What does Google say about SEO?

Does Google really prioritize support sites for help-related queries?

John Mueller Aug 06, 2025 ★★★

Google tries to recognize when a user is performing a search related to support and displays the support site in the results accordingly. Each site is shown in search results when it's appropriate.

AI & SEO Local Search

Should you host your customer support on the same domain for SEO benefits?

John Mueller Aug 06, 2025 ★★★

Having a support site on the same domain name with a different subdomain, or even on a completely different domain name, is a perfectly normal configuration that causes no SEO problems whatsoever.

AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name

Should You Use LLMS.txt to Optimize Your SEO for AI?

Gary Illyes Aug 05, 2025 ★★★

Gary Illyes recently stated on Bluesky that the LLMS.txt file, designed to "control" LLMs' access to web content, strongly resembles the meta keywords tag from the 1990s, which quickly became obsolete and ineffective. He thus highlights the little in...

Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Pagination & Structure PDF & Files

Is Classic SEO Really All You Need to Rank in AI Search?

Google Aug 05, 2025 ★★★

Fabrice Canel, Product Manager at Bing, states that to optimize visibility in AI Search, simply following usual SEO best practices is sufficient—a view shared by Google. In a recent blog post, his team emphasizes the importance of XML sitemaps, the l...

Content Crawl & Indexing Discover & News E-commerce AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Mobile SEO PDF & Files Local Search Search Console

Should You Already Be Optimizing Your E-commerce Site for Conversational AI Agents?

John Mueller Aug 05, 2025 ★★★

John Mueller suggests that e-commerce site owners should check whether their stores are accessible to AI agents, such as those used through ChatGPT for shopping. An experiment conducted in Switzerland showed that some sites remained inaccessible due ...

Domain Age & History Content E-commerce AI & SEO

Is Google Really Using MUVERA to Revolutionize Its Search System?

Gary Illyes Aug 05, 2025 ★★★

During an exchange at Search Central Live, Gary Illyes confirmed that Google uses a method similar to MUVERA, an innovative multi-vector search technique compressed into fixed vectors, which enables fast and accurate retrieval at scale. MUVERA combin...

Domain Age & History Content E-commerce AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO

Is title truncation in Google search results actually hurting your SEO?

John Mueller Jul 30, 2025 ★★

According to John Mueller, truncation of product names in Google search results does not constitute a violation of guidelines. Google can shorten titles displayed in search results for display reasons, without penalizing the site.

Domain Age & History Content E-commerce AI & SEO

Should You Delete Past Event Pages or Keep Them for SEO?

John Mueller Jul 29, 2025 ★★★

John Mueller provided practical advice on the SEO management of web pages for shows, events or performances once they have ended. He compares this situation to that of out-of-stock products in e-commerce, emphasizing that there is no universal soluti...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing E-commerce AI & SEO Web Performance Search Console

Do You Really Need a New 'GEO' Strategy to Show Up in Google's AI Overviews?

Gary Illyes Jul 29, 2025 ★★★

Google confirms that no particular optimization is necessary for AI Overviews and AI Mode. Gary Illyes has clearly established that traditional SEO practices are more than sufficient to rank in the new AI-powered search features. The company emphasiz...

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Mobile SEO Pagination & Structure International SEO

Should You Use a Noindex Header to Protect Your llms.txt Files from Google Indexing?

John Mueller Jul 29, 2025 ★★

John Mueller answered a question about llms.txt files and their potential impact as duplicate content. He explained that these files would only be considered duplicate content if their content was identical to an HTML page, which wouldn't make sense ...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Links & Backlinks Domain Name PDF & Files International SEO

Should you really use the canonical tag to manage tracking parameters?

Google Jul 25, 2025 ★★★

Google recommends using the actual Canonical URL tag to prevent the appearance of tracking parameters in search results. It's a practical and effective method to indicate the preferred version of the page.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing Domain Name

Should you use noindex or robots.txt to manage tracking parameters? Here's what Google actually recommends

Google Jul 25, 2025 ★★

Meta noindex tags and the robots.txt file are alternatives for managing URLs with tracking parameters. Each method presents advantages and disadvantages that must be weighed according to your context.

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing Images & Videos Domain Name PDF & Files

Are tracking parameters damaging your search visibility? Here's why Google shows them—and how to fix it

Google Jul 25, 2025 ★★

Tracking parameters can appear in Google search results. This is a common issue that requires action to maintain a clean search presence and user-friendly experience.

AI & SEO

Do CSS class names really affect your search engine rankings?

Martin Splitt Jul 24, 2025 ★★★

CSS class names have no effect on search engine optimization. They are simply identifiers used to assign styling rules to HTML elements. You could name them all 'blurb' without any SEO impact, though it would be difficult for developers to maintain.

AI & SEO

Why does Google require your CSS files to be crawlable?

John Mueller Jul 24, 2025 ★★

Google's guidelines indicate that CSS files must be crawlable, which suggests they have a certain importance for the page indexation and rendering process.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO PDF & Files

Is CSS ::before and ::after content really invisible to Google?

Martin Splitt Jul 24, 2025 ★★★

Content added via CSS pseudo-elements ::before and ::after does not appear in the DOM and will therefore not be taken into account by crawlers and accessibility tools. This content should only be used for decorative elements.

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO

Why does Google fail to recognize hashtags generated through CSS ::before?

John Mueller Jul 24, 2025 ★★★

The indexation team reported a case where a site used CSS ::before to add the # symbol in front of keywords. The indexation system did not recognize these hashtags because the # symbol was not in the HTML but added via CSS.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO

Why aren't your CSS background images ever showing up in Google Images?

Martin Splitt Jul 24, 2025 ★★★

Images loaded via CSS background-image are considered decorative. If an image is integral to your content (product photo, infographic referenced in text), it must use an or tag to be properly indexed by Image Search.

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing E-commerce AI & SEO Images & Videos

Could strict HTML and CSS separation be the missing piece in your indexation strategy?

Martin Splitt Jul 24, 2025 ★★★

There exists a fundamental principle of the web: content must be in HTML and presentation in CSS. Crawlers and accessibility tools parse HTML for content, not CSS. Violating this principle can prevent proper indexation.

Content Crawl & Indexing

Does 100vh really cause indexation problems for your hero images?

Martin Splitt Jul 24, 2025 ★★

Using 100vh (100% of the viewport height) for hero images can cause problems with the Inspect URL tool due to viewport expansion used during rendering. However, the content remains accessible in the DOM and should be indexed normally.

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Images & Videos JavaScript & Technical SEO Mobile SEO Domain Name Search Console