This study evaluates the impact of common item characteristics on the outcome of equating in credentialing examinations when traditionally recommended representation is not possible. This research used real data sets from several credentialing exams to test the impact of content representation, item statistics, and number of common items on equating results. The results of this research suggests that it may not be necessary to have a common item block that is strictly proportional in content or difficulty to the entire exam if the exam is unidimensional. The results also suggest that it may be beneficial to use all common items between two forms for equating instead of focusing on a smaller anchor block.