What does Google say about SEO?

Should you really host your news blog on the same domain as your product site?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★

To add a news section to a product site, it is recommended to keep it on the existing domain rather than creating a new domain. This allows for immediate benefit from the authority of the site. A clear URL structure is enough to differentiate the sec...

E-commerce AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name Pagination & Structure

Are link exchanges for content really punishable by Google?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★★

If you exchange content (such as product reviews) for backlinks, it may be considered a problematic link exchange by Google's Web Spam team. It is recommended to use nofollow links in this case to avoid being perceived as buying reviews in exchange f...

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

Can you really use lazy loading and data-nosnippet to control what Google displays in the SERPs?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★

Using lazy loading or the data-nosnippet attribute to exclude certain parts of a page from search snippets is perfectly acceptable. However, unverified reviews should not be used in structured data.

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

Does a domain migration really transfer all ranking signals?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★★

During a simple domain migration (one-to-one), Google typically transfers all ranking signals. Google has worked long to make these migrations as smooth as possible, and in most cases, they work very well.

AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name Redirects

Why does merging two websites lead to traffic loss even with perfect redirects?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★★

Merging two sites is more challenging than a simple migration because Google needs to recalculate the internal linking structure, determine which pages are relevant, and how they connect to the rest of the web. The final outcome is not merely the sum...

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Pagination & Structure Redirects

Can a polluted domain really handicap your SEO for over a year?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★★

If you migrate to a domain that previously hosted adult content or spam, classification algorithms (like SafeSearch) may linger. External effects like links with problematic anchors can also cause difficulties. It may take several months or a year to...

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

Can Google really evaluate Core Web Vitals section by section on your site?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★★

Google tries to be as granular as possible in assessing Core Web Vitals. If your site has a clear structure (subdirectories or subdomains), Google can treat slow and fast sections differently. Without a clear structure, Google will have to use an agg...

AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name Pagination & Structure Web Performance

Why does Google ignore your canonical and hreflang tags if your HTML is poorly structured?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★★

Elements like rel canonical, meta robots tags, and hreflang must be in the head section of the page. If body elements appear before in the head, the browser will prematurely open the body and Google will not take these important tags into account.

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

How might a missing timezone in your XML sitemaps jeopardize your crawl?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★

The lastmod tag in a sitemap must follow the datetime standard with a specified timezone. Using 'z' at the end indicates UTC time, but other timezones can be specified according to the appropriate RFC standard.

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Search Console

Why does Google ignore identical modification dates in XML sitemaps?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★

If a sitemap contains thousands of URLs with the same recent modification date (all updated in the last minute), Google understands that this is incorrect and will not use this information as a signal, except for discovering new URLs.

Crawl & Indexing Domain Name Search Console

Is alternating between index and noindex really dooming your pages to Google's oblivion?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★★

If pages alternate between index and noindex, Google will eventually treat them as 404 pages and crawl them less frequently, regardless of submissions in the sitemap. This fluctuation is counterproductive for indexing.

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

Does the Ad Experience Report really influence Google rankings?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★★

Google Search does not use the Ad Experience Report as a ranking factor. It is Chrome that automatically blocks non-compliant ads. The search effects come mainly from the algorithm regarding above-the-fold content.

Algorithms Content AI & SEO

Should you really prioritize incremental linking for pagination instead of linking everything from page 1?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★★

To help Google focus on the first page of a paginated series, link the pages incrementally (page 1 to 2, 2 to 3, etc.) instead of linking everything from page 1. This signals to Google that the first page is the most important through internal linkin...

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

Why do your rendering tests fail while Google indexes your page correctly?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★

Google's testing tools (Mobile-Friendly Test) have shorter timeouts than actual indexing to provide quick answers. If rendering works in the URL Inspection tool but not in the tests, it’s likely a timeout issue, but your page is indexed correctly.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Mobile SEO Domain Name Search Console

Does Google really create keywords from your content, or is the process the other way around?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★

Google does not read content to decide which keywords to target. Instead, Google receives a query and searches for documents containing those words via an inverted index, then ranks those documents. Google does not create keywords from content.

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO PDF & Files

How does Google manage to comprehend 15% of queries it has never seen before through machine learning?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★

15% of daily searches are completely new. Google uses machine learning (like BERT) to understand acronyms, synonyms, singular/plural forms, and what users are really looking for, rather than simply matching words individually.

Algorithms AI & SEO

Why does recovery from a Page Layout penalty take months?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★★

After fixing issues related to the Page Layout algorithm (excessive ads above the fold), recovery is not instant. Google must reprocess a large part of the site to understand that the problem is resolved, which can take 2 to 5 months.

Algorithms Domain Age & History AI & SEO

Does Google impose a maximum threshold for ads within the viewport?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★

There is no specific percentage or pixel limit for ad sizes within the Page Layout algorithm. Google does not indicate that ads should represent a maximum of X% of the viewport or Y pixels.

Algorithms Domain Age & History AI & SEO Mobile SEO

Does content syndication really harm your organic search ranking?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★

If other sites are syndicating your content, it is not a signal that Google views your site as low quality. On the contrary, this can be seen as a positive sign that others want to syndicate your content. The fact that they sometimes rank above you i...

Content AI & SEO

Should You Really Worry About 302 Redirects During a Migration Error?

John Mueller Oct 16, 2020 ★★

Using a 302 redirect instead of a 301 during a migration will take longer for canonicalization to focus on the new URL. In the long run, the difference is minimal, but for a permanent migration, a 301 is recommended.

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Domain Name Redirects