Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I noticed recently when looking at a number of UK search requests in google that a certain site was using a blue star shaped symbol at the start of their title tag.
The code being ۞ on the start of the title tag line.
This means that when the page is listed say position 7 down the page in the serps as an example, your eye is drawn to it because of the blue symbol which sort of enhances the listing.
My first thought on this was that google would stamp on this PDQ on the basis that if other sites followed, the serps would look a total mess after a while, but clearly google are more than happy to rank the site well that is doing this and currently its cleaning up as a result.
Thoughts anyone? Should we be doing the same?
This does not actually tell you not to use symbols so perhaps it's OK?
On the one hand the title does say what the page is - just has a nice blue symbol to the left of it - so thats ok?
On the other hand the symbol is not descriptive and does not accurately reflect in any way the page content.
I guess you could also argue that the site is in some way trying to "Game" google by attracting visitors to its listing by use of a icon that doesnt mean anything other than to make the listing stand out. Also, its not of any benefit to the end user and is to gain advantage in the search listings.
I genuinely dont know what to make of this, google is clearly OK with it "currently" but i would feel nervous if it was on one of the sites i work on, just on the basis that it looks dodgy and who wants to possibly rock the boat with the mighty G and risk having your site pulled?
Cheers,
Alex
"۞ Buy Lovely Blue Widgets from us"
In other words G displays the actual hex code as opposed to the character. I'm afraid that it all looks a bit too unpredictable to me so I won't be doing it.
