I\'m using an \'&\' symbol with HTML5 and UTF-8 in my site\'s . Google shows the ampersand fine on its SERPs, as do all the browse
Well, if it comes from user input then absolutely yes, for obvious reasons. Think if this very website didn't do it: the title of this question would show up as do i really need to encode ‘&’ as ‘&’?
If it's just something like echo ' then strictly speaking you don't have to. It would be better, but if you don't no user will notice the difference.