What is ASCII code

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What is ASCII code

The ASCII, for American Standard Code for Information Interchange, designates in the computer world a character coding standard. It is the computer version of Morse code, on a larger scale, which allows long distance communication between computers. Here are some pointers on what ASCII code is and how to consider it in your SEO strategy.

How does it work

The Ascii provides 128 characters numbered from 0 to 127, coded in binary on 7 bits. The lowercase ‘ a ‘ is, for example, the character number 0097, that is 1100001 in binary. For the values from 0 to 31, the code designates special characters, called ‘control’, such as the Shift, End, Enter, Escape and Tabulation keys. Only 95 characters can appear on the screen: upper case letters occupy the range 65 to 90, lower case letters 97 to 122. The rest goes to the symbols <, =, {, %, or $. By covering most of the characters, Ascii has become the standard for text encoding.

What’s the relation

Each character corresponds to a sequence of 0 and 1 to seven digits, which appears as a decimal number or a hexadecimal number. They divide into several groups:

  • Command character (0-31 & 127): control characters are non-printable characters. We use them to transmit commands to the PC or printer and are based on fax technology. These characters are to place line breaks or tabs.
  • Special characters (32-47 / 58-64 / 91-96 / 123-126): they include all printable characters that are not letters or numbers, such as punctuation marks or technical and mathematical characters. ASCII also includes the blank character, which is considered a non-visible but printable character, and therefore does not belong to the control characters as one might suspect.
  • Numbers (30-39): numbers include the ten Arabic digits from zero to nine.

ASCII code and SEO

We use these characters nowadays quite widely to make search snippets more attractive. Star ratings or other characters are stored within the meta descriptions and displayed in the search results. Therefore, the user’s attention can be specifically directed to a certain search result, which can lead to a higher CTR.

When learning what ASCII code is, remember: by adopting the same coding, computer systems designed by any manufacturer can exchange text, numbers, punctuation marks and many other symbols.