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The success of your article is determined to a large extent by the title which you assign to it. Thus, creating a working title is very important to keep your article performing optimally. Editorial guidelines too should be adhered to in order to optimize the articles further. There are certain characters, known as special characters, which are not always allowed to be used within an article. However, despite the evolution of HTML, the list of unusable characters has become longer. Following are reasons why:

Titles in URLs
A fact many people are unaware of is that the title of the article is what comprises the URL of that article. The title of the articles as well as the resulting URL generated from it, is composed of the characters from the alphanumeric scale. However, a few special characters such as colon, dash, exclamation points and question marks can be used. But other special characters which function perfectly well within an HTML code won’t work properly when placed in an URL.

A special character comes with meta-tags, which when encoded, gives it a meaning beyond the literal sense. When placed in a URL, the special characters are indicated as %xx. The xx denotes the hexadecimal status of the character. The URL is a crucial factor in determining the success of your article. Use of special characters within the URL deters it from deciphering the code correctly. The characters change meaning while being translated and end up confusing the search engine. A few special characters and their HTML meanings are:

The symbols for greater than and less than (<and>): These are the basic elements of HTML coding. When placed in an URL, they cut it off. The components of HTML tags are enclosed with the pair of symbols, which are around the text portion to be formatted, and are used to stylize that block of text. For e.g. to make a certain piece of text italicized, you need to insert italics tags on either end of the text:
For example: <i> text <i> in the final rendition becomes text.

The & sign: In normal text, the ampersand sign is a representation of ‘and’, but when HTML encoded, it signifies the beginning of a new stream or thread of information. Whenever an RSS reader or browser detects the presence of an ampersand within the URL, the symbol is read as an independent entity and a new line of command is followed. Since a follow up command is missing, the URL shows an error as the browser gets confused as to where the HTML code starts and where it ends.

The Hash: This sign permits the use of links to certain sections in a webpage. The hash tag redirects you to the section you are looking for. When added to your title, it gets included in the URL and thus keeps the browser searching for the page where the URL is redirecting it.

The @ symbol: The @ is associated primarily with email addresses and is also used in text language as a short form for writing the word ‘at’. This is usually used when the style of speaking is more informal. When the @ symbol is added to an URL, it is read as part of an email address and not a web address. A web URL containing the @ symbol will not be able to get translated accurately.

Other special character such as the pipes (|), asterisks (*), etc are not permitted as the title for related reasons. Any browser trying to interpret an URL with any of these characters loses out during translation. Though most web browsers these days are sophisticated enough to figure out the difference, the chances of your title being lost is also a probability and you would not want to take that risk.

Characters Unavailable on Keyboards
A few special characters, not present in a standard keyboard, are limited in their use. A writer may be able to use a few of these characters while writing from a word processor, but copy pasting the article somewhere else won’t display those characters properly. It is better to write the article in a plain text editor instead and ensure that there are no special characters anywhere. The special characters become even more of a problem if you are submitting the article somewhere; hence, the best option is to leave special characters alone.

The special characters not present on a keyboard include ™ (Trademark), € (Euro), £ (English Pound), foreign language characters é, í, ó, ú, Microsoft SmartQuotes and other similar characters.

Tips for Writing Titles

• Try not to put quotation marks around the title. The quotation marks confuse readers and keep them wondering whether the title is original or copied from elsewhere.
• Don’t end an Article or Page Title with a period (.) sign.
• Placing an ellipsis – 3 periods without any spaces (…) indicates that some amount of information has been omitted or that the article is unfinished. Using ellipsis creates confusion and makes the reader think that your thoughts are unfinished.
• While writing titles, it is best to stick to alphanumeric characters as well as other well-known and common characters.

So, keep these points in mind when writing on the web.