What does Google say about SEO?

Does JavaScript modified structured data really create conflicting signals?

Google Apr 15, 2021 ★★★

When structured data appears in the raw HTML and is then modified by JavaScript transformations in the rendered DOM, this generates conflicting signals for search engines during rendering.

AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO

Why are Core Web Vitals a disaster on mobile despite the mobile-first approach?

Google Apr 15, 2021 ★★

Desktop continues to be the most efficient platform for users despite more users on mobile devices. 33.1% of sites achieve good Core Web Vitals on desktop compared to only 20% on mobile.

Mobile SEO Web Performance

What happens when conflicting canonical tags in raw and rendered HTML block your page indexing?

Google Apr 15, 2021 ★★★

Conflicts between the canonical tags specified in raw HTML versus the rendered HTML can create indexability issues as contradictory information is sent to search engines regarding what the canonical URL is for a given page.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing Domain Name

Why does Google recommend using rel='ugc' and rel='sponsored' if they offer no direct benefits to publishers?

Google Apr 15, 2021 ★★

Although rel='ugc' and rel='sponsored' attributes do not provide more value to publishers than rel='nofollow', they add semantic information that Google can use. Therefore, it is advisable to use them.

Links & Backlinks

How does JavaScript manipulation of your structured data impact your SERP visibility?

Google Apr 15, 2021 ★★

4.5% of desktop pages and 4.6% of mobile pages contain structured data that appears in the raw HTML and is then modified by JavaScript transformations in the rendered DOM. Depending on the type of changes applied, this will generate conflicting signa...

Domain Age & History Structured Data AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Mobile SEO Pagination & Structure

How does Google's visibility enhance the adoption of structured data?

Google Apr 15, 2021 ★★★

The visibility that Google provides to search features increases the adoption rates of less commonly used items. After Google announced FAQPage, HowTo, and QAPage as visibility opportunities in 2019, these items saw significant year-on-year growth.

Domain Age & History Structured Data Pagination & Structure

Does ranking really happen at the moment of serving?

Gary Illyes Apr 13, 2021 ★★★

The ranking of search results occurs during the serving phase, when Google receives a query and returns results from its index. It's at this time that relevance signals, content quality, and hundreds of other factors are considered to determine the o...

Content Crawl & Indexing E-commerce AI & SEO

How does Google process a query in mere milliseconds?

Gary Illyes Apr 13, 2021 ★★

The serving system processes queries in two directions: downward (parsing the request, routing to various indexes) and upward (retrieving results, ranking, assembling). This entire process takes place in just a few milliseconds thanks to optimized ca...

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Pagination & Structure Web Performance

Why does Google display incomplete SERPs when some indexes don’t respond?

Gary Illyes Apr 13, 2021 ★★

Google queries multiple indexes (web, images, videos, news, maps) simultaneously. If some indexes do not respond quickly enough, Google still displays the available web results without waiting for the other sources, except for web results that are cr...

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Images & Videos JavaScript & Technical SEO Local Search

Are your SEO changes truly reflected instantly by Google?

Gary Illyes Apr 13, 2021 ★★

For frequent queries in a geographical area, Google utilizes a caching system that returns cached results for several minutes. Users in the same region are generally routed to the same data center, which speeds up response time.

Web Performance

Why does Google itself struggle with properly implementing hreflang on its own sites?

John Mueller Apr 13, 2021 ★★★

Implementing hreflang is often complex and error-prone. Google acknowledges that even its own sites have made mistakes (like using ES-LA for Latin American Spanish). If Google doesn’t always manage to implement it correctly, it’s difficult to expect ...

AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO International SEO

Should you really implement hreflang between completely different languages?

John Mueller Apr 13, 2021 ★★

If you have page versions in completely different languages (German/Chinese), hreflang may represent unnecessary effort if Google has no trouble distinguishing these versions. Hreflang is especially useful when Google might confuse which version to d...

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Local Search International SEO

How does Google automatically swap out results in the wrong language using hreflang?

Gary Illyes Apr 13, 2021 ★★

Google uses a swapping mechanism: if a result in the wrong language would normally show up, Google automatically replaces it with the appropriate language version through hreflang annotations. This system works even across different alphabets for cer...

AI & SEO International SEO

Why do all alternatives to hreflang ultimately fail?

Gary Illyes Apr 13, 2021 ★★

Any alternative solution to hreflang must work for all types of implementations: sites with URL parameters changing the language, completely different sites by country, various template systems. Proposed solutions generally fail on this criterion, as...

Images & Videos Domain Name International SEO

Should you really implement hreflang for languages with different alphabets?

Gary Illyes Apr 13, 2021 ★★

It is recommended to use hreflang even between pages of completely different languages (German/Chinese, English/Japanese), as Google can identify similar concepts and make result exchanges. For example, for words in Japanese katakana or international...

Domain Age & History AI & SEO International SEO

Should you really implement hreflang for nearly identical content with just currency differences?

John Mueller Apr 13, 2021 ★★★

It is useful to implement hreflang between pages with nearly identical content but with regional differences like currencies (euros vs Swiss francs) or prices. Even if Google considers these pages as duplicates, hreflang allows the correct version to...

Domain Age & History Content E-commerce AI & SEO Local Search International SEO

Why does Search Console hide your international hreflang pages?

John Mueller Apr 13, 2021 ★★

Search Console mainly reports on canonical URLs, making tracking very challenging for international sites using hreflang. Alternative pages may seem missing from reports even though they are properly served to the right users. This trade-off favors s...

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Images & Videos Domain Name Search Console International SEO

Should you really implement every possible hreflang variation?

John Mueller Apr 13, 2021 ★★★

You shouldn’t automatically create all possible language and regional variations just because the system allows it. If you don’t create unique content for these versions, it adds no value in terms of ranking or search. Only select the versions that m...

Content AI & SEO International SEO

Does Changing Your Publication Date Actually Improve SEO Rankings?

John Mueller Apr 12, 2021 ★★★

John Mueller indicated in the same webmaster hangout that modifying the publication date in the source code for a page without actually changing its content did not improve the ranking of said page. And it didn't degrade it either, for that matter. I...

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO

Do 301 and 302 Redirects Really Matter Differently for SEO?

John Mueller Apr 12, 2021 ★★★

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that in most cases, Google treats 301 and 302 redirects in almost the same way, because it knows that 302 redirects can remain in place for months, or even longer. It therefore uses other signals to verify whether th...

Content AI & SEO Redirects Social Media