Google: Special Characters Do Not Affect Google Search

Google's John Mueller said that special characters on your page "doesn't affect Google" Search rankings. This is in regards to like checkmarks such as ✓ or other special characters.

John was asked "does repetitive use of special characters such as ✓ is recommended or Google will ignore it on search engine results page." John responded on Twitter "it doesn't affect Google, but users might see it."

Here are those tweets:

Hi @JohnMu,

Does repetitive use of special characters such as ✓ is recommended or Google will ignore it on serp.

PS- For e-commerce sites.

— Amit Chauhan. (@AmitSChauhanSEO) December 14, 2021

To me, it's a sign that a German SEO worked on the site :-). I tend not to see it in use elsewhere (I might be biased though), it doesn't affect Google, but users might see it.

— 🧀 John 🧀 (@JohnMu) December 14, 2021

Google has said previously to try to avoid using special characters in URLs if you can. And that Google will remove special characters from title tags most of the time.

But don't expect a ranking boost or decline for using it in your body content, got that?

Forum discussion at Twitter.