What does Google say about SEO?

Can we really afford to do anything in SEO without facing consequences?

John Mueller Apr 28, 2026 ★★

On Bluesky, Google's John Mueller stated that because SEO is complex, multifaceted, and resilient, you "can do a lot of things that don't work, but still get away with it." In summary, you can make mistakes or use ineffective strategies without neces...

Content AI & SEO Links & Backlinks

Why can't anyone truly master SEO 100%?

John Mueller Apr 28, 2026 ★★★

John Mueller stated that SEO is not a matter of belief, that no one knows everything, and that practices are continually evolving. He also claimed that anyone calling themselves an "SEO guru" is, in his view, a fraud who doesn't know what they’re tal...

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO

Is BigQuery really essential for analyzing your SEO data at scale?

Martin Splitt Apr 23, 2026 ★★★

Google encourages the use of BigQuery to query large web datasets, although it can sometimes be costly, it is crucial for gaining detailed insights into elements such as robots.txt files.

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO PDF & Files

Is Google finally revealing how it really analyzes your pages with HTTP Archive?

Gary Illyes Apr 23, 2026 ★★★

HTTP Archive is used by Google to analyze how web pages evolve in terms of performance, JavaScript usage, and other essential SEO metrics.

Domain Age & History HTTPS & Security AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Web Performance Search Console

Should you really stick to the 100KB limit for your robots.txt file?

Martin Splitt Apr 23, 2026 ★★

Robots.txt files that do not exceed 100KB are common, which is convenient for ensuring optimal performance during crawling by search engines.

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO PDF & Files Web Performance Search Console

Do you really need to master SQL and BigQuery for SEO in 2025?

Gary Illyes Apr 23, 2026 ★★

Writing SQL queries in BigQuery is essential for extracting and analyzing web data at scale, though you must be mindful of the associated costs by optimizing queries.

AI & SEO

Does Google use custom JavaScript scripts to evaluate your pages?

Martin Splitt Apr 23, 2026 ★★★

Google uses custom metric scripts to extract more specific data during website page tests, providing flexibility in the pursuit of information that is otherwise unavailable.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO

Why is Google suddenly sharing massive data on robots.txt usage?

Gary Illyes Apr 23, 2026 ★★★

Google has integrated new metrics to analyze robots.txt files through HTTP Archive, allowing for large-scale data extraction with BigQuery to better understand and document the most widely used rules.

Crawl & Indexing HTTPS & Security AI & SEO PDF & Files

Can Google really ignore all links from a spammy site?

John Mueller Apr 21, 2026 ★★★

John Mueller reminds us that if a site violates Google's anti-spam policies, its outgoing links can simply be ignored altogether by Google. In other words, a site considered spammy no longer transmits any link value (‘link juice’) to the sites it poi...

Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Links & Backlinks Penalties & Spam

Could a domain name similar to a competitor harm your SEO?

John Mueller Apr 21, 2026 ★★★

A webmaster was concerned about having a domain very close to another (only one letter difference). John Mueller responds that this is generally not an issue for SEO in itself. The only real risk identified is Google's "Did you mean...?" feature. If ...

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name

Should you offer Markdown versions of your content to enhance your visibility in AI-generated results?

John Mueller Apr 21, 2026 ★★

An SEO consultant saw claims circulating that Google Search Central would serve Markdown versions of its blog articles to boost its visibility in AI-generated results. He delved into the topic, inspected the source code of the page, and found that th...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing Discover & News AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Links & Backlinks Search Console

Does Markdown Really Work for SEO, or Should You Always Use HTML Instead?

John Mueller Apr 14, 2026 ★★★

On LinkedIn, someone asked John Mueller whether Google treats .md pages (that is, Markdown) differently from standard HTML pages, and more specifically whether they are properly rendered and accessible by Googlebot? His answer: "These are text files....

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Links & Backlinks PDF & Files Social Media

Why does Google stagger Core Updates over multiple weeks instead of releasing them all at once?

John Mueller Apr 07, 2026 ★★★

John Mueller explains that Core Updates are not deployed all at once, but in stages, because they affect multiple systems and components that must be pushed out progressively. He also clarifies that there is no single "machine" for all Core Updates: ...

Algorithms Content AI & SEO

Should you really avoid using unique canonicals on multi-page e-commerce sites?

John Mueller Mar 31, 2026 ★★★

On LinkedIn, Rowan Collins, SEO Consultant, exchanged with John Mueller on a specific point about e-commerce structured data. For a multi-page site, each product variant with its own URL should not be redirected to a single canonical group URL, becau...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing E-commerce AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Domain Name PDF & Files Social Media

Does the 15 MB Googlebot crawl limit really kill your indexation, and how can you fix it?

Martin Splitt Mar 30, 2026 ★★★

Googlebot retrieves a default of 15 megabytes of raw content (raw bytes) per URL, then stops. This 15 MB limit applies to each URL individually: if your HTML references other resources, each one has its own 15 MB limit.

Content Crawl & Indexing Domain Name

Is Google Really Measuring Page Weight the Way You Think It Does?

Martin Splitt Mar 30, 2026 ★★★

For Google, page weight (page size) corresponds to the raw bytes transferred by URL, and not the total sum of all downloaded resources. This definition differs from that of users who often consider the total weight including all resources.

Domain Age & History Domain Name

Has mobile page weight tripled in 10 years? Why should SEO professionals care about this trend?

Gary Illyes Mar 30, 2026 ★★

Data from the Web Almanac 2025 shows that the median weight of a mobile homepage has grown from 845 KB in 2015 to 2.3 MB in July 2025, representing a threefold increase over 10 years.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Mobile SEO

Is your structured data bloating your pages too much to be worth the SEO investment?

Martin Splitt Mar 30, 2026 ★★

Structured data can significantly increase a page's HTML weight because it is intended for machines rather than users. Google supports many types of structured data, which can easily bloat a page.

Domain Age & History Structured Data Pagination & Structure

Is your mobile site missing critical content that exists on desktop?

Martin Splitt Mar 30, 2026 ★★★

During the rollout of mobile-first indexing, Google observed numerous cases where mobile and desktop versions of the same content (different URLs) presented significant gaps: missing content, absent links, different navigation, missing metadata or li...

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Mobile SEO Domain Name Pagination & Structure

Is your desktop content disappearing from Google rankings because it's missing on mobile?

Martin Splitt Mar 30, 2026 ★★★

If content present on the desktop version is missing from the mobile version, the site won't be able to rank for queries related to that missing content, because mobile-first indexing prioritizes the mobile version.

Content Crawl & Indexing Mobile SEO