What does Google say about SEO?

Do you really need to worry about missing X-Robots-Tag and meta robots tags?

Martin Splitt Aug 21, 2024 ★★

The absence of an X-Robots-Tag or meta robots tag is not a problem. These mechanisms are only relevant if you want Google or other search engines to treat a page differently. Without these tags, the page will be treated like any other and can be inde...

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO

Are your automatic Geo IP redirects killing your international SEO performance?

Google Aug 21, 2024 ★★★

Automatic Geo IP redirects can cause significant search engine problems because search crawlers would also be redirected, preventing them from seeing other local versions. It is recommended to display banners allowing users to click through to their ...

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Local Search Redirects International SEO

Are nofollow links and noindex tags actually hurting your SEO?

Martin Splitt Aug 21, 2024 ★★★

Having many internal links with the nofollow attribute or many pages with the noindex tag does not signal to Google that the site contains low-quality pages. It simply indicates that you do not want to be associated with certain links or that you do ...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Links & Backlinks

Does your image CDN speed really penalize your ranking in Google Images?

Martin Splitt Aug 21, 2024 ★★

The response speed of a CDN when downloading an image does not determine whether the image will appear in search results. However, users appreciate images loading quickly, and CDNs offer other advantages such as dynamic resizing.

Domain Age & History Images & Videos JavaScript & Technical SEO Web Performance

Does Google really penalize you for publishing video transcriptions as text on your website?

Martin Splitt Aug 21, 2024 ★★★

Creating a YouTube video and then placing the exact text on a web page will not result in a duplicate content flag. One is a video, the other is text, which constitutes unique content. It's even recommended for accessibility purposes.

Domain Age & History Content Images & Videos

Are regional subdomains enough to target a specific geographic market?

Martin Splitt Aug 21, 2024 ★★★

Having different subdomains for different markets with the same content does not guarantee that these pages will rank specifically for the market mentioned in the subdomain. If the content is identical, it remains identical. Use hreflang to indicate ...

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name International SEO

Why are your rich results displaying the wrong currency and what's the fix?

Google Aug 21, 2024 ★★

Wrong currencies displayed in rich results are often a side effect of Google's systems treating the page as substantially duplicated. You need to ensure pages aren't too similar or use Merchant Center feeds for price information.

Domain Age & History Content Structured Data E-commerce Featured Snippets & SERP AI & SEO

Why does Google reject aggregated reviews in product structured data?

Martin Splitt Aug 21, 2024 ★★★

You must not use aggregated reviews from a specific service and transmit them to Google via structured data for products. The technical guidelines for reviews specifically prohibit this practice, which would make pages ineligible for review results.

Domain Age & History Content E-commerce AI & SEO Local Search

Why does Googlebot keep crawling 404 pages long after they've been deleted?

Martin Splitt Aug 21, 2024 ★★

Googlebot continues crawling hacked pages returning 404 for a certain period because sometimes pages are deleted by mistake or return with legitimate content. This doesn't harm the site in Google Search and Googlebot will eventually move on to other ...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO

Do UTM parameters with medium=referral really kill the SEO value of a backlink?

Martin Splitt Aug 21, 2024 ★★

UTM parameters in a link with medium=referral do not remove SEO value from a backlink. However, it is recommended to canonicalize the target page to the URL without the UTM parameter to facilitate reporting and tracking.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing Links & Backlinks Domain Name

Should you worry when robots.txt shows up as a soft 404 in Search Console?

Google Aug 21, 2024 ★★

It is normal for the robots.txt file to appear as a soft 404 in Google Search Console. The robots.txt file generally does not need to be indexed, there is nothing to do in this case.

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO PDF & Files Search Console

Can modifying your title tags and meta descriptions really shift your Google rankings?

Google Aug 21, 2024 ★★

Modifying a page's meta titles and descriptions can cause changes in search results. Changing the title or headings can affect rankings, while modifying the meta description can change snippet display. This is normal and often done intentionally by S...

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO

Can poor quality links or traffic harm your site's reputation?

Martin Splitt Aug 21, 2024 ★★★

Sending traffic or links from questionable sources to a site will not make that site suspect. No one can choose or control where traffic or links come from. Google Search will not judge a site's reliability on this basis.

AI & SEO Links & Backlinks

Does Google really fail to index most of your website pages—and is that actually a problem?

Martin Splitt Aug 20, 2024 ★★★

Google will almost never index the entire content of a website. This is not an error and it's not necessarily a problem that requires special attention. It's a normal behavior of Google's indexing system.

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO

Why are your pages stuck in 'Discovered - currently not indexed' status?

Martin Splitt Aug 20, 2024 ★★★

When Googlebot discovers a URL through a sitemap or link, it adds it to a to-do list of URLs to visit and potentially index later. The 'Discovered - currently not indexed' status simply means Googlebot hasn't had time to crawl this URL yet because it...

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Domain Name Search Console

Should you really wait for Google to index your pages, or is there a smarter way?

Martin Splitt Aug 20, 2024 ★★

Sometimes, the 'Discovered - currently not indexed' status is simply a matter of patience. Googlebot will eventually crawl the URL when it has the resources, and the page will then move to 'Crawled - currently not indexed' status or be indexed.

Crawl & Indexing Domain Name

Should you really worry about pages Google refuses to index?

Martin Splitt Aug 20, 2024 ★★

Most sites will have pages that won't be indexed, and this is generally acceptable. It's not a problem in itself as long as the pages that matter to you are properly indexed.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Pagination & Structure

Does Googlebot really slow down when your server struggles, and what does that mean for your indexation?

Martin Splitt Aug 20, 2024 ★★★

Googlebot adapts its crawl speed to avoid overwhelming servers. If a server becomes slow or responds with errors during crawling, Googlebot will reduce its pace and crawl fewer pages simultaneously, spreading the process over a longer period.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing Web Performance Search Console

How can you spot the server problems that are slowing down Google's crawl of your site?

Martin Splitt Aug 20, 2024 ★★★

It is recommended to check the Crawl Stats report in Google Search Console, particularly the Reply section, to verify whether your server is responding slowly or with HTTP 500 errors when Googlebot attempts to crawl your pages.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing HTTPS & Security AI & SEO Search Console

Do server problems really only impact massive websites, or can smaller sites suffer too?

Martin Splitt Aug 20, 2024 ★★

Server performance issues that impact crawling generally concern websites with very large quantities of pages (millions or more), but they can also affect smaller sites. It is advisable to consult your hosting provider to resolve these issues.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Web Performance Search Console