Emoji Symbols in Google Search Results

By: Sean Murray

Emoji Symbols in Google Search Results
They’ve been here. Why is no one using them?

By: Sean Murray https://plus.google.com/u/0/109189137968513076451/posts

April 3rd, 2013. WHAT THE HECK?
On April 3, 2013. I stumbled upon Emoji symbols in a Google search result title
by accident. (Learn what Emoji symbols are)

I posted my findings in the Google Authorship Community to gather feedback.
The majority of people were shocked an Emoji symbol made its way into a
search title and a few said it was most likely an oversight by Google, as they
had made strides to eradicate unicode characters in the past.
My finding was rare enough that it became news on
Search Engine Roundtable the following day, with my
community post listed as the source.


The Finding Was Replicated
Search Engine Roundtable was able to replicate the Emoji Symbol and it
appeared in Google’s search results the day they released their story.

I was also able to replicate the display of Emoji symbols in search. I have played
around with many different ones. Here is a recent example with money bags:


Compatibility Problems
Many people that set off to investigate the appearance of Emoji symbols in
search believed it was a hoax or a rare bug because they could not find any
evidence of it themselves. Others reached the conclusion that Emojidisplays
were browser specific. Upon further examination it became apparent that
Operating System also played a role.

And so I set off to find out which combinations could display Emoji symbols
and which ones couldn’t.


Compatibility
Test
I wrote a webpage that used several hundred Emoji symbols and tested it
across many Browsers and Operating Systems. (I have a subscription
to Browser Stack which helped a ton!

Displayed more than 90% of tested Emoji Symbols
Mac Mountain Lion – Firefox 20
Mac Mountain Lion – Firefox 19
Mac Mountain Lion – Safari 6.03
Mac Lion – Firefox 20
Mac Lion – Firefox 19
Mac Lion – Safari 6.03
Mac Lion – Safari 5.0
Windows 8 – Firefox 18
Windows 8 – Internet Explorer 10
Windows 7 – Internet Explorer 10
iPhone 4s – Safari
iPhone 4s (6.0) – Safari
iPhone 5 – Safari
iPad 3 – Safari
iPad 3 (6.0) – Safari
Droid Samsung Galaxy s3 – default browser
Google Nexus 7 – default browser

Conclusion
There were no browsers or operating systems with 100% incompatibility.
Some symbols do work across all platforms. Symbols vary in color
and design across platforms however.

Google’s Chrome Browser is largely incompatible regardless of OS but
Google Nexus is very compatible.


Google Says ‘NO’ to some
Google does filter out some Emoji symbols. They are more strict with titles
than they are with descriptions. The telephone Emoji (☎) was
filtered out by Google in my title tests.

The leftwards triangle was filtered by Google in my title tests but worked in my
description. Snippet of it in a description:

So Google is filtering, but only some.

If you do not see the Emoji Symbols in the titles or descriptions of my
websites, it’s probably because I am constantly swapping them out and
running tests.


Overall, Emojisymbols do exist in search
And not just in titles, but in the descriptions too:

And also in Chrome’s dropdown bar when typing in a URL, but only if you’ve
been to that website before. It pulls it from the cache:


And it doesn’t appear to be temporary
Search Engine Roundtable reported the use of colored Emoji symbols in search
back in August 2012. And alas, the example website cited is still using an
Emoji successfully, but currently one that only works on iPhones.

That’s about 8 months since a well-known
SEO news site reported on this. Is it really
possible that Google hasn’t been able to
correct this “bug”? Or is it more likely that
Emoji symbols are a feature they are
purposely allowing?

FEATURE!


Those damn hackers and their greed
I have heard grumblings from people I shared my
findings with that Emoji symbols or icons in search
would spell the end of online civilization and that
their existence is the work of hackers and devil
worshippers who would do anything to boost their
own CTR.

But have you noticed the direction that
Google is going?

Authorship is beautifying the search results and boosting
the CTRs of those site owners. Google of the future is
less about text, and more about identifying. Could
users make a connection between what a site is
about faster with an icon than they could by reading
the title or description? POSSIBLY!


ENOUGH ALREADY, HOW DO I DO THIS?!?!
Use a compatible Browser and OS. There are actually 2 HTML entities for each Emoji symbol.

For fire: 🔥(hex entity) Or 🔥 (decimal entity)

Go ahead type one into Google if you’ve got a working platform:

Decimal code produces this ->

Hex code produces this ->

Place the HTML entity code in your <title> tags and/or in your meta description markup.


Basic List 1


Basic List 2


There’s a whole lot more
I’ve given you a bunch. You should be able to track down other characters on your own.

HTML entities are not hacks, they are encoded characters. See:
http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_entities.asp

Not sure which Emojis are cross compatible? That’s up to you to figure out on your own.
Have fun, but not too much. Last I heard Google still ranks websites based on text, not on
symbols. So, too many symbols is not a good thing. Besides I haven’t heard anything
specifically from Google that says this is the new standard. That’s just a leap of faith I’m
taking. I am not responsible if you blow up your website, get in trouble, or lose rankings.

Please share your successes and failures with Emoji symbols with me. Add me on Google
Plus: https://plus.google.com/u/0/109189137968513076451/posts


Choose Your Emoji Symbols Wisely
Several symbols are compatible across all Browsers and Operating Systems.

Know your target market! If the bulk of your site visitors are using older platforms or Google
Chrome, you should choose cross compatible symbols. If a lot of them are Mac or iPhone
users, you may be okay choosing whichever Emoji symbol you want.

The most common user-agent I see on the websites I manage is Windows 7 with Internet Explorer
9, a platform that is limited to just a few symbols.

Talk to me about Emoji Symbols: https://plus.google.com/u/0/109189137968513076451/posts


Emoji Symbols in Google Search Results

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Emoji Symbols in Google Search Results