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.
HTML entity characters in meta descriptions
-
Is it okay to leave HTML entity characters, such as " in meta descriptions? Will search engines translate these appropriately?
-
Thank you for the response, Zee.
I've been told that Google is "familiar" with character escaping and will interpret the description correctly. Is there a way to confirm this?
We're programmatically populating meta descriptions for one of our applications and having trouble converting the HTML entity characters.
Thank you
Ellen- -
Hey there! Meta descriptions support non-encoded characters, and search engines will display these characters correctly in SERPs; you don't need to use " to represent " in meta descriptions. You'll see an example of this for the w3 result in this SERP, where you see the " as well as " in its meta description.
Since you're writing meta descriptions for users, and not search engine crawlers, I would recommend you find + replace these characters with their reader-friendly version. Search engines will present the characters you've inserted into your meta descriptions, which may negatively impact users' abilities to read your meta descriptions (and be less likely to click on your results in search).
hope this helps
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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.
Related Questions
-
does <base> in html affect seo?
hey, just wanna know does <base> in head of website affect SEO? and if it's a yes, how?
Technical SEO | | m17001 -
Do Meta Keywords matter?
I am a firm believer in the fundamentals of SEO but is there any data to support its impact positively or negatively towards a sites rank?
Technical SEO | | Brandonp0 -
Special characters in URL
Will registered trademark symbol within a URL be bad? I know some special characters are unsafe (#, >, etc.) but can not find anything that mentions registered trademark. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | bonnierSEO0 -
Links under Meta Description when performing a search
Doing research for clients, I have came across seeing sites displaying hyperlinks underneath their own meta description. keywords that I have googled that result with hyperlinks displaying under meta descriptions: Google'd: iacquire (brand) bmw wheels (Beyern Wheels, position 1) aftermarket bmw wheels (MMR Wheels, position 2) These companys have hyperlinks underneath their descriptions. Anyone have any ideas why this happens or how it happens?
Technical SEO | | frnprz0 -
LSI keywords logic - enter in meta and bold in text?
Hello, In the lack of good info about this on the Internet, let me try here. I know that it is a good idea to put LSI keywords in natural flow in the body text of the article. But shall I also put LSI keywords as a meta? In the same manner as doing with non-LSI keywords? Or shall I only reserve meta for non-LSI keywords? In body text, shall I emphasize LSI keywords in bold? As non-LSI keywords already does. This is a bit confusing as I don't wan't LSI keywords to take over show from my long tail (phrase) keyword. I will appreciate if someone could share a bit light over this. Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | SEOisSEO0 -
Converting files from .html to .php or editing .htaccess file
Good day all, I have a bunch of files that are .html and I want to add some .php to them. It seems my 2 options are Convert .html to .php and 301 redirect or add this line of code to my .htaccess file and keep all files that are .html as .html AddType application/x-httpd-php .html My gut is that the 2nd way is better so as not alter any SEO rankings, but wanted to see if anybody had any experience with this line of code in their .htaccess file as definitely don't wan to mess up my entire site 🙂 Thanks for any help! John
Technical SEO | | JohnHerrigel0 -
New (google) local SERPs has 40 character limit on title length
Should i change my all the page titles for pages that show up in local SERPs to reflect this new limit? Is there any benefit to leaving it at the old limit and having more keywords in there? Or would there be benefit to conforming to google's new standard and having shorter titles?
Technical SEO | | A Former User0 -
Restaurant menu SEO: PDF or HTML?
Is it better to use a PDF or hard code restaurant menus (or any document for that matter) in HTML? I want the content to be indexed and thought PDF was the way to go for several reasons, but I wanted to get confirmation on this before I move forward.
Technical SEO | | BostonWright0