What does Google say about SEO?

Is your SEO audit actually helping you—or wasting resources on irrelevant checks?

Martin Splitt Nov 06, 2025 ★★

The specific aspects of an audit can vary depending on your site. For example, an international site with different language versions should include an hreflang audit, but this makes no sense for a single-language site.

Content AI & SEO International SEO

Should you really worry about a spike in 404 errors in Google Search Console?

Martin Splitt Nov 06, 2025 ★★★

A high number of 404 errors is normal and expected if you've recently deleted a lot of content. It's not a problem in itself, but a normal consequence. Conversely, an unexplained increase in 404 responses requires investigation.

Content AI & SEO

Should you really implement every recommendation your SEO audit tools suggest?

Martin Splitt Nov 06, 2025 ★★★

You shouldn't blindly follow the recommendations of audit tools. It's essential to ensure that the results are relevant to the site in question and to take the time to prioritize them for maximum impact.

How can you prioritize your SEO fixes without wasting endless time and resources?

Martin Splitt Nov 06, 2025 ★★

Audit results should be grouped and prioritized according to two criteria: the amount of effort required to fix the issue and the impact that the correction will have on the site.

AI & SEO

Why does your technical SEO audit fail without involving the dev team?

Martin Splitt Nov 06, 2025 ★★

It is very useful to dialogue with people familiar with the site and its technology to verify if your assessment makes sense to them and to better understand the technical context.

Content AI & SEO

How Should You Adapt Your SEO Strategy for the AI-Generated Answers Era?

Google Nov 04, 2025 ★★★

Interviewed by Marina Mogilko on search engine optimization in the context of AI-powered search (AI Mode and AI Overviews), Robby Stein (VP of Product at Google Search) explains that SEO for AI (AEO, GEO…) is based on the same foundations as traditio...

Domain Age & History Content Discover & News E-commerce AI & SEO Local Search International SEO

Can URL Case Sensitivity Really Impact Your Organic Rankings?

John Mueller Nov 04, 2025 ★★★

As John Mueller reminds us, case plays a role in canonicalization: Google may choose a different canonical version if URLs vary only by case. Case sensitivity also impacts the management of the robots.txt file: the paths specified in the rules must m...

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Domain Name PDF & Files Local Search

Has mobile-first indexing really been a game-changer for SEO since 2016?

Lizzi Sassman Nov 03, 2025 ★★★

Since late 2016, Google has begun using primarily the mobile version of a website's content for ranking, analysis, structured data, and snippet generation. Having a mobile-ready site is essential for your online presence.

Content Crawl & Indexing Mobile SEO

Is the meta keywords tag still worth anything for SEO in 2025?

Gary Illyes Nov 03, 2025 ★★★

Google has never used the meta keywords tag for SEO purposes. This tag has no effect on your ranking in Google search results.

AI & SEO

Does using Google Analytics or Chrome really boost your SEO rankings?

Lizzi Sassman Nov 03, 2025 ★★★

Using any other Google product will not influence your rankings in Google Search. There is no SEO advantage to using other Google services.

Domain Age & History E-commerce

Why does Google normalize your HTML even when it's broken?

Gary Illyes Nov 03, 2025 ★★

Google normalizes HTML through a lexical analyzer because the Internet is generally broken at the HTML level. Even with malformed HTML, Google tries to make sense of the content by normalizing it during indexing.

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO

Does CSS really influence the SEO weight of your H1-H6 tags?

Gary Illyes Nov 03, 2025 ★★★

Google normalizes all header tags (H1, H2, H3, H4, etc.). Through rendering, Google analyzes the CSS style applied to these tags to determine the relative importance of the H tags in relation to each other.

Content AI & SEO Search Console

How does Caffeine actually ingest Googlebot data into Google's search index?

Gary Illyes Nov 03, 2025 ★★

Caffeine is Google's indexing system that ingests the protocol buffers produced by Googlebot. It collects signals, normalizes HTML, and adds the processed information to the search index.

Crawl & Indexing E-commerce AI & SEO

Should you really de-optimize certain pages to boost your SEO performance?

Lizzi Sassman Nov 03, 2025 ★★★

It's sometimes necessary to de-optimize certain pages to avoid attracting the wrong type of traffic. The objective is to have traffic that converts and accomplishes the desired action, not simply maximize visitor volume.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO

Why does Google document only one single meta tag in its official SEO guide?

Lizzi Sassman Nov 03, 2025 ★★

In Google's SEO starter guide, the meta description is the only meta tag that is truly documented and recommended. Other meta tags are not addressed because they generally have no effect on search engine optimization.

Content AI & SEO PDF & Files

Should you really optimize each Google removal tool differently for SEO?

Lizzi Sassman Nov 03, 2025 ★★

Google's various content removal tools must be optimized differently for specific keywords in order to attract the right type of traffic and help users find the right tool for their particular need.

Content AI & SEO PDF & Files

How Can You Permanently Remove Hacked Pages That Are Still Indexed by Google?

John Mueller Oct 28, 2025 ★★★

On Reddit, a user shared their misadventure. After being hacked and taking steps to fix the problem, hundreds of typical Japanese keyword hack pages are still indexed in Google, even though they no longer seem to exist in the WordPress dashboard. Joh...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name Penalties & Spam Search Console

Should You Ditch WordPress for Hosted CMS Like Wix or Squarespace?

John Mueller Oct 28, 2025 ★★

After advising to use Search Console to check for "hidden" pages, John Mueller suggested to his interlocutor to look into hosted solutions (like Wix, Squarespace) that don't require checking that all plugins or themes are updated. Faced with skeptici...

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Search Console

Is Google Search Console API Really Slowing Down or Is This Normal?

John Mueller Oct 21, 2025 ★★

John Mueller (Google) confirmed that there has been no change in the speed or update frequency of the Google Search Console API. For the past few weeks, users have been complaining about delays in data availability, both on BigQuery and on Search Con...

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

How Do User Behaviors Really Shape Google's AI Overviews?

Google Oct 21, 2025 ★★★

Liz Reid detailed how user behaviors and content quality influence results in AI Overviews. She explains that user preferences (short videos, forums, in-depth content, etc.) directly guide the types of content that Google highlights. The system learn...

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Penalties & Spam