Meta Description ampersand

[matthewk]

Hi
I was going through my site and was going to make it xhtml w3c compliant as this is my doctype and I had read somewhere that making your site compliant with your doctype can affect your rankings on yahoo.
I have got to the meta description on my homepage and it contains an ampersand like this: & instead of &
I have had this meta description for a while and it is giving me good results, will google see this as a change to my meta description and therefore penalise me for it? I read that changing your description can affect your rankings (for obvious reasons).
I don't want to risk losing my rankings, but at the same time i'd like my site to conform to xhtml compliance.

Anyone think i'm worring about nothing? Should I just leave it? I'm wondering if I should just change my doctype to basic html

[RDragos]

Indeed, changing your description will affect search engines, but not too much, comparing to rewriting urls or other big changes to your website. You can also use another SEO Forum to find answers to your problems. You can see different points of view.

[airforce1]

Hi, matthewk

I think & is OK for meta description tags and I got a news from other forums that Google would omit the meta description tags in the future someday.

Have a nice day,

[cineclube]

Hi, matthewk

I think & is OK for meta description tags and I got a news from other forums that Google would omit the meta description tags in the future someday.

Have a nice day,

i think this too

[RDragos]

Hi, matthewk

I think & is OK for meta description tags and I got a news from other forums that Google would omit the meta description tags in the future someday.

Have a nice day,

That is because many webmasters use the meta keys to spam.

[TaylorSEO]

Hi matthewk,

Google no longer factor meta kewords or meta descriptions into their algorithm. You could remove them completely and not see a change in your rankings.

However, it IS worth keeping them for the following reasons:

1. Some search engines still use keywords to categories pages.

2. The meta description is visible to searches in Google's result listings. It is essentially your call to action, enticing visitors to click your link, not your competitors. Write one for your potential prospect, not Google and you should notice an improved click through rate.