What does Google say about SEO?

What can you truly expect from Google Search Console to optimize your SEO?

Daniel Waisberg Nov 27, 2019 ★★★

With Google Search Console, you can discover how Google crawls and indexes your pages, fix crawl errors, submit updated content to the Google index, and monitor search performance trends by queries, countries, pages, and more.

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing Web Performance Search Console

Can Google Search Console truly optimize your SEO, or is it just a monitoring tool?

Daniel Waisberg Nov 27, 2019 ★★★

Google Search Console is a free tool that helps website owners understand their performance on Google Search. It allows monitoring and optimizing how Google crawls, indexes, and serves their site, which can contribute to bringing in more relevant tra...

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Web Performance Search Console

Should you really disavow all your toxic links?

John Mueller Nov 26, 2019 ★★★

If you have a clear pattern of unnatural links pointing to your site, it is advisable to remove them. If that is not possible, using the disavow file is an option to instruct us not to consider them in our evaluation. However, be careful before concl...

AI & SEO Links & Backlinks PDF & Files

Does Google’s crawl budget really depend on your site’s server speed?

John Mueller Nov 26, 2019 ★★★

Page load speed affects our ability to crawl them. Generally, sites without crawl budget issues have response times between 100 and 500 ms per request. Server errors, such as 500 errors, lead us to slow down the crawl.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing Web Performance

How does Googlebot really schedule the crawling of your site?

John Mueller Nov 26, 2019 ★★★

Googlebot schedules the crawling of a site's URLs for the entire day to avoid overloading servers. We assess the entire day and adjust the plan for the next day based on this assessment.

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Domain Name

Does improving site speed really enhance Google’s crawl frequency and ranking?

John Mueller Nov 26, 2019 ★★★

Improving your site's speed can indeed increase crawl frequency if Google needs to access more URLs. However, crawl frequency does not guarantee a better ranking; it simply allows for quicker updates to modified content.

Content Crawl & Indexing JavaScript & Technical SEO Links & Backlinks Domain Name Web Performance

Does AMP really enhance your crawl budget?

John Mueller Nov 26, 2019 ★★★

AMP pages do not fundamentally change how our crawl budget is processed. They may be easier to crawl if they load more quickly, but they are not treated differently from traditional HTML pages.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Mobile SEO

Absolute or relative URLs: do they really have no impact on SEO?

John Mueller Nov 26, 2019 ★★

Choose between absolute and relative URLs based on what is easier for you. In theory, it does not matter for SEO if the site adheres to a uniform structure and has well-implemented canonicals.

Crawl & Indexing Links & Backlinks Domain Name Pagination & Structure

Can a domain change really be done without losing rankings?

John Mueller Nov 26, 2019 ★★★

A properly configured domain move should not significantly affect rankings if the domain is well-structured and geographic targeting parameters are correctly defined in Search Console.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name Local Search Search Console International SEO

Why do your server logs never match the crawl numbers from Search Console?

John Mueller Nov 26, 2019 ★★★

It is difficult to precisely reproduce the crawl figures from Search Console using your access logs due to data compilation. The stats may include various access types like Googlebot, rendering, robots.txt, and other bots.

Crawl & Indexing Search Console

Why does Search Console fail to detect all my mobile errors?

John Mueller Nov 26, 2019 ★★★

Mobile compatibility reports in Search Console are based on a sample of pages, not all indexed pages. Errors may sometimes be due to temporary access issues with CSS or JavaScript files.

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

Do Country Selection Interstitials Really Block Your Pages from Being Indexed?

John Mueller Nov 26, 2019 ★★★

Using an interstitial for country selection can block indexing if it prevents Googlebot from seeing the main content of the page. A banner is recommended to avoid this issue.

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing

Does Google Really Penalize Websites Using Outdated HTML Code?

John Mueller Nov 25, 2019 ★★★

John Mueller reminded us on Twitter that Google does not penalize sites that use "old version" HTML, the use of tables, the absence of CSS, the fact that the HTML code does not pass the W3C Validator, etc.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Pagination & Structure Social Media

Should You Remove Analytics and Advertising Scripts to Optimize Googlebot Crawling?

Martin Splitt Nov 25, 2019 ★★★

Martin Splitt (Google) announced at the SMX East event that during the crawl and "rendering" phases, Googlebot does not take into account Analytics scripts or other advertising-oriented scripts it can identify in pages, in order to save resources.

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

Can a Backlink Still Pass SEO Value if the Source Page Isn't Indexed?

John Mueller Nov 25, 2019 ★★★

John Mueller reminded us on Twitter that a backlink is only taken into account if the link is present in a page indexed by the search engine. If a link exists but the page containing it disappears or gets deindexed, the backlink disappears with it.

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Links & Backlinks Social Media

Is it really necessary to self-host your website to improve rankings?

Google Nov 21, 2019 ★★

If you choose to create a separate website for your business, it will require more effort, but you will have the ability to precisely decide the appearance and content of the site, thus providing better control compared to using a third-party platfor...

Content AI & SEO Search Console

Should You Really Set a Target Country in Search Console for International SEO?

John Mueller Nov 18, 2019 ★★★

John Mueller reminded us on Twitter that indicating a target country for a site in Search Console does not prevent it from appearing in the Google version for other countries. For example, if you indicate "France", the site could potentially still be...

Content AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Local Search Social Media Search Console International SEO

How Long Does Googlebot Really Take to Render Your Pages?

Martin Splitt Nov 18, 2019 ★★★

Martin Splitt (Google) announced at the Chrome Dev Summit 2019 that the average time taken by Googlebot to render a page was 5 seconds. This could go up to a few minutes according to him.

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

Site Kit WordPress: does Google really push its plugin for better ranking?

John Mueller Nov 18, 2019 ★★★

Google has introduced Site Kit, a WordPress plugin that allows you to easily connect your site to Google services such as Search Console, Analytics, AdSense, and PageSpeed Insights, thereby facilitating the verification and optimization of your onlin...

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Web Performance Search Console

Is Google Search Console finally revealing actionable speed data?

John Mueller Nov 18, 2019 ★★★

The new updates in Search Console include a report on site speed, emphasizing the importance of speed and allowing for the detection of bottlenecks. Additionally, performance metrics now display fresher data, up to six hours old, along with more info...

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Web Performance Local Search Search Console