What does Google say about SEO?

Does a revoked manual action truly wipe out all traces of a penalty?

John Mueller Nov 27, 2020 ★★★

When a manual action is revoked, everything associated with that manual action is completely disabled. There may be a technical delay for reindexing, but there is no extended period of mistrust after revocation.

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Penalties & Spam

Should you really delete your disavow file or risk a manual action?

John Mueller Nov 27, 2020 ★★★

If you delete your disavow file, all those links will once again be treated as normal links. The Web Spam team could then review the site and take manual action if the links are problematic and there is no disavow file in place.

AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Links & Backlinks PDF & Files Penalties & Spam

Does Google really render all JavaScript pages, regardless of their architecture?

Martin Splitt Nov 25, 2020 ★★★

Google renders virtually all pages. The fact that part of the content is rendered on the server and another on the client does not influence Google's decision to render the page or not. There is a heuristic to detect this, but it is rarely used, only...

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Links & Backlinks Domain Name

How can you ensure that Googlebot is truly crawling your site?

Martin Splitt Nov 25, 2020 ★★

Server logs should be taken with caution as many fake bots claim to be Googlebot. It's crucial to ensure that the crawl actually originates from a Google IP address, as anyone can declare themselves as Googlebot.

Crawl & Indexing

Does Google really limit CPU time during JavaScript rendering?

Martin Splitt Nov 25, 2020 ★★

Google limits CPU time during rendering, primarily to prevent infinite loops and other issues. Martin Splitt has personally seen very few cases where this was a problem. In all observed cases, it concerned incorrect or broken code that created infini...

AI & SEO

Should we stop optimizing for bots and focus solely on the user?

Martin Splitt Nov 25, 2020 ★★

Google does not provide a specific range of time or CPU measurements because these are implementation details that can change. The recommendation is to optimize for speed and minimize CPU resources as much as possible, prioritizing user experience ov...

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Web Performance Search Console

Does the CSS content-visibility property really affect rendering in Google?

Martin Splitt Nov 25, 2020 ★★

Regarding the new CSS content-visibility property, Martin Splitt has not yet tested its impact on Google rendering. He expects it to work directly due to updates from the Chromium engine. If it doesn't work, it would be an issue that Google should fi...

Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO

How can you measure Core Web Vitals on Firefox and Safari without native API support?

Martin Splitt Nov 25, 2020 ★★

For browsers that do not support Core Web Vitals APIs (Firefox, Safari), Martin Splitt recommends using development tools to collect lab data. He particularly suggests monitoring frame timings to aim for 60 fps, as this indicates if something is bloc...

JavaScript & Technical SEO Web Performance Search Console

How long does Google really wait before giving up on JavaScript rendering?

Martin Splitt Nov 25, 2020 ★★★

Google does wait a certain amount of time for JavaScript rendering, but it's essential to optimize for users above all. If the rendering takes tens of seconds, it's already problematic. Some sites take minutes to load and get indexed, but that doesn'...

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO

What does Google really do with your initial HTML before JavaScript rendering?

Martin Splitt Nov 25, 2020 ★★★

Google performs an early extraction of links from the initial HTML to queue them, detects 404 errors, and analyzes meta tags (canonical, description, robots). If a noindex meta tag is present in the initial HTML, Google will not render the page as it...

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

Is it true that Google ignores JavaScript rendering if your noindex tag appears in the initial HTML?

Martin Splitt Nov 25, 2020 ★★★

If a page contains a meta robots noindex tag in the initial HTML, Google will not render the page, even if JavaScript later modifies that directive. Google considers that the page does not want to be indexed and stops processing before rendering.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO

Does Google really compare the initial HTML AND rendered content for canonicalization?

Martin Splitt Nov 25, 2020 ★★★

Canonicalization and deduplication start with the initial HTML but also consider the rendered HTML. Google compares the content hashes of the initial HTML and the rendered HTML. If the hashes differ after rendering, Google uses the signals from the r...

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO

Are GET APIs really cached by Google just like any other resource?

Martin Splitt Nov 25, 2020 ★★

Google caches resources fetched from APIs in the same way as other resources if they use the GET method. However, POST requests are not cached.

JavaScript & Technical SEO Web Performance

Does Google really index all pages after JavaScript rendering?

Martin Splitt Nov 25, 2020 ★★★

Contrary to popular belief, there aren't really two ways to index. Google processes the initial HTML, then decides to render the page, and then indexes it. Almost 100% of pages are rendered before being indexed. It is very rare for a page to be index...

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO

How do your failing APIs sabotage your Google indexing?

Martin Splitt Nov 25, 2020 ★★★

If an API fails during rendering, Google may not see the content coming from the API and could potentially group different URLs into duplication clusters due to those failures. It is crucial to have mechanisms in place to ensure API reliability.

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name

Are structured data on noindexed pages really lost to Google?

Martin Splitt Nov 25, 2020 ★★

Google probably does not take into account structured data on pages marked noindex, as the processing halts before it analyzes the structured data. Regarding link extraction, it can happen in parallel, and some links may still be discovered even on n...

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing Structured Data AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Pagination & Structure

Is it true that Google actually limits CPU time during JavaScript rendering?

Martin Splitt Nov 25, 2020 ★★★

Google limits CPU time during JavaScript rendering, primarily to detect infinite loops and faulty code. Optimization should focus on user performance rather than a specific technical limit, as these thresholds are implementation details that can chan...

Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Web Performance Search Console

Why does Google display empty pages even when your JavaScript site is working perfectly?

Martin Splitt Nov 25, 2020 ★★★

If a JavaScript request to an API (like /api/cats) is blocked by robots.txt, Googlebot will not be able to load it even if it works in browsers. Browsers ignore robots.txt, but Google respects it, which can create empty pages in the index.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO

How long does Googlebot really wait for JavaScript rendering?

Martin Splitt Nov 25, 2020 ★★★

There is no specific deadline that Googlebot expects for JavaScript rendering. The recommendation is to render content as quickly as possible. If loading takes several seconds, it is already problematic for users, even if indexing can work.

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Web Performance

Does AJAX really work for SEO, or should you think twice before using it?

Martin Splitt Nov 25, 2020 ★★

AJAX requests add complexity to SEO because they create more potential failure points (robots.txt, network errors, etc.). While they work if correctly implemented, they are not fantastic for SEO and represent avoidable complexity unless there is a re...

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Pagination & Structure