result.
To conduct the test I:
  • 11 pages linked to sitewide on another site of mine
  • Each page linked to each other
  • Title tag contacted the special characters, as did the meta description.
  • Waited for all the pages to be indexed and then viewed using a site command with inurl:test as the file names were test1, test2, etc