Exclamation Mark "!" in Pages Title

Will keywords in a title be less effective with an "!" in the title?

[ckern]

My question is simple. What do you think about having an exclamation mark in the title for your domain. For example...

Domain: wwww.cheap-rate-free-bath-shower-installation-quote.com
Title: Cheap Rate! Free Bath & Shower Installation Quote

I know my examples are corny, but they get my point across. I would apprecaite any insight. I am wondering if the "!" will lower the effectiviness of the keyworkd "rate", I have done some looking around in yahoo,and have noticed they seem to look over the "!" and just grab the keyword and show it in the match. Which makes me feel good about it. Please tell me what you think. Thanks in advance...

[victor]

I once tried to find stuff on the !Kung bush people. I used various search engines, including Yahoo and Google.

All of them seemed to ignore the "!" even if it was in quotes: "!Kung".

They returned me a lot of sites on Kung fu and other irrelevancies.

It didn't look to me that ! in titles or meta words or on the page made any difference -- it's a bit of punctuation that SEs ignore.

[victor]

Ps - Welcome to WebmasterWorld!

(That's the first time I've got to say that!

[ckern]

Thanks for the response, yeah I would have to agree with your answer, my research confirms... Thanks for the welcome, although I am not completely new, I see I am newer than most... At least judging by my number of posts. I read WW all the time... Thanks for your help, if anyone else would like to comment on this matter, I would appreciate it.

[keyplyr]

I agree that the exclamation mark is ignored by SEs, so it makes no difference either way. But since this is a Yahoo thread, I should say that if you do use it in the title, there's a very good chance the editors will remove it. That's my experience anyway.

My company name uses the exclamation mark and is registered that way. Yahoo removed it from the title when they listed it in their directory. I requested they add it back for reasons of company trademark and they just emailed me a clip from their editor guidelines that says for them to remove puncuation from website titles. So in essence, they have changed the name of my website to inaccurately reflect the name of the company, citing an editor guideline as justification - oh well ;)

[ckern]

Thanks for the reply, I guess its worth the shot just to have the "!" in the title, we shall see what the Yahoo Editors will do with it. Thanks again for all your posts.

[Abrexa_UK]

Keyplyr,
you have been harshly judged by Yahoo. They blatantly don't enforce the exclamation mark removal in many categories.

For example, let us take a look at the SEO category [dir.yahoo.com]. With 14 sites starting with an exclamation mark it seems a little silly to claim that such punctuation isn't permitted.

Perhaps it is worth asking Yahoo! how they would list their own site? ;)

[ckern]

Very good comment. I agree, I have done a lot of looking around, and I see a lot of sites starting with "!". I wasn't worried about getting it listed with it. I was curious about how the engine it self would work with the keywords around it. I guess a simple example is if. You search for "Yahoo" you will get results, although there real name is "Yahoo!", I guess the "!" is a safe call, go figure yahoo built there engine to avoid "!" so that users would only have to search for "Yahoo" rather than "Yahoo!" all the time :) Thanks again for all your comments.

[2_much]

Ckern, people used the ! to be higher in the directory listings.

I think it may be worth it if your category doesn't have that many !'.

The only con is that it might look strange to viewers. But I think, usualy, that the benefits outweigh the costs.

[ckern]

Thanks for the input, yeah I agree. And I know that people use "!" to be higher in the directory listing in yahoo. Although as noted in the start of this thread, I was going to use it something like this...

Domain: wwww.cheap-rate-free-bath-shower-installation-quote.com
Title: Cheap Rate! Free Bath & Shower Installation Quote

Thanks again for all the input

[dogboy]

>Domain: >wwww.cheap-rate-free-bath-shower-installation-quote.com
>Title: Cheap Rate! Free Bath & Shower Installation Quote

they will never ever give you that title with the exclamation in the middle for no reason, because it just looks like marketing hype, which they dont allow.

>I know that people use "!" to be higher in the directory listing in
>yahoo.

as far getting a higher ranking in a cat, I am positive this is going to change soon... if not, then don't stop at one '! keyword' b/c there is going to be some other joker who makes his name '! keyword', and then is always a third, and and a tenth, and so on..... As far as how clickable these listings are in search, I'd say they get far less useful traffic than the same listing with a more normal title. {I cant wait for the day they change how they rank cats and hear all the losers out there crying and peeing that their traffic dried up because their entire empire was built on a bad foundation, and they never saw it coming, and the only thing they are left with are a bunch of junk domains.... can't wait to see that post}

[Abrexa_UK]

Dogboy,
I have been waiting 2 years for Yahoo to change away from allowing exclamation marks...but it still hasn't happened. Sites are still being added that use them.

I sometimes get the impression that there are certain areas of the directory that they have abandonded. Areas such as the SEO category are well known for 'spammy' techniques and it seems that Yahoo almost encourage it to increase the number of submissions. I suppose that they are taking the stance of "just let the spammers fight it out between them". Even as webmasters fight it out to get to the top of the category, Yahoo just keeps on earning from the submissions. As long as the sites are of reasonable quality, then it really doesn't matter too much.

[jaytierney]

As far as starting your site with a ! - I think it's pointless. Actual directory page traffic is a joke for the most part, you have to show up in the searches...