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Are UTF-8 characters in Meta Descriptions bad for SEO?

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by Andrej Voina, Sep 18, 2019.

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  1. #1
    hi all
    we are considering to integrate UTF-8 characters at the beginning of our website's meta-description. does anyone know whether this is bad for SEO?
    cheers
     
    Andrej Voina, Sep 18, 2019 IP
  2. Oso Optimized

    Oso Optimized Active Member

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    #2
    Meta descriptions have no impact on SEO.
     
    Oso Optimized, Sep 18, 2019 IP
  3. deathshadow

    deathshadow Acclaimed Member

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    #3
    For SEO, search engines shouldn't give a flying purple fish. The weighting of the description META is so low due to past abuse, it really shouldn't care. Remember, the description META does not exist as a spot to blindly stuff keywords as it's a non-render non-content element on the page. It exists for the SOLE PURPOSE of being a natural language description shown below the link on a SERP. If you're worrying about it for SEO purposes, you've probably been saddled up by one of the black-hat dirtbags meaning a possible brief uprank, followed by 3 to 6 months later being pimp-slapped clear off the results pages for abuse. Part of the "take the money and run" attitude that is the bread and butter of most SEO "experts". They're usually long gone by the time their scam artist trickery falls apart.

    The only thing in the description META -- or any META, LINK, and the TITLE tag for that matter -- is that if you have CDATA or text Nodes before your charset META, and the charset META doesn't match the browsesr default, it will force a re-parse of the page. Basically the browser will waste time parsing the page, get to the charset META, and have to start all over again at the beginning.

    Solution to that problem? ALWAYS put the charset META as the first element after you open <head>. From that point on it shouldn't matter what characters you use where. Also, remember that http headers trump the markup, so if you're sending the correct encoding in the header the charset META doesn't matter and the entire page should handle things fine.

    But again, as to SEO impact? Yeah, no.
     
    deathshadow, Sep 18, 2019 IP
  4. KylieSweet

    KylieSweet Well-Known Member

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    #4
    Recommended length of meta description that will not cut or fully visible in search results is 155 characters.
     
    KylieSweet, Sep 23, 2019 IP