What does Google say about SEO?

Do DMCA notifications truly penalize a site's overall SEO?

John Mueller Jul 09, 2019 ★★★

Active DMCA requests lead to the removal of the concerned URLs from search results. However, this does not affect the rest of your content. Two URLs filtered through DMCA typically do not represent a major problem for your site's SEO.

Content AI & SEO Domain Name

What does it take to get featured in the Top Stories carousel?

John Mueller Jul 09, 2019 ★★★

No specific parameters are required to appear in the Top Stories news carousel; it’s an organic and algorithmic feature of search results.

Algorithms

Should you merge or separate pages that are competing for the same keywords?

John Mueller Jul 09, 2019 ★★

It is important to consider whether multiple pages are competing for the same keywords. Pages can be merged or individualized depending on external competition and their performance in the SERPs.

Domain Age & History Content Featured Snippets & SERP Web Performance Search Console

Can you really break into a saturated SEO niche with just content and user experience?

John Mueller Jul 09, 2019 ★★★

Entering a long-dominant niche market is possible with high-quality content and a good user experience, but it requires a lot of effort and can be challenging.

Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO

Can you really escape cloaking by showing Google more content than your visitors?

John Mueller Jul 09, 2019 ★★★

With the flexible sampling approach, you can show the entire content to Google while presenting a limited version to human users, without being considered cloaking.

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Penalties & Spam

Can you rank without visible content to Googlebot through backlinks?

John Mueller Jul 09, 2019 ★★

Blocking with robots.txt prevents Google from seeing the content of the page, making it difficult to evaluate for query relevance. However, highly referenced pages can still appear in the search results.

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing

Does changing a website's owner really affect its SEO?

John Mueller Jul 09, 2019 ★★

A website ownership change generally does not affect how the site is indexed if the content remains largely the same.

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO

Why does Google advise against automatic language redirects on multilingual websites?

John Mueller Jul 09, 2019 ★★★

Avoid automatic language redirects and use HREF lang annotations to allow Google to access and index page versions in different languages.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing Redirects International SEO

Does the alt attribute of images really serve as a link anchor for SEO?

John Mueller Jul 09, 2019 ★★★

The alt attribute of an image must describe the image itself. It can also contribute to the link's anchor text if the image is a navigation element, but this is not its primary function.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Images & Videos Links & Backlinks Pagination & Structure

How does Google choose which content version to display between PWA, desktop, and AMP?

Martin Splitt Jul 03, 2019 ★★★

When the same content exists in different forms (PWA, desktop site, AMP), it is advisable to choose the one that will be suitable for the largest number of users and link the other versions so that Google can decide which to show according to user ne...

Content Mobile SEO

Will Lighthouse and Search Console Become Your New Must-Have SEO KPIs?

Martin Splitt Jul 03, 2019 ★★★

Lighthouse increasingly incorporates SEO audits, and this data is also available through PageSpeed Insights and Google Search Console. This rewards content that reaches users faster, especially on mobile networks, taking performance into account for ...

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Mobile SEO Web Performance Search Console

Will the Search Console API finally open data to third-party SEO platforms?

Martin Splitt Jul 03, 2019 ★★★

Google is working on integrating Search Console data into third-party platforms via a future API, allowing users to access information such as click-through rate, impressions, and indexing directly within their usual tools.

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Search Console

Why do your Core Web Vitals appear to deteriorate even as you optimize?

Martin Splitt Jul 03, 2019 ★★

When improving web performance, it is possible that metrics may seem to indicate a decline if new audiences, for example on 2G networks, start accessing the content. However, this can be positive because it means that the content is reaching a wider ...

Content Web Performance Search Console

Are New Web Technologies (Web Components, Virtual Scroller) Really SEO Safe?

Martin Splitt Jul 03, 2019 ★★★

Google ensures that its search algorithms are compatible with new web technologies like Web Components and the 'virtual scroller', so developers don’t have to worry about potential negative impacts on SEO.

Algorithms Content AI & SEO

Do Schema.org structured data really boost SEO, or do they only serve enriched features?

Martin Splitt Jul 03, 2019 ★★★

Using structured data via schema.org is encouraged to enable Google and other systems like virtual assistants to effectively understand and utilize the semantics of web pages for advanced features like commerce.

Domain Age & History Structured Data AI & SEO

Do XML Sitemaps Really Impact Your Site's Ranking?

Gary Illyes Jul 02, 2019 ★★★

Gary Illyes indicated on Twitter that the content of XML Sitemap files did not impact a site's rankings in the search engine's results.

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO PDF & Files Social Media Search Console

How Long Does a Successful SEO Migration Actually Take?

John Mueller Jul 02, 2019 ★★★

John Mueller mentioned during a webmaster hangout that if everything was done properly on a website, a migration could be very quick in terms of SEO, in the order of a few days (a day or two, according to John). If everything was done properly...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name Redirects

Should you really include external links on your website?

John Mueller Jun 28, 2019 ★★★

Having links to other websites on your site is beneficial. It helps users by providing sources or options to learn more about a given topic.

AI & SEO Links & Backlinks

Do nofollow links really have zero impact on SEO?

John Mueller Jun 28, 2019 ★★★

Links with the 'nofollow' attribute are generally not considered for SEO. However, they can still lead to awareness and traffic to a site if users find the content to be of high quality.

Content Links & Backlinks

Can low-quality external links really contaminate your entire site?

John Mueller Jun 28, 2019 ★★★

If a part of a site contains low-quality external links, it can harm the perceived quality of the entire site. This includes, for example, subdomains or affiliated pages that do not stand out in terms of original content.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Links & Backlinks Domain Name