What does Google say about SEO?

Search through official Google statements about search engine optimization

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9069 statement(s) found
Should SEO experts really be involved from the technical design phase?
Martin Splitt Mar 09, 2022 ★★★
It is essential to involve SEO experts from the design phase (roadmap, design doc, PRD) for features affecting indexable pages, in order to avoid having to fix problems after deployment.
Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing
Are accordions and collapsible content still hurting your mobile SEO rankings?
Martin Splitt Mar 09, 2022 ★★★
With mobile-first indexing, Google has become more tolerant of certain elements like accordions or collapsible content, since mobile screens have limited space. These elements do not penalize your SEO if they are properly implemented with server-side...
Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Mobile SEO
Should you really be using Lighthouse with feature flags to measure SEO impact before rolling out changes?
Martin Splitt Mar 09, 2022 ★★
The Lighthouse tool allows you to measure the impact of modifications on performance. It is recommended to use it with feature flags to compare performance before and after deploying a new feature.
Content Web Performance Search Console
Should You Still Be Using Google's Disavow Tool in 2024?
John Mueller Mar 07, 2022 ★★★
John Mueller explained on Twitter that Google doesn't use the disavow file submitted by webmasters to discover spammy links or link networks. Why? Simply because, according to him, "fake link networks are generally easier to recognize by other means....
Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Links & Backlinks PDF & Files Penalties & Spam Social Media
Does Google really show you all the links that matter for your SEO in Search Console?
John Mueller Mar 05, 2022 ★★★
The links report in Search Console displays all known links to a site, whether important or not. This includes nofollow links, disavowed links, and links ignored by Google. The presence of a link in this report does not mean it is relevant or useful ...
AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Local Search Search Console
Can an invalid AMP page still be indexed by Google?
John Mueller Mar 05, 2022 ★★
A page built entirely in AMP is treated as a normal HTML page. If it's AMP-valid, Google can use the AMP cache and AMP features in search. But even if it's AMP-invalid, it will still be indexed normally like any other HTML page.
Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Mobile SEO Web Performance
Are massive footer links really killing your site's context?
John Mueller Mar 05, 2022 ★★★
Having massive internal links in the footer where every page is linked to all other pages removes context and prevents Google from understanding the site structure and the relative importance of pages. A certain level of cross-linking between related...
Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Pagination & Structure
Is hidden text still a problem for SEO in 2024?
John Mueller Mar 05, 2022 ★★★
Hidden text is problematic only when it serves to deceive search engines about the true content of a page. Using hidden text for internal identifiers, accessibility, or legitimate technical needs is perfectly acceptable and poses no problem according...
Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Pagination & Structure
Why does Google refuse to index some of your pages?
John Mueller Mar 05, 2022 ★★★
Google doesn't automatically index all pages from every website. The 'Discovered, not crawled' or 'Crawled, not indexed' status lasting several weeks doesn't necessarily indicate a technical problem, but can simply reflect Google's indexation choices...
Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO
Why do your images never appear in Google Images despite solid SEO performance?
John Mueller Mar 05, 2022 ★★★
For an image to be indexed in Google Images, it must have a stable URL. If the URL changes with each crawl (for example with session IDs), Google will never be able to properly index these images because image crawling is slower. For standard web sea...
Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Images & Videos Domain Name Pagination & Structure
Why does Google insist that sitemaps should never be your only safety net?
John Mueller Mar 05, 2022 ★★★
Sitemaps should provide supplementary information about a site, but should not be the primary means of content discovery. Internal linking is essential. Google must be able to discover all content by crawling the site, without depending on the sitema...
Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Pagination & Structure Search Console
Can Core Web Vitals Really Tank Your Rankings by 48 Positions?
John Mueller Mar 05, 2022 ★★★
Page Experience, including Core Web Vitals, is a subtle ranking signal that helps differentiate between content of similar quality. It should not cause drastic changes in positioning. A page should not drop from position 2 to 50 solely because of Cor...
Domain Age & History Content E-commerce AI & SEO Web Performance Social Media
Why does the schema.org validator contradict Google's tools?
John Mueller Mar 05, 2022 ★★
The schema.org validator validates all the theoretical vocabulary of schema.org, while Google tools (Rich Results Test, Search Console) only validate the types of structured data that have a visible effect in Google search results. Google can also ha...
Domain Age & History Structured Data Featured Snippets & SERP AI & SEO Search Console
Does Google really ignore language URL parameters without warning?
John Mueller Mar 05, 2022 ★★★
If Google detects that a URL parameter (like hl=language) frequently leads to identical content or invalid content, its systems can learn to ignore this parameter. It is important to ensure that each parametric language version actually displays uniq...
Content Domain Name Local Search International SEO
Should you update the same page or create a new URL every day for frequently refreshed content?
John Mueller Mar 05, 2022 ★★★
For daily updated content (like cryptocurrency prices), Google recommends maintaining the same URL and simply updating the existing content rather than creating a new page each day. This allows you to build value over time and helps Google identify t...
Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing E-commerce AI & SEO Domain Name
Should you stop using the manual submission tool in Google Search Console?
John Mueller Mar 05, 2022 ★★★
Regularly using the 'Request indexing' function in Search Console is almost a sign that Google isn't yet convinced by your site. Even if you force indexation, there's no guarantee the page will appear in a visible ranking position. This tool should b...
Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Search Console
Do H2 tags in your footer actually hurt your SEO rankings?
John Mueller Mar 05, 2022 ★★
Google can recognize common elements that repeat across all pages (like footers) and automatically de-emphasizes them for ranking purposes. Using H2 tags in the footer is not problematic. Google will simply index one of these pages for the footer tex...
Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing
Do HTML5 <header> and <footer> tags really boost your SEO rankings?
John Mueller Mar 05, 2022 ★★
In HTML5, you can use and elements to semantically structure your page. Within these elements, you can have your own heading hierarchies. This allows for clean structure from a semantic perspective, even though Google already handles footers well w...
Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Pagination & Structure
Should you really rely on the schema.org validator to optimize your structured data?
John Mueller Mar 05, 2022 ★★★
The schema.org validator verifies general markup compliance according to schema.org requirements. Google Search Console's validator focuses specifically on what Google can extract and use in search results. Google uses only a small portion of schema....
Domain Age & History Structured Data AI & SEO Search Console
Does improving page speed really boost your rankings as fast as everyone claims?
John Mueller Mar 05, 2022 ★★★
A rapid ranking improvement after boosting page speed (from 30 to 45-50 on PageSpeed Insights) within a few days is probably not due to speed. Speed metrics are measured via the Chrome User Experience Report data, which takes time to collect and aggr...
Domain Age & History AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Web Performance
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