Use of symbols - how is this achieved ?

[Whitey]

I'm observing a leading brand business which has "site-links" under it's title and description showing very prominent ticks against each site link. It's very eye catching.

Is this easy to achieve , provided the site-links appear ?

[Spyglass]

it is, but it's not actually allowed under Google policy. You may find your sitelinks disapproved if Google review them and find symbols there. I think they're wingdings symbols.

[Whitey]

Inertesting - actually the advertiser is perhaps the largest provider in it's segment and probably one of Google's top 20 advertisers ( guess ). So Google should be aware of it.

[LucidSW]

Not sure which character you mean by "ticks". But this is covered in the rules. Basically, it is allowed as long as you don't overdue it.

For example, the following lines would trigger flags:

>>> Fantastic prices <<<
We can't be beat! (only one ! allowed per ad)

[tangor]

"Special characters" (expanded text character set) use is sometimes banned by G...HOWEVER, mixed use of the punctuation sets (Spanish/French,etc) with English is surprisingly G friendly.

[Whitey]

These guys have ( i have to try and remember ) at least 3 phrases ticked

[tangor]

made me ask... what "tick"? (ASCII character in use, or HTML equivalent) Last time I looked TEXT was acceptable, wingdings IN TEXT USE, too.

[Spyglass]

the OP is talking about additional sitelinks that appear under your ad when in the banner position, not about description lines #1 and #2.
Our Google rep has categorically told us that using symbols in your sitelinks is not allowed, however they aren't out actively looking for them.
If however a competitor were to complain about you using symbols in your sitelinks, you would then face disapproval of those links. (This is UK based advice).

[netmeg]

I would *love* to be able to use them, but until I get the go ahead from the big G, I ain't gonna try.

[PayMePerClick]

I've done it before with bullet points to the point where it was deemed "excessive". Our rep told us they were rejected, yes, but it wouldn't negatively affect campaigns (ie: hurt Quality Score). If anything it probably boosted QS because of increased clickthrough rates.

[cloudtap]

The use of symbols is fine if not overused. If you have it in all of your links and you have it going on all over your site then you will definitely raise flags and Google will take your ads down rather quickly.