What does Google say about SEO?

Does Submitting Individual Sitemaps Actually Speed Up Crawling, or Is One File Enough?

John Mueller Sep 02, 2025 ★★

John Mueller explains that uploading a sitemap file to Google Search Console does not guarantee immediate crawling of the referenced URLs. According to him, submitting the sitemap index file (sitemap.xml) is generally sufficient, and there is no need...

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

Is Google Really Changing How Links Appear in Its Generative AI to Drive More Clicks?

Google Sep 02, 2025 ★★

According to Robby Stein, Google will be testing several changes in its AI mode to encourage more clicks to publisher sites in the coming weeks. Robby Stein, a Google executive, detailed three major upcoming developments in how links are displayed wi...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Links & Backlinks Mobile SEO Pagination & Structure

How Can You Tell a Good Crawler from a Bad One and Why Does It Matter for Your SEO?

Gary Illyes Aug 26, 2025 ★★★

Martin Splitt and Gary Illyes recently highlighted the essential attributes of a good crawler: Attributes of a good crawler according to Martin Splitt Support HTTP/2 for better performance and efficiency. Clearly declare its identity via the user-age...

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing HTTPS & Security AI & SEO PDF & Files Web Performance Redirects Search Console

Should You Really Avoid Lazy Loading on Above-the-Fold Images to Improve Your SEO?

Martin Splitt Aug 26, 2025 ★★★

In a recent episode of Search Off the Record, Martin Splitt warns against using lazy loading for images that are visible as soon as users land on the page: this delays the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), as the browser defers the loading of these oth...

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Images & Videos Domain Name Web Performance Search Console

Why Do Core Web Vitals Show Different Results Between CrUX and Search Console?

Google Aug 26, 2025 ★★★

CrUX and Search Console often show different Core Web Vitals results because they measure with distinct approaches: CrUX aggregates user experiences by page views (each visit counts, favoring high-traffic pages), while Search Console evaluates health...

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name Web Performance Search Console

Is the HTML loading=lazy attribute really enough to prevent indexation issues?

Martin Splitt Aug 21, 2025 ★★★

Browsers natively support lazy loading via the 'loading=lazy' attribute for images and iframes. This HTML method is preferable to JavaScript libraries because it is simpler and avoids potential indexation issues.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Images & Videos JavaScript & Technical SEO Web Performance

Should you really ban lazy loading from hero images?

Martin Splitt Aug 21, 2025 ★★★

Never apply lazy loading to images that are immediately visible (hero image, header). This delays their loading and negatively impacts the Largest Contentful Paint, because the browser cannot preload these critical resources.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Images & Videos Web Performance

Is lazy loading actually killing your LCP?

Martin Splitt Aug 21, 2025 ★★★

Lazy loading directly influences Core Web Vitals, particularly the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP). Poorly implemented lazy loading on visible images delays rendering and degrades measured performance.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Images & Videos Web Performance Search Console

Is your custom JavaScript lazy loading library sabotaging Google's ability to index your images?

Martin Splitt Aug 21, 2025 ★★★

Custom JavaScript libraries that use attributes like 'data-src' instead of 'src' can prevent Google from indexing images. If the 'src' attribute is not properly populated, the image won't be detected by Googlebot.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing Images & Videos JavaScript & Technical SEO Web Performance

Is your lazy loading blocking Google from seeing your images?

Martin Splitt Aug 21, 2025 ★★★

To verify that lazy loading works correctly for SEO, use the URL inspection tool in Search Console and examine the rendered HTML. All image URLs must appear in the 'src' attribute of image tags.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Images & Videos Domain Name Web Performance Search Console

Does WordPress's native lazy loading really boost your SEO performance?

Martin Splitt Aug 21, 2025 ★★

WordPress now implements native lazy loading by default for images thanks to a contribution from Felix Arntz, an engineer at Google. This practice has become widespread across modern CMS platforms.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Images & Videos Web Performance

Does lazy loading really boost your SEO, or just your page speed?

Martin Splitt Aug 21, 2025 ★★

The main SEO impact of lazy loading comes through performance improvement. Core Web Vitals are a ranking factor, although their weight is generally minimal except in exceptional cases.

Images & Videos Web Performance Search Console

What if your LCP is a text block loaded in JavaScript—how does Google actually measure it?

Martin Splitt Aug 21, 2025 ★★

Largest Contentful Paint isn't necessarily an image. A substantial text block loaded late via an API can also constitute the LCP and be impacted by inefficient loading.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Images & Videos JavaScript & Technical SEO Web Performance

Is native HTML lazy loading really enough to optimize your page crawl?

Martin Splitt Aug 21, 2025 ★★

Native HTML lazy loading only works for image and iframe elements. To lazy load other content (videos, widgets, comments, API content), custom JavaScript remains necessary.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Images & Videos JavaScript & Technical SEO Web Performance

Is lazy loading destroying your image indexation in Google?

Martin Splitt Aug 21, 2025 ★★

If your images aren't being indexed at scale, this may indicate a lazy loading implementation problem. Verify that images appear correctly in the Google Images index to confirm their detection.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Images & Videos Web Performance

Are CSS background images really invisible to Google's search algorithm?

Martin Splitt Aug 21, 2025 ★★

Decorative images loaded via CSS are generally not indexed by Google. Only images that are semantically important to the content (via HTML img tags) are taken into account for indexing.

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Images & Videos

Why does Google really insist that infinite scroll and lazy loading are fundamentally different?

Martin Splitt Aug 21, 2025 ★

Infinite scroll and lazy loading are philosophically different: lazy loading loads non-critical resources of an already-defined page, while infinite scroll loads additional content to create an infinite page experience.

Domain Age & History Content Images & Videos Web Performance

Does AI-generated content really need human review to rank on Google?

Gary Illyes Aug 19, 2025 ★★★

Google, through Gary Illyes, has clarified that AI-generated content is accepted by the search engine as long as it meets strict criteria for quality, originality, and factual accuracy. Illyes emphasizes that the term "human-created" is not the most ...

Domain Age & History Content E-commerce AI & SEO

Do AI-Generated Images Hurt Your SEO Rankings?

Gary Illyes Aug 19, 2025 ★★★

Gary Illyes also clarified that using images generated by artificial intelligence does not result in any penalty or direct negative impact on natural search rankings. According to him, integrating this type of image on a page, as long as the rest of ...

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Images & Videos

Are Your AI Search Clicks Actually Converting Into Real Customers?

Google Aug 19, 2025 ★★★

Fabrice Canel, from the Bing team at Microsoft, emphasizes that search engines have limited visibility into what happens after a click from an AI search: they don't know whether the visitor converts. According to him, while improving the quality of r...

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Pagination & Structure