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Are ampersands in title tags helpful or harmful?
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Do ampersands in the title tag hurt your site's ranking?
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thank you.
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thank you.
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thank you.
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thank you
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thank you.
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Ditto. Often use them, with no problems.
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I would consider them generally helpful - not necessarily for improving rankings, but allowing you to get more choice words into the text of a title or description that will then be read by a user in the SERP. Remember, the title tag not only helps you rank, but it is your opportunity to advertise directly to the client on Google's search results page. That savings of 2 characters can mean a lot.
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No issues at all.. have been using them for years
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i use them as well and have not seen any issue.
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I have ampersands in lots of title tags... have not seen any problems.
Lots of people have ampersands as part of their brand
http://www.google.com/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=%26
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