What does Google say about SEO?

Is it possible for Google to index Instagram despite its restrictive robots.txt?

Google Jul 14, 2022 ★★

Contrary to what a quick reading of Instagram's robots.txt suggests, Google can index certain parts of the site. The robots.txt contains specific directives for Googlebot that allow access to certain directories, even if a general directive blocks al...

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO

Do Social Media Really Influence Your SEO?

Google Jul 14, 2022 ★★★

Posting content on Instagram or other social media platforms does not have a direct effect on ranking. However, promoting a website through social media can be part of a broader visibility strategy. Google recommends not to rely exclusively on search...

Content AI & SEO

Why is publishing text as an image a bad strategy for SEO?

Google Jul 14, 2022 ★★

When it comes to the advice of publishing text as an image on Instagram for SEO, Google doesn't understand the reasoning behind this recommendation and doesn't see how it could positively impact search engine optimization.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Images & Videos

Does Your CMS Choice Really Impact Your Google Rankings?

John Mueller Jul 13, 2022 ★★★

Google's search systems do not look for a particular content management system to treat it differently. A CMS is just one way to create web pages among many others.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO

Does your CMS really impact your site's SEO performance?

John Mueller Jul 13, 2022 ★★★

All mainstream content management systems can create pages that perform well in search results. There is no CMS favored by Google.

Domain Age & History Content

Is SEO really as accessible and testable as Google claims it to be?

John Mueller Jul 13, 2022 ★★

SEO is not magic. It is well documented and there are many testing tools available, allowing all CMS providers to include SEO elements if they choose to.

AI & SEO Pagination & Structure PDF & Files

Does Google judge your pages based on how they were built or only on their final quality?

John Mueller Jul 13, 2022 ★★★

Google's systems do not focus on how a page was created, but on the final result. A manually created page can perform just as well as a page generated by a CMS.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO

Are CMSs really SEO-ready straight out of the box?

John Mueller Jul 13, 2022 ★★

For the average user, CMSs work well for search right out of the installation or can be easily optimized with just a few parameters or plugins.

Domain Age & History

Should You Really Delete Your Link Disavow File in 2024?

John Mueller Jul 11, 2022 ★★★

John Mueller stated in a webmaster hangout that there's probably no risk in completely deleting your link disavow file if you haven't had any manual actions before and/or if you don't have a history of prohibited link schemes on the site. He added th...

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

Should You Really Monitor Your Follow/Nofollow Link Ratio for SEO?

John Mueller Jul 11, 2022 ★★★

John Mueller explained on Reddit that Google's algorithm absolutely does not take into account any ratio of "follow" and "nofollow" links and that this is a myth. Google's algorithm does not work that way.

Algorithms Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Penalties & Spam

Can You Use AggregateRating Markup to Display Trustpilot or Verified Reviews?

John Mueller Jul 11, 2022 ★★★

John Mueller reminded on Twitter that it is not permitted - according to Google's official recommendations - to tag with structured data markup (such as AggregateRating type) reviews that would be provided by third-party organizations (such as TrustP...

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Local Search Social Media

Does Google really crawl rendered HTML or only the source code?

Martin Splitt Jul 06, 2022 ★★★

The HTML that the server sends (source HTML) can be different from what Google Search actually sees. Google uses the rendering process to analyze the final content of a page, which may include modifications made by JavaScript.

Domain Age & History Content JavaScript & Technical SEO

Why does Google index rendered HTML instead of source HTML?

Martin Splitt Jul 06, 2022 ★★★

Source HTML is what the server initially sends to the browser. Rendered HTML is a snapshot of the DOM transformed into HTML, reflecting the page content at the moment the snapshot is taken. Google uses rendered HTML for indexing.

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO

Why does Chrome's Elements tab reveal more than the source code for SEO?

Martin Splitt Jul 06, 2022 ★★

To see the current DOM content including JavaScript modifications, use the Elements tab (Chrome) in your browser's developer tools. This tab shows an interactive and up-to-date representation of the DOM unlike View Source.

Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Pagination & Structure Search Console

Does Google really index DOM changes made by JavaScript after the page loads?

Martin Splitt Jul 06, 2022 ★★★

The Document Object Model (DOM) is an interactive representation of the web page that can change during loading, during user interactions, or other events. JavaScript can add, modify, or remove elements in the DOM after the initial page load.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO PDF & Files

Should you really ditch source code inspection and switch to Search Console to see what Google actually indexes?

Martin Splitt Jul 06, 2022 ★★★

To debug and view the rendered HTML that Google Search uses to index a page, it is recommended to use the URL inspection tool in Google Search Console rather than classic source viewing tools.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing Domain Name Search Console

Why doesn't 'View Source' show you what Google actually indexes?

Martin Splitt Jul 06, 2022 ★★

When you right-click and select 'View Page Source' or use 'view-source:' in front of the URL, you only see the raw HTML sent by the server, not the content modified by JavaScript that Google may index.

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name Local Search

Is your rendering process preventing Google from indexing your actual content?

Martin Splitt Jul 06, 2022 ★★

Rendering is the process by which a browser transforms source HTML and CSS into a series of visual and interactive elements. This process creates the DOM and CSSOM, then the layout, and finally renders pixels to the screen.

Images & Videos JavaScript & Technical SEO

Does Google really index all of your website's content?

John Mueller Jul 04, 2022 ★★★

Googlebot will never index the entire contents of a non-trivial website. From a practical standpoint, it's impossible to index all web content. The objective shouldn't be that everything gets indexed, but rather that Googlebot focuses on important pa...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO

Is Googlebot Really Ignoring Your JavaScript Links If You're Not Using <a> Tags?

John Mueller Jul 04, 2022 ★★★

Googlebot doesn't click on every element to see what happens. Google searches for normal HTML links (traditional tags) to recognize pages to crawl. JavaScript frameworks must generate these normal HTML links to allow Google to discover pages.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing JavaScript & Technical SEO Links & Backlinks