What does Google say about SEO?

Search through official Google statements about search engine optimization

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9606 statement(s) found
Is it true that Google really ignores your tracking scripts during rendering?
John Mueller Sep 14, 2020 ★★
Google ignores certain scripts during rendering if they are not necessary for displaying the page. Google Analytics and other common analytics scripts are automatically detected and skipped to speed up the rendering process, without affecting the ind...
Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Web Performance
Should you really limit text content on your e-commerce category pages?
John Mueller Sep 14, 2020 ★★★
On e-commerce category pages, it is essential to find a balance. Too much informational content (e.g., several encyclopedic paragraphs) can cause the page to be classified as informational rather than transactional. Having no content makes it difficu...
Domain Age & History Content E-commerce AI & SEO
Is footer content really treated as standard content by Google?
John Mueller Sep 14, 2020 ★★
Content placed in the footer is treated like normal content located at the bottom of the page, provided that it is legible and not hidden. Google performs a viewport expansion during rendering and detects footer content. There is no specific penalty ...
Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Mobile SEO
Is it true that Google now allows natural keyword repetition in product listings?
John Mueller Sep 14, 2020 ★★
When products in a category naturally share the same brand prefix (e.g., 'Intel' for all Intel processors), this repetition is not regarded as keyword stuffing. Google understands that this is the normal naming structure for products, not an instance...
Domain Age & History E-commerce Pagination & Structure Penalties & Spam Social Media
How does Google really deindex an expired site or one that’s globally 404?
John Mueller Sep 14, 2020 ★★
When a site becomes 404 or expires, Google does not immediately deindex all pages. Frequently crawled pages (homepage, categories) disappear quickly, while others do so more slowly. Google attempts to detect that a site no longer exists and reduces i...
Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name
Do blog backlinks to product pages really convey authority?
John Mueller Sep 14, 2020 ★★★
Creating internal links from a blog (that naturally attracts backlinks) to the product or category pages of an e-commerce site is a recommended practice. The backlinks obtained by the blog help strengthen the ranking of the linked product pages, even...
Domain Age & History E-commerce AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Links & Backlinks Domain Name
Can a blog on a subdomain really pass SEO authority to the main site?
John Mueller Sep 14, 2020 ★★★
For a blog on a subdomain (e.g., Shopify + WordPress) to pass authority to the main site, Google primarily relies on internal links and the fact that both are on the same root domain. Similar design or shared hosting on the same infrastructure are no...
AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Links & Backlinks Domain Name Pagination & Structure
Is it true that a JavaScript migration can ruin your indexing due to cache issues?
John Mueller Sep 14, 2020 ★★
During a domain migration of a client-side JavaScript site, Google may struggle to render pages correctly if JavaScript resources are cached from the old URL. This can lead to rendering failures and indexing issues, but not necessarily a simple traff...
Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Links & Backlinks Domain Name Web Performance Redirects
Should you consider using Prerender for serving static HTML to Googlebot?
John Mueller Sep 14, 2020 ★★
Using a service like Prerender to serve static HTML to Googlebot instead of letting Google render JavaScript can reduce technical risks during migrations or changes. It is not required, but it can stabilize crawling and indexing for complex JavaScrip...
Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Pagination & Structure Redirects
Should you include or exclude Googlebot from your A/B tests without risking a penalty?
John Mueller Sep 14, 2020 ★★★
It is acceptable to include Googlebot in a temporary A/B test (e.g., menu change) or to exclude it by treating it as a special category (based on geolocation, language, capabilities). If separate URLs are used for the variants, rel=canonical must poi...
Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Domain Name Pagination & Structure Local Search International SEO
Are high-DA backlinks without value really harmless for your SEO?
John Mueller Sep 14, 2020 ★★★
Creating dofollow backlinks on high DA/PA sites (Domain Authority, a third-party metric) does not help SEO if these links are ignored by Google (because they are spammed by others). These efforts have no positive effect and typically do not cause pen...
AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Links & Backlinks Domain Name Penalties & Spam
Do Google’s core updates truly follow a predictable schedule?
John Mueller Sep 14, 2020 ★★
Core updates do not follow a precise timeline and are not limited to a single algorithm. They can include changes in how links are treated, and Google continuously processes new links, not just during core updates. Link changes may coincide with or o...
Algorithms AI & SEO Links & Backlinks
Are <p> tags truly important for SEO, or does Google completely ignore them?
John Mueller Sep 14, 2020 ★★
Google does not specifically treat the tag as a strict semantic marker. During HTML rendering and text extraction, Google identifies coherent content blocks (paragraphs) by their visual and structural proximity, not just by the P tags. Table-based l...
Content AI & SEO Images & Videos Pagination & Structure
Why does Search Console only show partial data for the News section at launch?
John Mueller Sep 14, 2020 ★
Data for the News section in Search Console (for News mode in Search, not Google News App) only goes back to around July 2020, which is when data collection began. For older sites, this view will be limited at first but will expand to 18 months of da...
Domain Age & History Discover & News JavaScript & Technical SEO Search Console
Do internal links really play a role in Google ranking?
John Mueller Sep 14, 2020 ★★★
Creating internal links from old pages to new or relevant pages improves SEO. This helps Google crawl the site, understand which pages are important (the most linked), and better distribute internal authority. A good internal linking structure benefi...
Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Pagination & Structure
Are Google’s manual penalties always visible in Search Console?
John Mueller Sep 14, 2020 ★★★
If a manual action has been taken by Google's Webspam team, it will almost always be visible in Search Console. There are a few rare edge cases where this would not be displayed, but for a normal site, the absence of manual action in Search Console m...
Algorithms AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Penalties & Spam Search Console
Does the alt attribute still play a role in web page SEO?
John Mueller Sep 14, 2020 ★★★
The alt attribute should accurately describe the content of the image (e.g., transcribe a quote if the image is a quote). Google uses the alt to understand the image for Image Search, not for traditional text ranking (where it already sees the page's...
Domain Age & History Content Images & Videos JavaScript & Technical SEO Web Performance
Why does Google show spam in brand search results beyond the first page?
John Mueller Sep 14, 2020 ★★
If phishing or spam sites are massively appearing on deep pages (top 10 pages) of brand results, it’s often because Google lacks quality content to show beyond the first page. Patterns of spam should be reported in the Webmaster forum or through Goog...
Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Penalties & Spam Local Search
Could your meta tags be hiding from Google without you even knowing?
John Mueller Sep 14, 2020 ★★★
Some third-party scripts inject tags (e.g. iframe) at the top of the , which can lead Google to believe that the is prematurely closed. Result: robots metatag, canonical, hreflang may be ignored. This issue is detectable via URL Inspection and must ...
Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name Pagination & Structure Search Console International SEO
Is third-party JavaScript slowing down your site: Does Google really hold you accountable for ranking?
John Mueller Sep 14, 2020 ★★
If a third-party JavaScript (e.g., advertising) significantly slows down a page, Google will measure this slowdown when evaluating speed for ranking, without making a distinction between site code or third-party code. The responsibility for load time...
Domain Age & History AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Web Performance
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