Quote marks and other symbols vs. Abbreviations
In short, use an abbreviation that is regularly used and makes sense. (Eg. 1inch or 2mm)
How I've come to this conclusion
I had an epiphany today while working on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for a site for one of my clients. We deal with measurements in American Standard, Imperial, US, NPS (nominal pipe size), and DN (diametre nominel) all the time. The measurements are all over the place depending on the age of the documents, the sizes and classifications are everywhere between really tiny .125in and massive 120in because of the range of products. It’s not easy to appease all of the people all of the time when they’re trying to find the right information because they all use the language that they were taught. Some people look for one measurement, while others (possibly in a metric-only shop) might look for something altogether different. The field and communicating in the field is challenging to say the least.
The main problem is when we’re displaying the content we use [inherited] copy that works for our American locations, but doesn’t translate well overseas. I mention this because some countries use an entirely different set of marks for quotation. An example might be a range for the measurements 1"-3". My word processor (as I’m writing this) changed the typewriter double quote marks (double ditto marks) used for inches to “smart” [curly] quotes (right [side] double quotes). Quote marks and apostrophes are used in context in body copy and in the HTML code as well. So when you place a quote mark on the page, the search engine has to determine whether the quotation mark is in context as a quote, as a prime, as ditto marks, or closing (or opening) coded statement, then if it is used in context they have to determine whether you’re using it as a quote mark or as an indicator for a measurement, in this case inches.
The search engine has to decipher the meaning of all apostrophes, double quotes, primes, and ditto marks on the coded page to decipher meaning. When someone writes 1' 2.75" they’re really saying one foot, two and three quarter inches. Since it’s not as easy to spell that all out and have people glance at a table in context, we need to write 1ft 2.75in (for consistency) so the search engines can tell what we’re talking about. Likewise, the range I mentioned before should be written as 1in-3in.
To gain a different perspective, this document contains a variety of abbreviations and symbols for US including measurements (and they don't show quote marks and primes). You can see how using abbreviations inconsistently can lead to chaos (or in my case minute loss of page rank).
Now if we could only teach the search engines how to calculate ranges and relate to content for said ranges, as well as do calculations on the fly in context that would be awesome.
