Welcome our webmaster and SEO forum
Please enjoy the forum, contribute what you can, and wind up the Moderators!
Closed Thread
Results 1 to 6 of 6

Thread: Meta Description ampersand

  1. #1
    matthewk is offline Junior Member matthewk is on a distinguished road
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Posts
    1

    Question Meta Description ampersand

    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
    Last edited by matthewk; 12-06-2009 at 02:45 PM.

  2. #2
    RDragos is offline Senior Member RDragos is on a distinguished road
    Join Date
    Nov 2009
    Posts
    190

    Default

    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.

    Sports Dating
    Meet singles on Online Dating USA website

  3. #3
    airforce1's Avatar
    airforce1 is offline Senior Member airforce1 is on a distinguished road
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Posts
    204

    Default

    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,

  4. #4
    cineclube's Avatar
    cineclube is offline Junior Member cineclube is on a distinguished road
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Posts
    8

    Thumbs up

    Quote Originally Posted by airforce1 View Post
    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

  5. #5
    RDragos is offline Senior Member RDragos is on a distinguished road
    Join Date
    Nov 2009
    Posts
    190

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by airforce1 View Post
    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.

    Sports Dating
    Meet singles on Online Dating USA website

  6. #6
    TaylorSEO is offline Junior Member TaylorSEO is on a distinguished road
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Posts
    4

    Default

    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.

Closed Thread

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

     

Tags for this Thread

Bookmarks

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts

Search Engine Friendly URLs by vBSEO 3.6.0

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124