What does Google say about SEO?

Should You Really Disavow Toxic Links From Your Site?

John Mueller Feb 10, 2020 ★★★

John Mueller explained on Twitter that most sites, in his opinion, don't have "toxic" backlinks: "Most sites don't have 'toxic' links, or at least not links of this type that they would have created themselves. In my opinion, there are more important...

Content AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Local Search Social Media

Should You Really Force Your Pages to Index Through Search Console?

John Mueller Feb 10, 2020 ★★★

John Mueller indicated, again on Twitter, that if you need to use Search Console ("URL Inspection" section) to manually index your website's pages, it means you have a serious problem with the quality of the content offered on your site, a problem yo...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name Social Media Search Console

How Should You Tag Affiliate Links to Avoid Google Penalties?

John Mueller Feb 10, 2020 ★★★

Once again, John Mueller indicated on Twitter that affiliate links should be tagged with "rel=sponsored". While "rel=nofollow" is also acceptable, "sponsored" is the recommended approach.

Content AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Social Media

Why Might Your Hreflang Tags Not Be Working?

John Mueller Feb 10, 2020 ★★★

John Mueller, this time on Reddit, provided information about hreflang tags, indicating that they must be placed in "link rel="alternate"" tags and not in link tags ("a").

Content AI & SEO Images & Videos Links & Backlinks International SEO

Does URL Length Really Affect Your Google Rankings?

John Mueller Feb 10, 2020 ★★★

Always John Mueller, always on Twitter: the Googler explained that the length of a page's URL is in no way a relevance criterion for the search engine.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Domain Name Social Media

Do language prefixes in URLs (/fr, /en) really affect international SEO?

John Mueller Feb 07, 2020 ★★★

For SEO purposes, maintaining URL patterns with language prefixes like /ar or /en is appropriate for language versions. It does not affect rankings if the language prefix is omitted. However, it is important to maintain clarity in URLs so that users ...

AI & SEO Domain Name International SEO

How should you craft a reconsideration request after a manual penalty for low-quality content?

John Mueller Feb 07, 2020 ★★★

When submitting a reconsideration request after a manual action for low-quality content, it's advisable to detail how many problematic domains have been removed and to explain that this contributes to the cleanup. It is not necessary to provide an ex...

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

Can you really rank without backlinks in SEO?

John Mueller Feb 07, 2020 ★★★

Sites can rank solely based on their content without inbound links, but this takes time. Promoting your site through other means than just adding links can help improve site recognition and potentially strengthen its position in rankings.

Content AI & SEO Links & Backlinks

Are keyword-rich URLs really useless for SEO?

John Mueller Feb 07, 2020 ★★

Keywords present in URLs play a very minor role in SEO. When the content of the page is indexed, these words have an insignificant role. URLs identified solely by IDs are equally valid, especially in an AMP environment.

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Mobile SEO Domain Name

Should you really include the lastmod attribute in your XML sitemaps?

John Mueller Feb 07, 2020 ★★★

In sitemap files, the lastmod attribute is used by Google to determine which pages have been significantly modified and need to be revised. Do not use today's date for all pages, so real changes can be recognized.

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

Does the number of clicks really matter for the SEO of your strategic pages?

John Mueller Feb 07, 2020 ★★★

The internal link structure is crucial for understanding the hierarchy of pages and their relative importance on a site. A high number of clicks to reach a page from the homepage is not problematic if the hierarchy is clear.

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

Do Core Updates Really Affect Visibility on Google Discover?

John Mueller Feb 07, 2020 ★★

Core algorithm updates can affect the visibility of sites on Google Discover, as indicated in the series of tweets about the main updates.

Algorithms Discover & News

Does JavaScript really complicate your site's SEO?

John Mueller Feb 07, 2020 ★★★

Transitioning from a static HTML site to a JavaScript-based structure can complicate SEO. More monitoring is necessary to ensure that the site operates correctly for search engines, even though it remains achievable.

AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Pagination & Structure

Do brand queries really boost your organic rankings?

John Mueller Feb 07, 2020 ★★★

Queries explicitly directed towards a brand show a strong intent to visit that brand's site and reduce SERP competition. However, a large number of brand queries does not directly improve rankings for non-brand generic terms.

Featured Snippets & SERP

Do ads really hurt your Google ranking?

John Mueller Feb 07, 2020 ★★

The number of ads on a page does not affect ranking as much as how they influence user experience, particularly above the fold. Ads should be positioned in a way that does not obstruct the main content.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO

Is it true that Google really ignores your initial static content when using JavaScript?

John Mueller Feb 07, 2020 ★★★

When a page is rendered with JavaScript, Google only uses the rendered version for indexing. It is crucial that this version does not contain significant conflicts with the static content, such as noindex tags or inconsistent canonicals.

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

Are structured data truly essential for ranking on Google?

Google Feb 05, 2020 ★★★

To achieve rich results in Google search results, it is essential to implement structured data markup on your site. This makes your pages more attractive to users and can improve traffic to your site.

Domain Age & History

Is the Rich Results Test really enough to validate your structured data?

Google Feb 05, 2020 ★★★

Google provides the Rich Results Test tool to check the syntax of structured data on your pages. This tool can identify errors and give a preview of what potential rich results might look like in Google Search.

Domain Age & History Structured Data Featured Snippets & SERP

Can structured data errors really cost you your rich snippets?

Google Feb 05, 2020 ★★★

Errors in structured data can disqualify your results from appearing as rich results. Therefore, it is essential to monitor and correct these errors via the Search Console to maintain or improve the visibility of your pages.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Search Console

How can you effectively measure the performance of your rich results in the Search Console?

Google Feb 05, 2020 ★★★

To track the performance of your rich results, use the Google Search Console's performance report by filtering the results specifically for rich results, allowing you to see traffic by queries, pages, countries, and devices.

Domain Age & History Web Performance Search Console