What does Google say about SEO?

Is it really necessary to publish a UGC content policy to improve your SEO?

Martin Splitt Mar 10, 2021 ★★

Defining the rules is important. Clearly inform your users about what they are allowed to post on your site and what is prohibited.

Content AI & SEO

Does user-generated content really enhance engagement without hurting SEO?

Martin Splitt Mar 10, 2021 ★★

User-generated content continues to be an excellent way to bring together a community and engage individuals with the content produced and published, despite the moderation responsibilities involved.

Domain Age & History Content E-commerce

Does Google really evaluate all content on a page the same way for ranking purposes?

Martin Splitt Mar 10, 2021 ★★★

Any content published on your site, whether created by you or your users, will generally be considered as a whole for ranking purposes.

Domain Age & History Content

Should you really block all user-generated content by default?

Martin Splitt Mar 10, 2021 ★★★

By default, block the indexing of pages with user-generated content using a noindex meta robots tag, to control which pages you want to include in the index. Remove it once the content is approved.

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO

Should you really isolate comments on a separate page to safeguard your SEO?

Martin Splitt Mar 10, 2021 ★★

Instead of placing comments on the same page as your content, you can transfer comments to a separate page. At the end of your content, place a call to action like 'See Comments'.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO

Can toxic user-generated content really penalize your entire site on Google?

Martin Splitt Mar 10, 2021 ★★

Hateful or vulgar comments can harm the site beyond violations of monetization policies, with the potential to damage your brand and offend your user base.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO

Does non-textual content really hurt your site's SEO?

Martin Splitt Mar 10, 2021 ★★

Photos, videos, or other files can be problematic in terms of adult content, copyright, malware, or illegal content, and can therefore cause issues in Google Search.

Content Images & Videos PDF & Files

Do CSS animations really hurt your Core Web Vitals?

John Mueller Mar 05, 2021 ★★

CSS position animations can contribute to layout shift calculations, even for sticky menus that do not cause a visible shift. Using opacity instead of position for animations can improve Core Web Vitals scores.

Domain Age & History Pagination & Structure Web Performance

Will Core Web Vitals Change Again, and How Can You Prepare for Upcoming Updates?

John Mueller Mar 05, 2021 ★★

Google plans to update Core Web Vitals metrics approximately once a year, notifying webmasters in advance. It's important to submit feedback to the Chrome team when calculations seem incorrect.

JavaScript & Technical SEO Web Performance

Are city-specific pages really just doorway pages doomed by Google?

John Mueller Mar 05, 2021 ★★★

Creating pages for each city with largely identical content risks being viewed as doorway pages. Google's systems may become confused, and the webspam team could see this as excessive, especially if the main content is identical.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Penalties & Spam

Should you really start small to unlock your crawl budget?

John Mueller Mar 05, 2021 ★★

For sites with a lot of content, it is recommended to start with a limited set of quality pages. Google will learn that the content is good and gradually increase the crawl to 1000 and then 10000 pages.

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing

Should you really regenerate your sitemaps to remove obsolete URLs?

John Mueller Mar 05, 2021 ★★

If sitemap files point to non-existent pages or pages with an obsolete URL structure, they need to be regenerated to contain only current URLs. It's a matter of site hygiene rather than crawl budget.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing Domain Name Pagination & Structure PDF & Files Search Console

Why does Google refuse to provide Voice Search data in Search Console?

John Mueller Mar 05, 2021 ★★

Currently, there is no information in Search Console that shows how speakable markup is used or when it is displayed in voice search. Testing oneself is necessary to assess its utility.

Domain Age & History Search Console

Do you really need to include dates in structured data?

John Mueller Mar 05, 2021 ★★

It is not necessary to specify dates in structured data. Google attempts to choose a relevant date based on multiple sources: structured data, visible content, and dates mentioned in the text. Ensuring alignment among all these sources is important.

Content Structured Data AI & SEO Pagination & Structure

Should you really count the number of H1 tags on a page?

John Mueller Mar 05, 2021 ★★★

There is no strict limit to the number of H1 tags on a page. With HTML5, having multiple H1s is compliant with the standard. Although having a clear focus is helpful, it does not necessarily require just one H1 tag.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO

Do headings really hold as much importance as Google thinks?

John Mueller Mar 05, 2021 ★★

Title tags help Google understand what you consider important on the page, to some extent. The anchor text of links is the most important part, but the context surrounding images and links also matters.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Images & Videos Links & Backlinks

Are LSI keywords really beneficial for Google SEO?

John Mueller Mar 05, 2021 ★★★

Google does not have any concept of LSI keywords. It's an interesting theoretical topic in computer science regarding information retrieval, but SEOs do not need to concern themselves with it in their practice.

AI & SEO

Is there a magic number of links per page to optimize internal PageRank?

John Mueller Mar 05, 2021 ★★★

Google uses PageRank to understand the internal structure of a site, taking into account the links on a page. But there is no optimal number of links. A reasonable navigation structure for users will also work for SEO.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Pagination & Structure

Do JSON requests really impact your crawl budget?

John Mueller Mar 05, 2021 ★★

All requests to the server via Googlebot's infrastructure, including JSON files, count towards the crawl budget. However, many JSON requests do not necessarily imply a limitation on crawling regular content.

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

Should you really block JSON files in your robots.txt?

John Mueller Mar 05, 2021 ★★★

Blocking the crawl of JSON files via robots.txt will prevent the indexing of content that is visible only after rendering on pages that require these JSON files, both on your site and on third-party sites using your APIs.

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO PDF & Files