What does Google say about SEO?

Could the URL structure of your images be sabotaging your SEO?

John Mueller Feb 10, 2021 ★★★

Google uses the URL path as well as the filename to help understand your images. Organize the content of your images so that the URLs are constructed logically. Avoid changing your image URLs.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Images & Videos Domain Name Pagination & Structure PDF & Files

Should you really enable max-image-preview:large to get featured in Discover?

John Mueller Feb 10, 2021 ★★★

For large image previews, images must be of appropriate size and the feature must be enabled either with the max-image-preview:large robots meta tag or by using AMP.

Domain Age & History Discover & News AI & SEO Images & Videos Mobile SEO

Is it really necessary to add license information to your images to boost their SEO?

John Mueller Feb 10, 2021 ★★

Adding license information helps users understand the opportunity to license images, displays appropriate image credits, and facilitates license acquisition. This can be done using structured data on the page or metadata within the image.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Images & Videos Local Search

Does Google Images really help you find web pages instead of just images?

John Mueller Feb 10, 2021 ★★

Google Images allows users to visually find web pages for a wide range of tasks. The service displays relevant images and web pages from across the internet to facilitate search.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Images & Videos Local Search

Are alt attributes really essential for your SEO, or just a nice-to-have for accessibility?

John Mueller Feb 10, 2021 ★★★

Alt attributes provide information about the image to users who cannot see the images. This benefits accessibility as well as search engines.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Images & Videos

Does the textual content really influence image ranking in Google Images?

John Mueller Feb 10, 2021 ★★★

Good content on your pages is just as important as visual content for Google Images. The content of the page can be used to generate a text snippet for the image, and Google considers the quality of the page content when ranking images.

Domain Age & History Content Featured Snippets & SERP AI & SEO Images & Videos

What could cause your images to vanish from Google Images despite solid optimization?

John Mueller Feb 10, 2021 ★★★

Images are not crawled as frequently as web pages, so it's important to use persistent URLs for them. When URL changes are necessary, use 301 redirects.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Images & Videos Domain Name Redirects

Should you really block images in robots.txt to exclude them from Google Images?

John Mueller Feb 10, 2021 ★★★

If you do not want your page images to be displayed in search, a good way to achieve this is by disallowing their crawling in the robots.txt file. Make sure that the appropriate URLs are correctly blocked.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Images & Videos Domain Name PDF & Files

Is Lazy Loading and Responsive Images the Real Key to Core Web Vitals or Just Google's Generic Advice?

John Mueller Feb 10, 2021 ★★★

Images are often the largest contributor to the overall page size. Google recommends optimizing images by using lazy loading and responsive image techniques to provide fast, high-quality user experiences.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Images & Videos JavaScript & Technical SEO Mobile SEO Web Performance

Can Google Penalize Your Site for Another Site's SEO Violations in Your Network?

John Mueller Feb 08, 2021 ★★★

John Mueller explained on Twitter that if a website violating Google's guidelines is subject to a manual action, and the search engine teams detect other similar sites belonging to the same network, these sites can also be subject to the same penalty...

Content AI & SEO Penalties & Spam Social Media

Does Google Really Penalize Duplicate Content?

John Mueller Feb 08, 2021 ★★★

John Mueller once again indicated during a webmaster hangout that the fact that a website has several similar or identical contents in its structure is in no way a negative relevance criterion for the search engine: "With this kind of duplicate conte...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO

Do Google's Core Web Vitals Really Apply the Same Way to All Types of Websites?

John Mueller Feb 08, 2021 ★★★

John Mueller also explained on Twitter that as part of the "Page Experience" project, the Core Web Vitals KPIs, which will be implemented in May, will be the same regardless of the type of site. Thus, a large content site, a simple brochure site, or ...

Domain Age & History Content E-commerce AI & SEO Web Performance Social Media

Does Google penalize dynamic content on e-commerce pages?

John Mueller Feb 05, 2021 ★★★

For e-commerce pages with automatically changing products, Google considers this normal. The key is that individual products should be findable via persistent links. If the products match the category (e.g., blue jackets), Google understands the cont...

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

Is Google really penalizing wide or inconsistent e-commerce categories?

John Mueller Feb 05, 2021 ★★★

For e-commerce categories, consistency is key. A 'blue jackets' category should contain only blue jackets. If a category includes random products (e.g., 'blue' with socks and jackets), Google will struggle to understand the intent and position the pa...

Domain Age & History E-commerce

How does Google determine the order of images on a single page?

John Mueller Feb 05, 2021 ★★

Google uses several factors to rank images: page titles, file names, captions, alt text, and image quality. For several images on the same page, Google may display them in a different order based on perceived quality. There is no absolute rule regard...

Domain Age & History Content Images & Videos PDF & Files Local Search

Can machine learning really replace text for SEO-ing your images?

John Mueller Feb 05, 2021 ★★

Google can use machine learning to extract information from images (objects, actions). However, this does not replace other SEO factors. It's an auxiliary signal that can help differentiate similar images, but the textual context remains essential fo...

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Images & Videos Social Media

Why does Google Discover traffic seem to vanish overnight?

John Mueller Feb 05, 2021 ★★★

Traffic from Google Discover can be highly volatile, quickly shifting from a significant amount to zero. Google's algorithms determine whether content should appear in Discover. This is not tied to a specific query, so expectations should be cautious...

Algorithms Content Discover & News AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO

Do Google penalties really work page by page without fixed levels?

John Mueller Feb 05, 2021 ★★★

Google does not have predefined levels of penalties (level 1, 2, 3). The evaluation is as granular as possible, page by page. Depending on the site, some sections may be demoted while others are not. There is a smooth transition rather than fixed lev...

Domain Age & History AI & SEO

Could Google hide one of your sites if they look too similar?

John Mueller Feb 05, 2021 ★★

For two distinct sites without duplicate content, Google should rank them individually. If multiple very similar domains exist, Google may show only one. With two unique sites, they should appear separately in the results, even if they are owned by t...

Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name

Can a low-quality page really taint your entire site?

John Mueller Feb 05, 2021 ★★★

Google tries to evaluate each URL individually and in detail. However, the pages on a site link to each other. If a main page is of low quality, it affects the others because they revolve around it. An isolated low-quality page does not impact the re...

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Domain Name