What does Google say about SEO?

Does Google really treat internal links as a UX signal for Googlebot?

Martin Splitt Jul 23, 2024 ★★★

Internal links are important because they help users identify the next steps to follow and connect individual pages of a website together. Googlebot also uses these internal links in the same way users do.

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

Does Googlebot really discover your pages through internal links?

Martin Splitt Jul 23, 2024 ★★★

Googlebot uses internal links primarily for two things: discovering pages on your site and understanding the relationship between your site's pages. When Googlebot finds a URL in your pages, it may try to crawl it as well.

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

Why does Google keep emphasizing internal links as the backbone of site crawlability and content discovery?

Martin Splitt Jul 23, 2024 ★★

Links are important for users and bots to find related content on a page. They help identify next steps and enable navigation between different sections of a website.

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

Should you really fix every single indexation error Google reports in Search Console?

Google Jul 18, 2024 ★★★

You don't need to fix every error reported in the page indexation report. Many errors are expected, for example when part of your site is removed. Other issues can be normal: search engines simply don't index everything on a website.

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

How can you leverage the Google Search Status Dashboard API to supercharge your SEO tools?

Gary Illyes Jul 18, 2024 ★

It's now possible to access Google Search Status Dashboard data through an RSS feed and JSON history, both linked from each dashboard page. These data sources can be used to build custom monitoring tools.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Pagination & Structure

Why does Google refuse to grant unlimited indexation request quotas in Search Console?

Gary Illyes Jul 18, 2024 ★★

It is not possible to have an unlimited number of indexation requests in Google Search Console, even for managers handling multiple sites.

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Search Console

Is Schema Recipe really restricted to food recipes only, or can you use it creatively?

Google Jul 18, 2024 ★★

The structured data schema for recipes cannot be used for non-edible recipes such as deodorant or laundry detergent. Google's guidelines on structured data are very clear on this point. It is not recommended to repurpose this markup for other purpose...

Domain Age & History Structured Data AI & SEO

Does the noindex tag really only affect individual pages, or can it impact your entire site?

Gary Illyes Jul 18, 2024 ★★★

The noindex rule applies to individual pages or other resources on a site. To add a noindex rule to HTML pages, you must add a meta robots tag with the noindex value in the HTML head element of the page. Extensive documentation is available on this t...

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO PDF & Files

Do you really need to fill in every single field of structured data for Google to actually use it?

Google Jul 18, 2024 ★★

You can use structured data markup even without all the required fields, but Google's systems will likely ignore this markup because it will be considered incomplete. For cases with millions of variants, it's better to focus markup on the variations ...

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Mobile SEO

Does Google really use RSS feeds to discover and index new content on your site?

Gary Illyes Jul 18, 2024 ★★

Google can use RSS feeds referenced on a site to discover new URLs or other URLs on other sites, similar to sitemaps. RSS feeds are mentioned in the official documentation on sitemaps.

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

Does the order of H1, H2, H3 tags really affect your Google rankings?

Gary Illyes Jul 18, 2024 ★★★

Having headings in semantic order is excellent for screen readers, but from Google Search's perspective, the disorderly use of heading tags doesn't matter. The SEO Starter Guide is regularly updated to ensure its accuracy, so this information is as p...

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

Should you panic if your hreflang disappears temporarily during a migration?

Google Jul 18, 2024 ★★★

During an incremental CMS migration, if certain pages don't yet have hreflang markup, this connection simply won't be taken into account temporarily. Once the migration is complete and the markup is restored, it will be taken into account again. This...

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Redirects International SEO

Should you block GoogleOther or risk disrupting your Google services?

Gary Illyes Jul 18, 2024 ★★★

GoogleOther is a generic crawler used by various Google product teams to retrieve publicly accessible content, notably for internal research and development. It was launched to provide greater transparency and control. Blocking GoogleOther can affect...

Content Crawl & Indexing E-commerce AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO

Do local domains (ccTLD) really offer an SEO advantage for local search rankings?

Gary Illyes Jul 18, 2024 ★★

Local domain names like .kr tend to perform better because Google Search favors local content for the user. A .com can work just as well, but the local ccTLD offers a slight advantage. However, the match between the site's language and the user's sea...

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

Does Google really treat a site after massive expansion as a brand new website?

Google Jul 18, 2024 ★★

When a website grows significantly (for example, moving from 10,000 to 100,000 products), the site becomes globally very different. The old site would represent only 10% of the new one. It is therefore logical that search engines reevaluate how they ...

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

Why does Google keep displaying your old site name in search results long after a rebrand?

Gary Illyes Jul 18, 2024 ★★

When Google continues to rank links or names from an old site after a rebrand, it's normal. People may call a product by its old name long after the change. Google Search is a reflection of what people are actually searching for, so it can't always e...

Domain Age & History E-commerce Links & Backlinks

Why aren't your product structured data appearing in Google's rich results?

Google Jul 18, 2024 ★★★

To obtain product rich results, three conditions are necessary: the page must be indexed, it must contain valid structured data, and Google's systems must determine that it is relevant to display this structured data. There is also a distinct possibi...

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing Structured Data E-commerce Featured Snippets & SERP AI & SEO Local Search

Is your brand really stuck being confused with a common word? How long does Google actually need to figure it out?

Google Jul 18, 2024 ★★

When a brand is confused with a common English word in search results, the situation will resolve itself over time as Google's systems recognize that users are searching for the site and not a misspelling. Depending on specifics, this can take severa...

AI & SEO

What's the only way to hide text from Google without using HTML tags?

Gary Illyes Jul 18, 2024 ★★

There is no HTML tag or annotation to tell Google to ignore certain text portions. One workaround involves injecting unwanted tags via JavaScript and blocking Google from crawling that JavaScript. If Google can't retrieve it, it can't see it.

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO

Can Google actually transfer your SEO rankings during a domain migration?

Gary Illyes Jul 18, 2024 ★★★

Google's team cannot directly help transfer SEO rankings from an old domain to a new one, but site owners can do it themselves. Migration guidelines are available that explain how to proceed.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name Redirects