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I have a blog called The Fall Journey and it is about a series of trips that I intend to do that are based on the filming locations from The Fall movie. Unfortunately, a lot of people mistake the title for the season - Fall but the trip doesn't have anything to do with the season, only the movie title.

So, when I search through Google and use the fall journey blog, I get my website in the search result because, obviously, it isn't a frequent search. The thing is that I do use The Fall Journey as a description for the site and the search engines get that and are therefore listing my site.

I was wondering, if I started using "The Fall" Journey as my site description and use the quotation marks throughout the site (posts, pages, comments etc.), will I still get listed in the search engines for the fall journey blog query or will people have to write "the fall" journey blog?

To simplify my question, do the search engines notice the quotation marks or not and will adding them have any effect on the listing in the search engines?

2 Answers 2

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They do notice the quotation marks but they aren't required for users to find your website or find it using an exact match search query. So using them won't harm you or cause users to have difficulty finding your site using the term "the fall" with or without quotation marks.

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  • The users would search for the fall journey when searching. I doubt anyone would bother with the quotation marks. So you think I may use them and that won't affect the search engines? I'll wait for a few more answers here and then try it and see in a few day what effect it has. Thanks for the answer.
    – user11320
    Jan 8, 2012 at 17:32
  • I doubt anyone wouls search using the quotation marks either. And if they did they are special search characters anyway which tell the search engines to look for exact matches anyway so if someone does use them it only helps them find your content. Really, you can't lose if someone uses quotes when searching for "the fall journey" in quotes.
    – John Conde
    Jan 9, 2012 at 1:24
  • No, you didn't get what I meant. I'm not concerned that someone would use the quotation marks in their search. I'm asking if there would be a problem if I used quotation marks for my contents and the others use search without it. Would they still find it even if they don't use the quotation marks?
    – user11320
    Jan 9, 2012 at 13:55
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    Yes. The text is still there and in sequential order which gives it an exact match boost when a user searches for that text. That doesn't mean it will automatically rank well when some searches for it but it does help.
    – John Conde
    Jan 9, 2012 at 16:53
  • Just letting you know that question marks didn't affect the listings... Thanks once again!
    – user11320
    Jan 14, 2012 at 16:32
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Use quotation marks for exact phrases I often remember parts of phrases I have seen on a Web page or part of a quotation I want to track down. Using quotation marks around a phrase will return only those exact words in that order. It's one of the best ways to limit the pages returned. Example: "Be nice to nerds".Of course, you must have the phrase exactly right -- and if your memory is as good as mine, that can be problematic.

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