What does Google say about SEO?

Does Google automatically detect your E-A-T improvements to boost your ranking?

John Mueller Mar 07, 2019 ★★★

When a website improves its aspects of Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness (E-A-T), Google tries to automatically reflect these improvements in the site's ranking and visibility on search results pages.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO

Does Googlebot really see all of your critical JavaScript content?

Martin Splitt Mar 06, 2019 ★★★

If your site uses JavaScript to modify or add critical content on the page, it's vital to ensure that Googlebot sees all of that content, including parts dynamically added with JavaScript.

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

Should you ditch JavaScript to speed up your page indexing?

Martin Splitt Mar 06, 2019 ★★★

To ensure fast indexing, make sure the most important content is present in the site's source code. If the content is loaded dynamically with JavaScript, your application will have to wait for additional rendering and indexing.

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO

How does JavaScript delay the indexing of your pages by Google?

Martin Splitt Feb 28, 2019 ★★★

Googlebot executes JavaScript when rendering pages, but it can take time before the content is indexed or updated in search results because rendering is resource-heavy. Thus, while Googlebot can handle most JavaScript, the appearance of content in th...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing Featured Snippets & SERP AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO

How does Google handle the separation of indexing and JavaScript rendering?

Martin Splitt Feb 28, 2019 ★★★

At Google, they separate indexing and rendering in order to quickly address the content that is accessible without JavaScript, and then return later to add the content requiring JavaScript.

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO

Why is JavaScript so costly for your SEO?

Martin Splitt Feb 28, 2019 ★★★

JavaScript is costly because it needs to be downloaded, parsed, and executed. To achieve fast loading, it is helpful to utilize progressive parsing and rendering of HTML to provide content to users as quickly as possible.

Content JavaScript & Technical SEO

Why is Google dedicating an entire series to JavaScript SEO?

Martin Splitt Feb 27, 2019 ★★★

Google is launching an entire series of videos on best practices and SEO for JavaScript, aimed at webmasters interested in these topics.

JavaScript & Technical SEO

Should You Really Worry About Toxic Links and Negative SEO?

John Mueller Feb 25, 2019 ★★★

When a user complained about a Negative SEO attack from one of their competitors, John Mueller responded on Twitter that they didn't need to do anything special because Google's algorithms ignore toxic links and have extensive experience dealing with...

Algorithms Content Discover & News AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Penalties & Spam Social Media

Does anyone truly understand how search engines really work internally?

Google Feb 25, 2019 ★★★

Frédéric Dubut (Bing) explained on Twitter that very few people within the teams managing the search engine have a global vision of the "algorithm core" and generally understand how the engine and its relevance algorithm work, because all of this is ...

Algorithms AI & SEO Social Media

Does Google's Algorithm Really Work Differently Depending on Your Query Type?

John Mueller Feb 25, 2019 ★★★

John Mueller explained in a hangout that Google's algorithm could function differently depending on the type of query posed by the user (he takes an example from the medical field in his explanations). But the vision of the engineers who work on the ...

Algorithms Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name

Can mobile pop-ups and interstitials really tank your Google ranking?

John Mueller Feb 22, 2019 ★★★

Interstitials and pop-ups that block content render a page non-mobile-friendly according to Google's mobile compatibility classifier, which can negatively impact its ranking in search results.

Domain Age & History Content Mobile SEO

Should you really care about the difference between 301 and 302 redirects?

John Mueller Feb 22, 2019 ★★★

Use a 301 redirect to indicate that the new page permanently replaces an old page. If the redirect is temporary or likely to change, use a 302 redirect. However, if a 302 redirect persists for a long time, Google may treat it as a 301.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Redirects

Should you really place text below product listings for e-commerce SEO?

John Mueller Feb 22, 2019 ★★★

Avoid placing long blocks of text below product listings just for SEO. Favor the integration of relevant informative text that provides clear and visible context to users right from the top of the page.

Domain Age & History Content E-commerce AI & SEO

Do free tools truly enhance domain authority?

John Mueller Feb 22, 2019 ★★

Creating useful free tools can help strengthen a site's authority by generating inbound links and recommendations. This can indirectly benefit other commercial pages on the site.

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

Do structured data markup errors penalize the entire site or just the affected pages?

John Mueller Feb 22, 2019 ★★★

Markup errors in certain structured data will not affect the rest of your site if the specific requirements for each Rich Result feature are met.

Domain Age & History Structured Data Featured Snippets & SERP AI & SEO

Are Google algorithm updates really targeting specific industries or queries?

John Mueller Feb 22, 2019 ★★★

Algorithm updates do not specifically target an industry, but aim to improve the relevance of results for specific types of queries, which can affect certain industries more than others.

Algorithms AI & SEO

Should you really seek help on Google forums when a domain migration goes wrong?

John Mueller Feb 22, 2019 ★★

When migrating a site, if ranking issues arise, seek help on support forums to check configurations and see if there is a problem on Google's side.

AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name Redirects

Should you choose a single lengthy article or break it into multiple pages?

John Mueller Feb 22, 2019 ★★

For extensive content, test whether your audience prefers a complete article on a single page or divided into several chapters. Determine what works best for user engagement and conversions.

Domain Age & History Content Discover & News JavaScript & Technical SEO

Are sitemaps declared in robots.txt truly treated differently by Googlebot?

John Mueller Feb 22, 2019 ★★★

Googlebot treats sitemaps declared in the robots.txt file as XML files for indexing, not as HTML pages to follow.

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

Can 503 errors really slow down the crawling of your entire site?

John Mueller Feb 22, 2019 ★★★

If a part of a website returns many server errors such as 503, it can reduce the crawl frequency for the entire site.

Crawl & Indexing