What does Google say about SEO?

Why do orphan pages detected solely through sitemaps lose all their SEO weight?

John Mueller May 07, 2021 ★★★

Creating pages that are accessible only through the sitemap and not linked from the site is a bad practice. Google can find and index them through the sitemap, but cannot assign them weight because it has no understanding of the context or importance...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Search Console

Should you really wait 3 months after a 301 migration to recover your traffic?

John Mueller May 07, 2021 ★★★

When restructuring URLs with 301 redirects, you should expect at least 2 to 3 months for everything to stabilize in search results. It is recommended to plan these changes during less critical activity periods.

Domain Name Pagination & Structure Redirects

Why does Google continue crawling 301 redirected URLs for over a year?

John Mueller May 07, 2021 ★★★

Even after more than a year of a 301 redirect, Google may continue to crawl the old URLs if there are external links pointing to them. However, after a few passes, Google switches the canonical to the new URL. The old URLs may still appear in targete...

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Domain Name Redirects

Merging two websites: Is combined traffic ever certain?

John Mueller May 07, 2021 ★★★

When merging two websites, the outcome in terms of visibility is difficult to predict. It is not simply the sum of the traffic from both sites. Google may consider the new structure better and improve visibility, or on the contrary, find it more comp...

AI & SEO Pagination & Structure

Is it true that the homepage carries more SEO weight than other pages?

John Mueller May 07, 2021 ★★★

Google does not automatically give more weight to the homepage. On some sites, we want the homepage to carry the most weight, while on others, we prefer that products or categories take priority. This can be influenced through internal linking. The h...

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

Is loading speed really just a secondary ranking factor?

Gary Illyes May 06, 2021 ★★★

Google intentionally designs speed signals as light ranking factors, similar to the HTTPS signal, to avoid sacrificing relevance and quality in search results. Speed primarily acts as a tiebreaker rather than a dominant factor.

HTTPS & Security AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Web Performance

How does Google adapt the weight of its ranking signals after their launch?

Gary Illyes May 06, 2021 ★★★

Before launching a ranking signal, Google conducts experiments to determine the appropriate weight. For HTTPS, Google adjusted the weight 4 to 5 times by gradually reducing it until it acted as a mere tie-breaker, based on recommendations from rankin...

HTTPS & Security

Can a site's speed make up for mediocre content?

John Mueller May 06, 2021 ★★★

Speed alone is not enough to create a good search result. It is possible to create a very fast empty page, but that does not make it useful or relevant for users. Relevance takes precedence over speed.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Web Performance

Is measuring only the LCP a strategic mistake for your SEO?

Martin Splitt May 06, 2021 ★★★

A single speed metric like Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) is insufficient. Google needs to measure multiple aspects: content loading time, interactivity of clickable elements, and visual stability to avoid accidental clicks.

Content AI & SEO Images & Videos Pagination & Structure Web Performance

Does Google really differentiate between two types of ranking changes?

Gary Illyes May 06, 2021 ★★

There are two main categories of ranking modifications: those that resolve persistent or major issues (like fake news), and lighter changes designed to subtly influence results without compromising overall quality.

Why does Google crawl your site at a different speed than what your users experience?

Martin Splitt May 06, 2021 ★★

The speed measured during crawling (server connection time, response time) is different from the speed perceived by the user. These are two distinct aspects that serve different purposes within Google's system.

Crawl & Indexing Web Performance

Why doesn’t Google care about speed spam?

Gary Illyes May 06, 2021 ★★

Google assesses the feasibility of spam before implementing protections. For speed signals, manipulating metrics would necessitate substantial infrastructure investments, making this type of spam unlikely and thus of low priority, unlike web content ...

Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Pagination & Structure Penalties & Spam Web Performance

Is HTTPS just a simple tiebreaker between equivalent sites?

Gary Illyes May 06, 2021 ★★★

Google specifically designed the HTTPS ranking signal to act as a tiebreaker, ensuring that the quality and relevance of search results are not compromised while giving a slight advantage to HTTPS sites in cases of ties, which occur frequently.

Domain Age & History HTTPS & Security

Why does Google sometimes measure the impact of an update with negative metrics?

Gary Illyes May 06, 2021 ★★★

There are two main categories of ranking changes: 1) changes to correct a persistent problem (like fake news), which may appear negative in initial metrics because users click more on clickbait content, and 2) light changes to influence something min...

Content Discover & News AI & SEO

Is site speed really secondary to content relevance?

Martin Splitt May 06, 2021 ★★★

The user's primary goal is to get an answer to their search intent. This answer should be presented in a pleasant manner (not slow and tedious), but relevance remains a priority over pure speed.

AI & SEO Web Performance

Why is measuring only LCP no longer enough for Core Web Vitals?

Martin Splitt May 06, 2021 ★★★

A single speed metric like the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) is insufficient. It is also essential to measure interactivity (to avoid unresponsive clicks) and visual stability (to prevent elements from shifting during interaction). Multiple metrics ...

Content AI & SEO Images & Videos Pagination & Structure Web Performance

Why does Google differentiate between crawl speed and user speed?

Martin Splitt May 06, 2021 ★★

The speed measured for crawling (server connection and response time) is different from the speed perceived by the user. Crawling requires quick connections and fast server responses, while user experience involves rendering, interactivity, and visua...

Crawl & Indexing Images & Videos JavaScript & Technical SEO Pagination & Structure Web Performance

Why do your search results vary by region and language?

Martin Splitt May 06, 2021 ★★

There will always be ranking differences between regions due to factors like different languages. Obtaining results in a language that the user does not speak simply because they are well-ranked elsewhere would not be useful.

AI & SEO International SEO

Is your site truly global or just multilingual?

Gary Illyes May 06, 2021 ★★

The reality is that there aren't that many truly global sites compared to the entirety of the Internet. This has been explored by Google's country and language promotion/demotion team.

Pagination & Structure International SEO

Should you really invest in speed optimization to combat spam?

Gary Illyes May 06, 2021 ★★

Unlike traditional web spam, which can be created for free, spamming speed signals would require so much investment in equipment and infrastructure that it might not be feasible. This issue may thus be of low priority for an initial release and addre...

AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Pagination & Structure Penalties & Spam Web Performance