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Thanks for the response. I was hoping that there might be a commonly used strategy for tackling this kind of problem but I think deep down I knew I'd end up just having to try it and see what happens. I'll just have to give it a go and see if I get the response I'm looking for and go from there. Thanks again!

Thank you, you answered all of my questions and some more I didn't ask...but should have! The notable alumni page is a great idea, and not one I'd thought of. It's going to be a lengthy process, but I'm no happy that I know I'm doing the right things. Thank you again!

Hi, This is an interesting question and I was just looking it up a few days ago. Answers to your questions: Yes, google can and does read ampersands and plusses and does show slightly different results depending on which you use. Maybe, if you check the SERPs for ‘black & white football’ and ‘black + white football’ are they different? When I took a quick look they were different - so once your ‘black & white football’ page starts ranking, check SERPs for ‘black + white football’ – you may be in the same place for this keyword, or you may be much lower. If you’re at the same position there’s no need to optimise another page, if you’re lower then maybe you should create a page. Be sure to check search volumes first though, there’s no reason to spend time creating a unique and optimised page for the keyword using a plus instead of an ampersand if nobody is searching for it. Yes they notice and treat each one slightly differently. Take these 3 example searches for ‘design and branding’: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=design+and+branding&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&ip=0.0.0.0&pws=0&uule=w+CAIQICIA&gws_rd=ssl https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=design+%26+branding&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF- 8&ip=0.0.0.0&pws=0&uule=w+CAIQICIA&gws_rd=ssl https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=design+%2B+branding&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&ip=0.0.0.0&pws=0&uule=w+CAIQICIA&gws_rd=ssl We’re seeing a lot of the same domains showing up - with a lot of the same pages - but in different positions as well as some sites sneaking onto page one for one term, and halfway down page 2 for another. Take www.steve-edge.com – currently at 7^th for ‘design & branding’, 16^th for ‘design and branding’ and 20^th for ‘design + branding’. So there’s the answer - yes Google can understand plus signs and ampersands, and yes they do treat each query slightly differently. You may be found at the same position for all variations, you may see fluctuations between each SERP, but what’s most important is checking to see if people are actually searching those terms with plus signs or ampersands before going to make the page - because there’s no point creating and optimising a page that nobody is looking for when the page they are looking for is being found fine. Hope that helps! Tom

If you haven't yet, please see my follow-up post: http://moz.com/blog/new-title-tag-guidelines-preview-tool This is a moving target, and it's actually a pixel width (512px), but I tried to take a data-driven approach, and as best I can measure, 55 characters is a safe limit about 95% of the time. I will add that Google definitely processes characters beyond that limit (some are even in the source code) and words beyond that limit could count toward ranking. They won't count much, I strongly suspect, but this new limit doesn't mean you automatically have to cut everything shorter. There's certainly no penalty for going over, as long as you're not keyword-stuffing to extremes. One down side is that the new method (using CSS for the cut-off) means that Google now cuts mid-word, instead of between words. This could be more detrimental to CTR, in my opinion. It's very situational, though. The best I can say is to look at your most important title tags in the context of real searches and make your own judgment call.