Is "&" character in url allowed? What is the impact to url if it's illegal and is present. I'm looking for an answer from an SEO standpoint.
Example:
rootdomain.com/Black&Decker/products
+12
A:
It's permitted (amongst other places) as part of separating specified parameters in a GET e.g.
http://example.com/query?a=1&b=2
defines a=1 and b=2.
Note that & is a reserved character under RFC3986. See this Wikipedia entry on percent encoding for more details.
Brian Agnew
2009-12-01 21:12:26
Jeffrey Aylesworth
2009-12-01 21:14:02
To separate the parameters.
Mk12
2009-12-01 21:14:48
@Mk12 - changed to be clearer. Thx
Brian Agnew
2009-12-01 21:16:52
Boldewyn
2009-12-01 21:17:34
Notice also that while you have to escape it in HTML, you _can't_ escape it in JavaScript. So you have to remember `<a href="a`
Zarel
2009-12-01 21:39:29
-1 See Boldewyn’s and Zarel’s comment.
Gumbo
2009-12-02 06:01:51
Brian Agnew
2009-12-02 19:26:57
If you mean the example.com URL I posted, it's an example not designed to actually take you somewhere.
Brian Agnew
2009-12-01 21:23:26
nuhusky2003
2009-12-07 16:20:36
A:
Technically it is possible to have an & in a folder/file name. However it's quite likely to break somewhere for someone so it's best to avoid it. You could use a + character, the word "and" or just omit the join altogether (i.e. BlackDecker or Black-Decker).
From an SEO point of view, any of those would be fine since they contain the keywords, and search engines generally ignore symbol characters in searches.
DisgruntledGoat
2009-12-01 21:36:06