I put together a pretty basic website for a B&B in April which some of you were kind enough to comment on in the website review forum in May.

Since then I have expanded the site and cleaned up the html and implemented the SEO suggestions. However, the site itself (see http://www.bestcotswold.com ) seems to have entered the twilight zone of downward lurch in Google rankings for its key search terms. I went through agonies about this, but reading around the subject here, now understand that this is not too abnormal for newish websites between 4 and 17 weeks into their lives.

However - I have been using (some) of this 'phoney war' period to try and optimise the site further, but I keep coming up across one really confusing issue: the treatment of ampersands, ie '&' symbols.

On the basis of playing around with AdWords and Overture I came to the concusion that "Cotswolds B&B" was the most significant keyword phrase and, while there are others, I set off trying to optimise for this phrase.

BUT the problem is that I am none too sure how Google treats text ampersands AND a number of the tools that I have trid to use to check page optimisation seem to react differently to "B&B". Some translate instances of this text into "b b", others ignore the whole phrase. Some competing B&B sites use "B&B" which some tools pick up as "B&B", others as "b b" again.

I'm at a dead end. I have also tried to find some guidance on this - but keep coming across notes on how to deal with "&"s in dynamic URLs, which is not my problem.

So - I realise that this is very specific and rather arcane, but does anyone know of any place I could find some guidance on how to include "B&B" in page texts so that it has the best chance of being picked up by Google and indeed by any of the optimisation tools, including those accessible here?

It'd be a real help. Thanks!

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Fancy a break in TRW? Cotswolds B&B

Hi Longsummer,

I am not sure how g00gle treats it in realtion to keywords, but I am running a couples tests, and that is one of the things included.

However, another thing to consider. I believe that it is proper HTML to use the code "&" instead of simply hitting the "&" key on the keyboard.

G00gle may or may not have a preference, but I would opt for the most correct way. I will post my findings if/when ever there is an update.

Google can parse b&b as a phrase and it does not pull the ampersands as can be seen at http://www.google.com/search?num=10...2coff=1&q=b%26b you will note the B&B are all highlighted. However this doesnt answer your question I dont think.

Your looking for a way to analize density consideration etc correct? And because different tools read in different ways your lost. Here is the solution.

Use an elemental SEO approach as apposed to considering the discrete variables.

By this I mean include your B&B phrase within hte important onpage elements of your website thus

cotswolds B&B in your title, keywords tag and description tag for the header
cotswolds B&B in an h1 or at least an h2 or 2
cotswolds B&B in a link pointin to another page
And aliberal sprinkling of cotswolds B&B, cotswald and B&B throughout the text, with a higher occurence in the beggining of the page then the end.

dont limit yourself with density considerations

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Ah yes and make sure you get a few incoming links pointing to your site using the exact phrase cotswalds b&b

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Vote for your favorite SEO site and tell your visitors about this great place, please link to us http://www.seo-guy.com with the anchor text SEO and let them know how you feel

Speedy response - that's really kind. Thanks.

I've been wondering about doing a comprehensive find and replace so that we adopted "B&B" usage comprehensively throughout. I guess that's what I'll do.

Yes, absolutely right! And although I'm not quite sure about "an elemental SEO approach" I have included the "Cotswolds B&B" phrase in title, keywords tags and descriptions etc and I am just getting to work on trying to get some incoming links pointing to the site using this text....

Thanks!

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Fancy a break in TRW? Cotswolds B&B

Hmmmm... Interesting seo problem. Did this solve the problem?

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Isulong Seoph

Hi,

I don't think these ampersand symbols make any differents in terms of keywords at all..

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I think they are! There are plenty of guys saying that all web around. You just have to properly choose them.

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search engine placement.

i am using & in one of my sites and that seem to work just fine.Google picks up "&" symbol when considering the phrases.but it has to be made sure that you use the exact phrase 3-5 times in body of the content.

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