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Does using “and” or “&” matter in SEO?
Posted by on December 3, 2020 at 2:46 pmI tried to do my research but there are no updated information about it.
I am writing about a brand name that uses “&” on its name, specifically Bell & Ross (a watch brand). However, when I checked the keyword rating through Ahrefs, it’s easier to rank if I set Bell and Ross as keywords instead. Will Google be able to crawl my article on the “Bell & Ross” search results even if it has “and” instead of “&”?
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6 Replies
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And is 3 character while & is 1 character. Technically less characters gives you more chances to include secondary keywords. Other than that & looks more asthetic in branding. I am pretty sure and/& is a ‘stop word’ in page title in terms of search rankings.
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I always stick to only using one & every other time, I use and in the title or description.
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I feel Google reads them the same, which is to say, I think it’s more important how a human interprets your use of the text VS symbol. If I’m writing a meta title or something where character limits matter, I’m going to start with “and,” write out my whole title, and then start making concessions where it makes sense to me.
In order:
1. **Running, biking, and hiking** would be my preference.
2. **Running, biking & hiking** I’d only go there if all else fails, like I couldn’t make a concession elsewhere to get the title under the character limit. -
If the branding includes an &, then I’d use the ampersand.
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I wouldn’t put too much faith in what difficultly score Ahrefs gives them. I’d mention it both ways in the article and keep different variations of whatever keywords in mind, not getting too focused on just one. Who knows what Google’s gonna rank it for first or higher.
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Stop words dont matter in SEO. Symbols grab attention in headlines and descriptions/ads. Use that to your advantage.
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