What does Google say about SEO?

What Factors Truly Influence Rich Results Quality?

John Mueller Jul 23, 2021 ★★★

For the display of rich results, Google assesses: 1) the correct technical implementation of markup, 2) compliance with Google's policies, 3) the overall quality of the site. Core Updates can alter quality assessments and affect the display of rich r...

Algorithms Domain Age & History Content Structured Data Featured Snippets & SERP

Do Dashes in Domain Names Really Affect SEO?

John Mueller Jul 23, 2021 ★★

Having one or more dashes in a domain name does not impact SEO. No Google algorithm specifically targets dashes. Adding keywords in the domain is overrated - the overall quality of the site matters much more.

Algorithms AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name

Is it true that migrating your domain for keywords could backfire on your SEO efforts?

John Mueller Jul 23, 2021 ★★

Migrating to a new domain just for the sake of adding keywords generally creates more problems (migration complexity) than potential benefits. The domain name is not a strong ranking factor.

AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name Redirects

How does the Search Console's URL Inspection Tool change the game for SEO?

John Mueller Jul 23, 2021 ★★★

The URL Inspection Tool in Search Console is the best way to verify if Googlebot is rendering a page correctly. It provides a screenshot and the rendered HTML. The production Search rendering is nearly identical, with only minor differences in timeou...

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing E-commerce Domain Name Web Performance Search Console

Is it true that the HTML lang attribute doesn’t matter for SEO?

John Mueller Jul 23, 2021 ★★★

The lang attribute in HTML is not used by Google for ranking purposes. Google determines the primary language of a page by analyzing its actual content. Nevertheless, this attribute is important for accessibility (screen readers).

Domain Age & History Content International SEO

Is it true that Google ignores certain lang attributes in your templates?

John Mueller Jul 23, 2021 ★★

Copied-pasted or automatically installed templates often contain incorrectly predefined lang attributes (e.g., lang='en' on a French site). As a result, Google ignores this attribute and relies on the actual content to detect the language.

Content AI & SEO International SEO

Is it true that Google treats product pages and articles the same in SEO?

John Mueller Jul 23, 2021 ★★

Google does not treat product/service pages differently from blog articles in terms of SEO. The approach is the same: understanding the content, evaluating its relevance, and ranking it accordingly.

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

How can you effectively optimize your pages for 'near me' searches without complicating your strategy?

John Mueller Jul 23, 2021 ★★★

For queries including 'near me', there's no need to optimize for this specific term. Google uses a geographic distance algorithm. The key is to have your location clearly defined on your pages and in Google My Business.

Algorithms Domain Age & History AI & SEO Local Search International SEO

How does Google My Business enhance your local SEO efforts?

John Mueller Jul 23, 2021 ★★★

For local services or businesses, having a strong and complete Google My Business profile is crucial. It facilitates visibility in local results and 'near me' queries, often more effectively than traditional SEO.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Local Search

How can you leverage free Google Shopping to boost your product visibility?

John Mueller Jul 23, 2021 ★★

Setting up the free Google Shopping feed (Merchant Center) allows products to be displayed in Shopping results and sometimes in regular search results, providing additional visibility beyond traditional organic SEO.

E-commerce AI & SEO Local Search

Is selective internal linking more effective than a massive approach for SEO?

John Mueller Jul 23, 2021 ★★★

Linking from a strong page to too many products dilutes value ('everything is somewhat relevant, but nothing is truly relevant'). It's better to create targeted internal links to a few key products to clearly signal their importance to Google.

Domain Age & History E-commerce AI & SEO Links & Backlinks

Should You Focus on Profitable Products in Your Internal Linking Strategy?

John Mueller Jul 23, 2021 ★★

For internal linking, focus on the most profitable, popular, or easy-to-sell products rather than those that rank poorly. Strong and targeted internal linking can improve the ranking of these product pages over time.

Domain Age & History E-commerce AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Pagination & Structure

Does Shared Hosting Really Affect Your SEO?

John Mueller Jul 20, 2021 ★★★

Using shared hosting is perfectly acceptable for Google Search and does not negatively impact a site's SEO. There is no need to switch to dedicated hosting or a dedicated IP address for SEO reasons.

AI & SEO Pagination & Structure

How does Google manage sites on shared servers?

John Mueller Jul 20, 2021 ★★★

Google assesses each website based on its own merits, rather than its virtual neighbors on the same server. The presence of other sites on the same server does not influence a site's ranking.

AI & SEO

Should you really worry about 'bad neighborhoods' in SEO?

John Mueller Jul 20, 2021 ★★★

The presence of other low-quality sites hosted on the same server (referred to as 'bad neighborhood' by some SEOs) is not a concern for Google. Hosting providers typically monitor these situations.

AI & SEO

Is it true that an overloaded server can hinder your SEO performance?

John Mueller Jul 20, 2021 ★★

When too many websites are hosted on a system with limited capacity, the server can become overloaded and very slow. This leaves users unhappy and can make it more challenging for Google to crawl the site.

Content Crawl & Indexing

Does the type of hosting truly impact your website's speed and SEO performance?

John Mueller Jul 20, 2021 ★★

A dedicated server isn’t always fast, and a shared server isn’t automatically slow. Performance depends on the server’s capacity, not whether it’s shared or dedicated.

AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Web Performance Search Console

Why is it so challenging to pinpoint a website's actual hosting?

John Mueller Jul 20, 2021 ★

It is often impossible to determine from the outside how a website is actually hosted: a single server, a cluster of servers, a single data center, or multiple data centers.

Are Link Exchanges and Forum Backlinks Really Useless for SEO?

John Mueller Jul 19, 2021 ★★

John Mueller spoke out several times about link building last week. In a webmaster hangout, he explained that link exchanges (I link to you, you link to me) were considered artificial and therefore went against the search engine's official guidelines...

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Links & Backlinks

Why Are 307 and 308 Redirects Misunderstood by Most SEO Professionals?

Google Jul 19, 2021 ★★★

Google's official documentation on redirects has been updated with information that can sometimes be useful: 308 redirects are treated by the search engine as 301s (permanent redirect) and 307s as 302s (temporary redirect)...

HTTPS & Security AI & SEO PDF & Files Redirects