How does Google treat the symbols ® and ™ if they are part of keyword?

[Amjath]

For example:

As a keyword, is "Cisco" the same as "Cisco"?

I tried a couple of things to find out:

1. I put both keywords in Google adwords tool. Google displayed search volume data only for Cisco. That means it ignores the symbol.

2. I typed in Cisco and Cisco in Google search.

of SERPs are the same. And the first page results are almost same excpet for Google Places listings.

Based on above two observations, I think that Google treats Cisco and Cisco in the same manner.

So if we optimize a page for Cisco, we will get benefit for the keyword Cisco as well.

Does anybody has any other experience?

(Note: the keyword used here(Cisco) is just an example.

Thanks,

Supriya.

[Amjath]

Thanks Daniel! The reason I was asking is if we use keywords w/o trademark symbols

we may run into legal issues hence we were thinking of optimizing the page for keyword with symbol in it.

[DanDeceuster]

Google strips special characters out of search. For one, no one in a million years will do a search with Google and include a trademark symbol anyway. But if they did for some reason, Google would simply strip it out. You do not need to optimize for keywords with special characters. Just optimize for the keyword itself and you will be fine.