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In the meta description tag of our website www.deccanrummy.com we made use of UNICODE characters like spades, diams, clubs, hearts . But we didn't get the Google search result as expected. It got displayed like this - ♤ ♢ ♧ ♥. I want it displayed this way - ♠ ♦ ♣ ♥.

Any specific reason why Google displayed this way?

PNG
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1 Answers1

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All of the HTML entities you are using - ♠ (♠), ♦ (♦), ♣ (♣), and ♥ (♥) - are supposed to be black. But when I view your site's description using web browser DOM inspectors, they show as their white counterparts instead. That might be an issue with how Google parses your site's HTML and serves it back to web browsers, or it might be an issue with the web browsers themselves. Hard to say for sure, as it depends on how the HTML processor(s) define those entities between the time they are downloaded from your site and the time they reach the user's screen.

Either way, to force the black symbols, try using their Unicode codepoint values instead of their entity names, to remove any possible ambiguity in the entity name mappings:

  • U+2660 BLACK SPADE SUIT
    hex: ♠ (♠)
    dec: ♠ (♠)

  • U+2666 BLACK DIAMOND SUIT
    hex: ♦ (♦)
    dec: ♦ (♦)

  • U+2663 BLACK CLUB SUIT
    hex: ♣ (♣)
    dec: ♣ (♣)

  • U+2665 BLACK HEART SUIT
    hex: ♥ (♥)
    dec: ♥ (♥)

Remy Lebeau
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  • Thanks Remy. Will this stop Google from using semantic equivalents? – PNG May 04 '16 at 02:27
  • That would depend on why they are being translated from black to white in the first place (and even if it is Google at fault in the first place). But using the codepoints directly should make it clear to everyone exactly what your intentions are, and avoid any possible entity name mapping issues. – Remy Lebeau May 04 '16 at 02:30
  • If you search for "u+2660 black spade suit", you'll find many pages that use the Unicode codepoint directly, but Google still displays the white character in the snippet. In the URL, the black version of the character is shown, though. This must be a Google bug. – nwellnhof May 04 '16 at 15:34
  • I see that other search engines are showing it right. Must be a bug then. – PNG May 26 '16 at 14:19