On 2/8/07, Dmitry Baranovskiy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> > Actually in both cases you shouldn't use 'x', but × or ×
>> Good point. But will a screen reader find '×' and say
>> 'times', or for
>> that matter Andrew's unicode alternatives?
>
> There's a key question. Anyone got a screen reader handy to test it?
> Sadly I don't...
Add to this "Will search engines correctly understand such a
symbols?" The answer is "No".
Compare:
3×4 http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=3%D74&btnG=Search&meta=
3x4 http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=3x4&btnG=Search&meta=
3 4 http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=3+4&btnG=Search&meta=
As you can see first and last results are equal, which means that
Google ignore × symbol.
Today I searched for:
"prove that any string of length l is an instance of 2^l different schemas"
and I got a direct match at:
"Prove that any string of length <i>l</i> is an instance
of <i>2<sup>l</sup></i> different schemas"
But changing the search string to:
"prove that any string of length l is an instance of 2l different schemas"
Returns the same match.
It seems, therefore, that Google just ignores unusual characters and
typographic tags. Both a shame... IMO, this is a shortcoming on the
part of Googlebot.
Then again, the search results are *not* totally identical... the
first returns the <sup> match as result #1, the second as result #2.
In the second, result #1 is a PDF.
Seems like something that ought to be deferred to the Google team for
an explanation. Regardless, understanding a user's meaning in a single
text input is always hard.
--
--
Christian Montoya
christianmontoya.net .. designtocss.com
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