ranksmith - 5:12 am on Dec 15, 2003 (gmt 0)

I dont think, an arrow or a star before a title has any effect on rankings in Search Egines. It has nothing to do with SEs' algo. I still see the sites in SERPs on the top with such characters. The only thing is, it eats up some space and makes title a bit longer.

The intention behind it is making ultimate users to misunderstand as Google's recommendation.