What does Google say about SEO?

Are unparseable structured data really costing you traffic?

Google Feb 05, 2020 ★★★

Google generates a report for unparseable structured data that indicates issues that could cost you opportunities for rich results. It is recommended to fix these errors to fully benefit from structured data.

AI & SEO Search Console

Should You Really Translate Image File Names on Multilingual Websites?

John Mueller Feb 03, 2020 ★★★

John Mueller explained during a hangout that it is not necessary, on a multilingual site, to translate image file names by copying them for each site. For example, if the French version is the main version of the site and an image in one of the pages...

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Images & Videos PDF & Files International SEO

Do Voice Actions and Skills Actually Impact Your Website's SEO Rankings?

Danny Sullivan Feb 03, 2020 ★★★

Danny Sullivan indicated on Twitter that integrating "voice actions" (the equivalent of Amazon's "skills") on your site has no impact on that site's ranking in the SERPs. Creating such "voice apps" does not influence SEO.

Featured Snippets & SERP AI & SEO Social Media

Does US Hosting Really Speed Up Google's Crawling of Your Website?

John Mueller Feb 03, 2020 ★★★

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that the search engine's bot does not prioritize site crawling based on the geographic location of the server. Specifically, US-based sites are not crawled better or faster than sites from any other country.

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Web Performance Local Search Social Media International SEO

Does the length of URLs really affect rankings in Google?

John Mueller Jan 31, 2020 ★★★

The length of a URL, whether long or short, does not directly affect SEO. However, when there are multiple URLs for the same content, Google typically prefers the shorter version as the canonical one, although this does not provide any ranking advant...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing Domain Name

Does the language of backlinks really influence SEO?

John Mueller Jan 31, 2020 ★★★

The language of sites linking to a site is not important for Google. What matters is the understanding of the anchor text to better grasp the linked page.

Domain Age & History Content Links & Backlinks International SEO

Do full-screen interstitials really kill your SEO?

John Mueller Jan 31, 2020 ★★★

Interstitials that cover all the content on the page can cause issues for SEO because they prevent Google from seeing the main content. It is recommended to use non-obtrusive information bars to avoid disrupting the normal search process.

Domain Age & History Content

Can redirected interstitials really harm your indexing?

John Mueller Jan 31, 2020 ★★★

When a redirect is used to display an interstitial, Googlebot only sees the content of that redirect, which can harm the indexing of the actual content on your site.

Content Crawl & Indexing Local Search Redirects

Could linking to AMP cache URLs jeopardize your SEO?

John Mueller Jan 31, 2020 ★★★

Directly linking to AMP cache URLs is not advisable because these URLs can change and are often blocked by the robots.txt file, which can impact SEO.

Crawl & Indexing Mobile SEO Domain Name PDF & Files Web Performance

Can DMCA complaints really hurt your site’s rankings in the SERPs?

John Mueller Jan 31, 2020 ★★★

The number of valid DMCA complaints received can affect a site's ranking. Unfounded complaints that are successfully disputed do not have a negative impact.

AI & SEO

Why does an URL overhaul take longer to index than a domain change?

John Mueller Jan 31, 2020 ★★★

When you change URLs without moving the site to another domain, Google must relearn the website's structure, which takes longer than a simple domain migration.

AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name Pagination & Structure Redirects

Is site speed really a negligible ranking factor in Google?

John Mueller Jan 31, 2020 ★★★

Site speed is a ranking factor, but it is generally not a high priority and its influence may be delayed compared to other factors.

AI & SEO Web Performance Search Console

Why does Google index non-canonical pages even when the rel=canonical markup is correct?

John Mueller Jan 31, 2020 ★★★

Even with correct rel=canonical markup, Google can sometimes index non-canonical pages due to conflicting signals like internal links or non-compliant sitemap files.

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

Is it true that Googlebot still serves old versions of your pages?

John Mueller Jan 31, 2020 ★★

Google may attempt to render old versions of pages for various reasons, but this shouldn't lead to significant problems. This behavior is normal and linked to the re-checking process.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO

Do JavaScript redirects really pass PageRank?

John Mueller Jan 31, 2020 ★★★

Links that go through JavaScript redirects can pass weight and signals if Googlebot is capable of following them. Otherwise, they are treated as if they do not exist.

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Links & Backlinks Redirects

Why are your pages struggling in the SERPs even when targeting the same query?

John Mueller Jan 31, 2020 ★★★

When Google perceives multiple possible intents behind a query, this can lead to fluctuations between different pages of the same site in search results.

Domain Age & History

Are structured data becoming an unmanageable headache for SEOs?

John Mueller Jan 31, 2020 ★★

The evolution of structured data is likely to lead to increased complexity, while solutions such as CMS extensions can simplify their implementation.

Domain Name

Should you really focus all your content on the homepage for single-product websites?

John Mueller Jan 31, 2020 ★★

If a site's scope is reduced to a single page, it is better to concentrate the content on the homepage rather than redirecting to an internal product page.

Domain Age & History Content E-commerce Pagination & Structure

Can poorly implemented structured data really mislead Google?

John Mueller Jan 31, 2020 ★★★

Google can be misled by poorly implemented structured data markups, and sites displaying inappropriate rich results should be reported.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Local Search

Do URLs blocked by robots.txt really consume your crawl budget?

John Mueller Jan 31, 2020 ★★★

URLs blocked by robots.txt do not consume the crawl budget because Google does not actively crawl them; sites should not worry about this consumption unless they have millions of URLs.

Crawl & Indexing Domain Name