Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. On-Page Optimization
    4. "And" vs "&"

    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.

    "And" vs "&"

    On-Page Optimization
    4
    4
    3656
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • lwilkins
      lwilkins last edited by

      I blog for hotels and I am wondering whether it is best to have on a wordpress tagline the name of the hotel such as Holiday Inn and Suites vs Holiday Inn & Suites. In Google AdWords, the "and" keyword always beats out the "&" word in exact search. The "&" just always looks cleaner. Also, when I refer to the hotel within a blog post, should I use the "and" or "&" in the name? Please help me understand which is best for seo.

      Thank you!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • NewGlobalVentures.comSEOTexas
        NewGlobalVentures.comSEOTexas last edited by

        Great question, but Ryan and de4e pretty much covered it.

        Also keep in mind that the ampersand symbol can also be interpreted as & and that may hurt you. It may be that focusing JUST on Holiday Inn versus the others will no doubt provide the best return.

        Always remember that you are writing to the general public and most of them or us 😄 tend to use short layman terms so that renders the "and Suites" somewhat obsolete.

        Cheers!

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • RyanKent
          RyanKent last edited by

          Unless your client specifically requests (or rather demands) to be referred to by their complete name I would suggest simply using "Holiday Inn". Google's KeyWord tool shows the following traffic for the terms:

          Holiday Inn and Suites - 1900 searches/month

          Holiday Inn & Suites - 590 searches/month

          Holiday Inn - 1 million searches/month

          By adding "and Suites" or "& Suites" you are diluting your main focus "Holiday Inn". Literally 99.9% of your traffic is from "Holiday Inn". I would highly recommend dropping the rest. If you have to include it, I would use the text "and" version. Not only does it have more exact matches but when converting the text to a URL software will often replace the & symbol with the letter "a". Holiday Inn & Suites becomes /holiday-inn-a-suites which is less desirable.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
          • de4e
            de4e last edited by

            There are both stop words, and most SE's ignore them. they apply in SERP only if you search exactly "and".

            So (Holiday Inn and Suites)=(Holiday Inn & Suites) , but if they search ("Holiday Inn and Suites ")  he find only page with exactly phrase.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
            • 1 / 1
            • First post
              Last post

            Got a burning SEO question?

            Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


            Start my free trial


            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.

            • See all categories

            Related Questions

            • Jason-Rogers

              Does blogging with a wysiwyg negatively affect SEO (vs. hand coding)?

              Many bloggers use a wysiwyg editor to write posts. Are there any drawbacks to wysiwyg vs plain text? When I write blogs I prefer to hand code my text to be sure everything is optimized. My feeling is that wysiwyg leads to code bloat and generally fewer optimization opportunities. I have no real evidence. Is there any reason not to use the wysiwyg editor?

              On-Page Optimization | | Jason-Rogers
              0
            • Dan-Lawrence

              Duplicate Content Re: Product listing body copy on Website, Amazon & Ebay - issues ?

              Hi Is it ok to have identical product body copy on market/platform listings same as the websites product listings ? In this case the products are the websites/own brand products (all pages canonicalised), so i take it shouldn't cause any issues or are you supposed to differentiate the product body copy on marketplace listings ? Im asking re seo reasons All Best Dan

              On-Page Optimization | | Dan-Lawrence
              0
            • StudioCiteroni

              Can "window.location" javascript on homepage affect seo?

              Hi! I need to add a splashpage to my wordpress site. I use "window.location" javascript on the homepage to redirect on the splashpage (controlled by cookie to redirect only for the first access). Can this technique affect the SEO on homepage? Thanks in advance!

              On-Page Optimization | | StudioCiteroni
              0
            • cschwartzel

              What are "stop" words in Title Tags?

              My client is following his GoDaddy SEO Checklist, and it is reporting 5 errors in Title Tags, saying the Titles contain "stop" words. I can't figure out what these are. Any ideas?

              On-Page Optimization | | cschwartzel
              0
            • JoshuaLindley

              Inches or " Feet or ' Does Google translate the symbols?

              I have a client who sells things that the size is important.  In their industry some people say "15 Inch Blue Widget" and others say "15" Blue Widget" using the symbol " for inches.  On the page I know we could say both to cover all the bases but I want to get the title right.  In their industry there is not one more preferred than the other.  Does anybody know if Google translates ' to feet and " to inches.  Should I work both into the title for a product or only one?

              On-Page Optimization | | JoshuaLindley
              0
            • OVJ

              Redirecting deleted posts 301 vs 302

              There is a category on WP where job ads are posted. when a post got deleted I would like to pass 404 error page and redirect all those deleted posts to specific category. I found WP plugin Auto Redirect 404 in 301 for Trashed Posts which does redirect deleted post to specific URL. But posts which are in the trash (not permanently deleted) will get 302 redirects. Those deleted permanently will get 301 redirects. Should I try editing this plugin or find another why? Maybe there is similar way with Redirection plugin?  

              On-Page Optimization | | OVJ
              0
            • HiddenPeak

              Blog on Subdomain vs. Subdirectory - Best Practices

              Hi, I have recently been told that it no longer impacts authority or rankings if a blog is set up on a subdomain (blog.domain.com) rather than a subdirectory (/blog). However, I am reluctant to do so because I remember learning how blog subdomains did not adhere to SEO best practices. Would anyone be able to shed some light on the latest SEO best practices regarding this topic? Many thanks, Erin

              On-Page Optimization | | HiddenPeak
              0
            • NiallTom

              Duplicate Content for Spanish & English Product

              Hi There, Our company provides training courses and I am looking to provide the Spanish version of a course that we already provide in English.  As it is an e-commerce site, our landing page for the English version gives the full description of the course and all related details. Once the course is purchased, a flash based course launches within a player window and the student begins the course. For the Spanish version of the course, my target customers are English speaking supervisors purchasing the course for their Spanish speaking workers.  So the landing page will still be in English (just like the English version of the course) with the same basic description, with the only content differences on that page being the inclusion of the fact that this course is in Spanish and a few details around that. The majority of the content on these two separate landing pages will be exactly the same, as the description for the overall course is the same, just that it's presented in a different language, so it needs to be 2 separate products. My fear is that Google will read this as duplicate content and I will be penalized for it.  Is this a possibility or will Google know why I set it up this way and not penalize me?  If that is a possibility, how should I go about doing this correctly? Thanks!

              On-Page Optimization | | NiallTom
              0

            Get started with Moz Pro!

            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

            Start my free trial
            Products
            • Moz Pro
            • Moz Local
            • Moz API
            • Moz Data
            • STAT
            • Product Updates
            Moz Solutions
            • SMB Solutions
            • Agency Solutions
            • Enterprise Solutions
            • Digital Marketers
            Free SEO Tools
            • Domain Authority Checker
            • Link Explorer
            • Keyword Explorer
            • Competitive Research
            • Brand Authority Checker
            • Local Citation Checker
            • MozBar Extension
            • MozCast
            Resources
            • Blog
            • SEO Learning Center
            • Help Hub
            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
            • How-to Guides
            • Moz Academy
            • API Docs
            About Moz
            • About
            • Team
            • Careers
            • Contact
            Why Moz
            • Case Studies
            • Testimonials
            Get Involved
            • Become an Affiliate
            • MozCon
            • Webinars
            • Practical Marketer Series
            • MozPod
            Connect with us

            Contact the Help team

            Join our newsletter
            Moz logo
            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
            • Accessibility
            • Terms of Use
            • Privacy

            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.