What does Google say about SEO?

Should you remove dates from your URLs to improve your rankings?

John Mueller Mar 31, 2021 ★★★

Including the day and month in the URL is acceptable and does not affect the crawling, indexing, or ranking of the page in Google.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing Domain Name Pagination & Structure

Do image CDNs really penalize your Google SEO?

John Mueller Mar 31, 2021 ★★★

Using CDNs to serve images poses no issues for Google Search. Images do not need to be hosted on your own server.

Domain Age & History Images & Videos

Is a single domain sufficient for international SEO or risky?

John Mueller Mar 31, 2021 ★★

It is entirely acceptable to have a single domain to target a global audience. Many websites only have one version available globally, without the necessity for multiple ccTLDs.

AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name Pagination & Structure International SEO

Why do multiple canonical tags pointing to different URLs break your indexing?

John Mueller Mar 31, 2021 ★★★

You should avoid having multiple rel canonical tags pointing to different URLs on the same page. Multiple canonicals with separate URLs should be avoided.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing Domain Name

Should you really include the Google verification file in your XML sitemap?

John Mueller Mar 31, 2021 ★★

There is no need to include the Google Webmasters verification file in the XML sitemap. This file is only for Search Console and has no utility for indexing.

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO PDF & Files Search Console

How Does Google Really Handle Hyphens in Keywords and Search Queries?

John Mueller Mar 29, 2021 ★★★

John Mueller explained on Twitter that Google can interpret an expression containing a hyphen in several different ways, depending on the context. For example, "wifi" and "wi-fi" will be understood the same way, as synonyms. But "saint-jérôme" will o...

Content AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Social Media

Should You Really Return a 503 Code Instead of a 502 When Your Site Goes Down?

John Mueller Mar 29, 2021 ★★★

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that when a site goes down (as recently happened with the fire at OVH in Strasbourg), the main idea was for the server to immediately return a 503 code ("Service Unavailable / Under Maintenance") to users and search ...

Content AI & SEO Social Media

Can you display different ads between the AMP version and the canonical version without risking a penalty?

John Mueller Mar 26, 2021 ★★

AMP pages can differ from the canonical HTML version in terms of monetization (ads). Advertisements can vary between versions without issue, as long as the main content and images remain equivalent.

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

Should you canonicalize or index your product variants separately?

John Mueller Mar 26, 2021 ★★

For product variants (different colors, sizes), you can choose to canonicalize them to a single page or index them separately. If the differences are significant and sought after by users, it is preferable to index them separately.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing E-commerce AI & SEO

Should you really worry if Google is only indexing the canonical version?

John Mueller Mar 26, 2021 ★★★

When Google follows a rel=canonical tag, only the canonical version is indexed. Google will not index signals from other variants (e.g., red shoes vs blue shoes). Only the canonical page will be considered.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO

How can you precisely control what appears (or doesn't) in your featured snippets?

John Mueller Mar 26, 2021 ★★

To prevent certain paragraphs from appearing in search result snippets, use the data-nosnippet tag. For content that absolutely must not be indexed (legal reasons), block the JavaScript that loads this content via robots.txt.

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing Featured Snippets & SERP AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO

Could duplicate content on product listings actually cost you your rankings?

John Mueller Mar 26, 2021 ★★

Having duplicate content (like manufacturer descriptions) on product pages does not make the page bad. It is a common situation. Google will simply choose a version to index from the internal duplicates.

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

Subdomains vs subdirectories: Does Google really distinguish between them for SEO?

John Mueller Mar 26, 2021 ★★★

Google treats subdomains and subdirectories the same way for SEO. The choice should be based on what is easier to maintain technically. Geographical targeting is configured in Search Console in both cases.

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

Do hreflang errors really block the indexing of your international pages?

John Mueller Mar 26, 2021 ★★

Hreflang errors in Search Console simply mean that Google is not currently using these annotations. They do not prevent indexing or site visibility. If you haven't set up hreflang manually, check with your CMS or plugins.

Crawl & Indexing Search Console International SEO

Does URL structure really affect Google rankings?

John Mueller Mar 26, 2021 ★★★

Google does not count the number of slashes in URLs. The depth of the directory structure does not affect ranking. Use the URL structure that suits your users. Google treats URLs as identifiers, not as indicators of site structure.

AI & SEO Domain Name Pagination & Structure

Does the structure of your sitemaps really affect Google crawl?

John Mueller Mar 26, 2021 ★★

The structure of sitemap files (number of URLs per file, file names) does not affect how Google crawls URLs. Google treats all sitemaps together in the same database. Organize your sitemaps according to your tracking needs in Search Console.

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Domain Name Pagination & Structure PDF & Files Search Console

Mobile-first indexing: Does Google really use the same signals for desktop and mobile?

John Mueller Mar 26, 2021 ★★★

With mobile-first indexing, Google indexes content only once with the mobile crawler and uses this version along with all its signals as the basis for both desktop AND mobile ranking. This primarily concerns indexing, not metrics like Core Web Vitals...

Content Crawl & Indexing Mobile SEO Web Performance

Is the Change of Address Tool in Search Console really essential for migrating a site?

John Mueller Mar 26, 2021 ★★

The Change of Address tool in Search Console speeds up migration but is not critical. Many successful migrations occur without this tool. The main thing is to properly configure the redirects and ensure that all signals point to the new version.

AI & SEO Redirects Search Console

Should you really avoid geographic IP redirects on your site's country versions?

John Mueller Mar 26, 2021 ★★

For geographic IP redirects, apply them only to the generic homepage (www), not to the country-specific versions. This way, the generic page can be crawled, and hreflang annotations are visible, while country versions remain accessible without issues...

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Domain Name Redirects International SEO

How can you prove your medical expertise to meet Google's YMYL requirements?

John Mueller Mar 26, 2021 ★★★

For medical sites (YMYL - Your Money Your Life), Google is very demanding. You must demonstrate real expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (EAT). The content must be created or validated by legitimate medical professionals, not just be of high qu...

Content AI & SEO