What does Google say about SEO?

Should you really forget technical SEO to please Google with 'people-first' content?

John Mueller Sep 28, 2022 ★★★

Google recommends focusing on people-first content (user-centric) and avoiding search engine-first content (created primarily for search engines).

Content

Is Google's Search Console classification update changing how you should prioritize your SEO tasks?

John Mueller Sep 28, 2022 ★★

Google has simplified the way pages, elements, and issues are classified in Search Console. This makes it easier to focus on critical issues affecting your site's visibility and better prioritize your work.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Search Console

How can you optimize your feeds to make the most of Google Discover's Follow feature?

John Mueller Sep 28, 2022 ★

Google has added best practices for feeds intended for the Follow feature in Google Discover. This feature is currently available in English in the United States.

Discover & News AI & SEO

Does Word Count Really Matter for SEO Content Anymore?

Danny Sullivan Sep 26, 2022 ★★★

Google has removed errors returned by the Search Console for sites registered in Google News, specifically the "article too short" error. Any mention of text being too short has also disappeared from its online help on best practices for article page...

Algorithms Domain Age & History Content Discover & News AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Search Console

Do You Really Need an H1 Tag on Every Page to Rank Well on Google?

John Mueller Sep 26, 2022 ★★★

John Mueller explained on Reddit that Google will never penalize a page simply because it doesn't have an H1 tag.

Domain Age & History Content Featured Snippets & SERP AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO

Why has Chrome DevTools become the go-to tool for previewing how your pages look on mobile devices?

Google Sep 26, 2022 ★★

Google recommends using Chrome Desktop development tools to preview how web pages appear on different mobile devices. Simply open the three-dot menu, select More Tools, then Developer Tools, click the Device icon, and choose a phone from the dropdown...

Domain Age & History Mobile SEO Pagination & Structure

Does Google really require testing across multiple screen sizes in Responsive mode to rank higher on mobile?

Google Sep 26, 2022 ★★

Google advises using Responsive mode in Chrome Developer Tools to test how a web page appears across a full range of mobile screen sizes, ensuring your site functions well on all devices.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Mobile SEO

How Does Google Actually Differentiate Between Two Similar Sites for Ranking?

John Mueller Sep 22, 2022 ★★★

John Mueller explained during a webmaster hangout how Google handles 2 similar sites: ultimately, it doesn't matter if the visual design is more or less different—what counts is the editorial content. If 2 pages on 2 different sites have the same con...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing Discover & News AI & SEO

Does Word Count Really Matter to Google When Judging Content Quality?

John Mueller Sep 22, 2022 ★★★

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that the word count of a text is not taken into account by the search engine's algorithm to determine whether content is of good or poor quality.

Algorithms Content AI & SEO Social Media

What's the real reason Google created XML Sitemaps in the first place?

Vanessa Fox Sep 22, 2022 ★★

XML Sitemaps were created in early 2005 to allow website owners to provide Google with a list of URLs to crawl and index. Back then, page discovery was difficult because many sites had no incoming links.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Links & Backlinks Domain Name PDF & Files Search Console

How did Google transform XML Sitemaps into a neutral web standard shared by all major search engines?

Vanessa Fox Sep 22, 2022 ★★

Google partnered with Microsoft and Yahoo to establish XML Sitemaps as a unified web standard accepted by all major search engines, resulting in the creation of sitemaps.org with neutral branding and colors.

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO PDF & Files Search Console

What was Google's real hidden agenda when launching Search Console in the first place?

Vanessa Fox Sep 22, 2022 ★★

The tool was created to provide data to webmasters in order to encourage them to submit sitemaps. The approach was to understand what the audience needed, both from site owners and internally at Google.

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Search Console

Does Google deliberately hide SEO information from webmasters to protect its algorithm?

Vanessa Fox Sep 22, 2022 ★★★

When creating Webmaster Central, there was constant tension between providing maximum useful information to webmasters and not revealing details that could be exploited by spammers.

AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Penalties & Spam

Why did Google deliberately target SEOs first with its early webmaster tools?

Vanessa Fox Sep 22, 2022 ★★

Although the tools were not exclusively designed for SEOs, these professionals were in 2006-2007 the most interested in this type of data and those who worked on it the most intensively, so Google prioritized targeting them.

AI & SEO

Are hyphens in URLs really an essential ranking factor?

Vanessa Fox Sep 22, 2022 ★★★

A 2006 article on using hyphens in URLs continues to cause problems, with websites still modifying all their URLs today to add hyphens while believing it's an essential best practice.

Discover & News Domain Name

Why won't Google settle the subdomains vs subdirectories debate once and for all?

John Mueller Sep 22, 2022 ★★

The question of whether it's better to use subdomains or subdirectories remains a recurring and complex discussion topic without a simple definitive answer.

AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name

How can you slash your support emails by 80% with SEO-friendly documentation?

Vanessa Fox Sep 22, 2022 ★★

By creating a comprehensive help center based on the most frequently asked questions received by Google's support team, the volume of support emails was reduced by approximately 80%.

AI & SEO PDF & Files

Do you really need a meta robots tag on every single page?

John Mueller Sep 20, 2022 ★★★

A meta robots tag is not required to rank in Google search results. It is only necessary if you want to modify the default appearance of a page in search results.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO

Is the meta robots tag really enough to control how your pages appear in Google?

John Mueller Sep 20, 2022 ★★★

The meta robots tag allows you to specify how a specific page should be displayed in search results, or whether it should not be displayed at all. It serves to modify the default appearance of a page in the results.

Domain Age & History

Do you really need to add a meta robots tag to every page on your website?

John Mueller Sep 20, 2022 ★★★

If you have no preference regarding how a page should be displayed in search results, not having a meta robots tag on a page is perfectly acceptable and does not negatively affect SEO.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Pagination & Structure