What does Google say about SEO?

Why Can Google Penalty Reconsideration Reviews Take Anywhere from 1 Week to Several Months?

John Mueller Oct 19, 2020 ★★★

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that the timeframe for processing a reconsideration request for a site that has received a manual action could vary from one week to several months, without any real reason for this variation. John also explained tha...

Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name Penalties & Spam Social Media

Why Does Google Sometimes Display the Wrong Date for Your Pages in Search Results?

Gary Illyes Oct 19, 2020 ★★★

Gary Illyes explained on Twitter that if the date displayed by Google in its search results was incorrect, the fault lay in the majority of cases with the website itself, which provided erroneous information: "This most often happens when there is ov...

E-commerce Featured Snippets & SERP AI & SEO Social Media

Do you really need to specify a time zone in the lastmod tag of your XML sitemap?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★

The last modified date in an XML sitemap must include a time zone according to the datetime standard. Using 'Z' indicates UTC, but other time zones can be specified. Google uses this data as a guide to understand when pages change.

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

Does the Ad Experience Report really influence Google rankings?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★★

The Ad Experience Report is not used as a ranking factor in Google Search. It's Chrome that automatically blocks ads on non-compliant sites. The SEO impact comes from other factors like above-the-fold content.

Domain Age & History Content

Does a 302 redirect ultimately equate to a 301 in terms of SEO?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★

Using a 302 redirect instead of a 301 for a permanent migration will lengthen the canonicalization time, but in the long run, the difference will not be significant. However, a 301 remains the recommended method for a permanent migration.

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Redirects

Should you really think twice before splitting your site into multiple domains?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★

Dividing a site into multiple domains is even more challenging than merging sites. Google generally recommends concentrating content rather than splitting it, unless there are very good business reasons to do so.

Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name

Can exchanging content for backlinks trigger a Google penalty?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★★

Exchanging product reviews for backlinks can be seen as a problematic link exchange by Google's Web Spam team. It is recommended to use nofollow links in this case to avoid being interpreted as purchasing reviews in exchange for links.

Content E-commerce JavaScript & Technical SEO Links & Backlinks Penalties & Spam Local Search

Should you really use data-nosnippet to control your search snippets?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★

It is acceptable to use the data-nosnippet attribute to exclude certain parts of a page from search snippets. Lazy-loading is also a valid option for content that is intended solely for users.

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

Should you really ban external reviews from your Schema.org structured data?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★★

If you use reviews that do not come from your own collection but from an external source, you must not include them in your Schema.org structured data for reviews.

Structured Data AI & SEO Local Search

Does a 1:1 domain migration truly transfer ALL ranking signals?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★★

During a simple domain migration (one-to-one), all ranking signals are transferred. Google has worked long to make these migrations as seamless as possible, and they generally work very well.

AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name Redirects

Why doesn't merging two websites ever double your SEO traffic?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★★

Merging two sites is more challenging than a simple migration because Google must reassess internal linking, page relevance, and their connection with the rest of the web. The final result is not simply the sum of the traffic from the two sites.

Domain Age & History Links & Backlinks Redirects

Is splitting a website into multiple domains a strategic mistake to avoid?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★

Separating a website into multiple domains is almost harder than merging sites, as the internal linking changes completely. Google generally recommends focusing content rather than splitting it, unless there are valid reasons.

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

Can the history of an expired domain hold back your rankings for months?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★★

A domain that has served adult or problematic content can retain classifications (such as SafeSearch) that last a long time. External links with problematic anchors can also cause difficulties, sometimes taking 6 months to a year to normalize.

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

Does Google really evaluate Core Web Vitals by section or does it apply to the entire domain?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★★

Google tries to be as granular as possible with Core Web Vitals. If the site structure allows for clear identification of sections (e.g., /forum), Google can apply different scores. If not, an aggregated score is applied to the entire site.

AI & SEO Domain Name Pagination & Structure Web Performance

Why can your critical SEO tags be completely ignored by Google?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★★

The rel canonical, robots meta, and hreflang tags must be placed within the head section of the page. If HTML elements break the head and prematurely open the body, these critical tags can be ignored by Google.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing International SEO

Why does Google ignore identical lastmod dates in your XML sitemaps?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★

If all URLs in a sitemap have the same last modified date (for example, automatically generated with the current date), Google considers that the sitemap does not provide useful information, except for discovering new URLs.

Crawl & Indexing Domain Name Search Console

How does alternating between noindex and index jeopardize your crawl budget?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★★

Frequently alternating between noindex and index on pages disrupts Google. Pages with prolonged noindex are treated as 404s and crawled less frequently, making sitemap signals ineffective.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing E-commerce AI & SEO Images & Videos Search Console

Is it really necessary to break all your pagination links for Google to prioritize page 1?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★★

To ensure Google favors the first page of a pagination, link the pages incrementally (page 1→2, 2→3, etc.) rather than from page 1 to all others. This clearly indicates that the first page is the most important. Block filtered pages, but index pagina...

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

How does Google really index your pages: by keywords or by documents?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★★

Google does not read a page to decide which keywords to target. It indexes the words on each page into an inverted index. When a search is made, Google finds the documents containing those words and classifies them. AI mainly helps to understand ambi...

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO PDF & Files

How long does it really take to recover from a Page Layout Algorithm penalty?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★★

Recovering from a penalty related to the Page Layout Algorithm (excessive ads above the fold) generally takes 2 to 5 months. Google needs to reprocess a large part of the site to understand that the problem is resolved site-wide.

Algorithms Domain Age & History AI & SEO