Can I create an invisible word break

Looking for an SEO trick

[kaled]

Is it possible to split tradename so that it is read by search engines as trade name whilst still appearing to the user as one word.

I guess I could use a <span> </span> with a very small font size. However, I would also like to do this with the page title. For this, an invisible character is required I guess - is there such a character?

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

Kaled.

[mipapage]

You could use

trade <span style="margin-left:-value px">name</span>

For example...

[Longhaired Genius]

Just: <span>trade</span>name, will do the trick.

[Longhaired Genius]

Except that doesn't work with the page title.

[encyclo]

You could try the zero-width space

​

- however, I'm not sure of browser support (Firefox looks OK) and it's far from certain that search engines will see it as a space at all...

[Lance]

Since the SEs don't execute javascript, perhaps you could use "trade name" in your markup and then change it to "tradename" when the page loads.

<title>trade name</title>

<script>
window.onload=function(){document.title = "tradename";}
</script>

Then use the same technique on <span>s that contain your <span>trade name</span>.

As an added feature, it degrades nicely for users that have j/s disabled.

[kaled]

The zero-width space looks a likely candidate depending on browser support. I would imagine that search engines treat such characters as simply non-alphanumeric and therefore as a word-break.

I found this page
[cs.tut.fi...]
It talks exclusively about unicode spaces. However, I've always had a bit of a mental block with all things remotely related to funny characters.

Two characters seem likely candidates
U+200B : Zero width space.
U+FEFF : Zero width no-break space.

But how do I translate these codes into entity values? I guess that &#8203; is the former (thanks encyclo) but what about the latter?

Kaled.

[Longhaired Genius]

Zero-width spaces are not well supported. This test page [fjordaan.uklinux.net] will tell you more than you ever thought you wanted to know about wierd spaces.

[encyclo]

Longhaired Genius, that's an interesting page. I wouldn't be worrying too much about the browsers - the biggest concern would be that the search engine bot would be confused and either not index the title at all or would index a non-existant word with a special character in it.

Of all the ideas so far, I like Lance's Javascript solution the best. It's either that or cloaking, which would be massive overkill for this situation.

[kaled]

That's a useful test page (and there's more if you go up one level).

It doesn't look like any thin/invisible space has good cross-browser support - very annoying.

I'll have to give the javascript suggestion some thought but, perhaps, as SEO, this just isn't a good idea.

Thanks for all the suggestions,

Kaled.

[Lance]

Kaled:

The whole point of the j/s solution is that the SEs will ignore it. You get your item presented to the SEs one way and to your users another. Is there something about it you don't understand? Perhaps I can explain it better.

[kaled]

The problem with the js solution is that search engine titles and snippets will show trade mark instead of trademark.

Nevertheless, I do appreciate the suggestion and will consider it further.

Kaled.