: Does Google index hash tags as keywords? I'm working on a project where the client wants to add 3-5 hashtags (i.e.: #bikes) to each page of his content. There is a logical reason for these

@Shanna517

I can think of three cases.

Case 1: # is decoration

If, in your case, the #


doesn’t have a technical purpose, and
isn’t the only indicator that these are tags,


then you could consider adding the # with CSS (instead of including it in the HTML):

<a href="/tags/bikes" rel="tag">bikes</a>


a[rel="tag"]::before {content:"#";}


In that case, the # is just presentation, it has no semantic meaning, it’s not part of the content.

Search engine bots would have no reason to index the text added via content unless they think it got misused (unlikely in this case). Related question: Can Google crawlers/googlebot read CSS content in before and after elements?

Case 2: # is the only indicator for humans

If other indicators are missing (e.g., there is no label like "Tags:" or similar), then the # would be the only indicator for humans that these links are meant to be tags for the current content, so it should be part of the HTML.

In that case, you could consider adding it outside of the link (like you would place labels outside of the link, too):

#<a href="/tags/bikes" rel="tag">bikes</a>


Case 3: # is part of the tag

If you want the tags to actually contain the #, then it should be part of the link:

<a href="/tags/bikes" rel="tag">#bikes</a>


In that case, the title of the tag page should contain the #, the tag URL should contain the # (percent-encoded), mentions in emails and other documents should contain the # etc.

The SEO affect shouldn’t be relevant here, as the # is part of the tag (just like the "b", the "i" etc.), it is what it is.

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