What does Google say about SEO?

How can you effectively eliminate duplicate content that is penalizing you?

John Mueller Dec 21, 2018 ★★

For private membership sites with content copied elsewhere, submitting a DMCA takedown request is the recommended method, even though it has to be done page by page.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO

Are expired domains really on Google's radar?

John Mueller Dec 21, 2018 ★★★

When sites surface with significant traffic using expired domains or unscrupulous techniques, Google is interested in examples for the purpose of improving and scaling detection.

Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name Penalties & Spam

Can Switching Hosts or Migrating to a CDN Tank Your Google Rankings?

John Mueller Dec 17, 2018 ★★★

John Mueller indicated on Twitter, in response to a specific case of a company that migrated its site to Cloudflare and saw its rankings drop, that this case was merely speculation and that a hosting change (CDN or not) has no negative effect on a si...

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Redirects Social Media

Does Having Your Content Scraped Negatively Impact Your Google Rankings?

John Mueller Dec 17, 2018 ★★★

John Mueller indicated last week, again on Twitter, that having your content "scraped" (stolen, copied/pasted) by other websites is neither a quality criterion nor a relevance criterion for Google's algorithms (in the sense that one might think that ...

Algorithms Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Penalties & Spam Social Media

Is it true that lazy-loading makes your images invisible to Google?

Google Dec 17, 2018 ★★★

Using lazy-loading libraries like echo.js for deferred image loading can be effective. However, it is crucial to ensure that these images are made visible to Google crawlers, possibly by enclosing them in noscript tags or using structured data.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing Images & Videos JavaScript & Technical SEO PDF & Files

Does the domain authority of a CMS truly affect SEO rankings?

Google Dec 17, 2018 ★★

Ranking at the top of search results purely because of the domain strength of a content management system (CMS) is a concern. Quality content and user experience contribute to better long-term rankings, regardless of the CMS used.

Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name

How does Google really create your snippets in the SERPs?

Google Dec 17, 2018 ★★★

Search result snippets are typically generated automatically from the page content, not just from the meta description tag. Google dynamically adjusts the snippets to ensure they are as relevant as possible to each specific query.

Domain Age & History Content Search Console

Should you really remove HTTP from the sitemap when migrating to HTTPS?

Google Dec 17, 2018 ★★★

During the migration from HTTP to HTTPS, the HTTPS version must be prioritized in the sitemap. However, if HTTP correctly redirects to HTTPS, this should not pose a major problem for indexing.

Crawl & Indexing HTTPS & Security AI & SEO Redirects Search Console

Do you really need to resubmit your sitemap after every update?

Google Dec 17, 2018 ★★★

In the new Search Console, once a sitemap is submitted, there is no need to resubmit it after each update. Google periodically checks for changes to the sitemap.

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Search Console

Are 301 redirects truly essential to retain the link juice of a deleted page?

Google Dec 17, 2018 ★★★

To transfer the link juice from a deleted page to a new page, a 301 redirect must be put in place. In the absence of a redirect, the incoming links pointing to the old page will not benefit the new page.

Domain Age & History Links & Backlinks Redirects

Should you really panic about the 'uncommon download' alerts in Search Console?

Google Dec 17, 2018 ★★

The 'uncommon download' alerts in Search Console generally originate from Google's Safe Browsing system. They can be temporary and often resolve themselves without direct intervention as Google checks the files.

AI & SEO PDF & Files Search Console

Why does it take so long for a page to re-index after removing its noindex tag?

Google Dec 17, 2018 ★★

Pages that have had the noindex attribute and have removed it may take time to be re-indexed. Using sitemaps and fixing internal links can help this process.

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

Is crawl budget really a limiting factor for your site?

Google Dec 17, 2018 ★★★

Google does not explicitly limit the number of pages crawled on a site. It depends more on the server's ability to handle requests and the perceived importance of the pages by Google.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing

Are improperly configured hreflang tags really sabotaging your local visibility?

Google Dec 17, 2018 ★★★

For multilingual sites, poor hreflang tag implementation can lead to incorrect results in local searches. Ensure that each hreflang link is correctly defined with the full protocol (HTTP/HTTPS) and the correct version of the page.

Domain Age & History HTTPS & Security AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Local Search International SEO

Why does your mobile-friendly page suddenly lose its mobile-compatible label?

John Mueller Dec 14, 2018 ★★★

When Google analyzes a page for mobile compatibility, there can be temporary fluctuations due to the inability to retrieve necessary CSS files. This is often a temporary issue, and if other pages on the site are deemed mobile-friendly, there is no ca...

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Mobile SEO PDF & Files

Does the Mobile-Friendly Test Tool really detect all the errors that impact your mobile SEO?

John Mueller Dec 14, 2018 ★★★

Use the mobile compatibility test to see how Googlebot searches a site via mobile devices and discover possible JavaScript errors that might prevent content rendering, such as a missing footer.

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Mobile SEO

Is server-side rendering still essential for quickly indexing dynamic content?

John Mueller Dec 14, 2018 ★★

For sites where content changes rapidly, it is advisable to use server-side rendering or dynamic rendering so that Google can have a static HTML version of the pages, allowing for quicker indexing of content.

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

Can Google ignore your desktop canonical in mobile-first indexing?

John Mueller Dec 14, 2018 ★★★

In mobile-first indexing, it is possible for Google to choose the mobile URL as the canonical version, even if the specified canonical is a desktop URL. This is not problematic if the content is identical across both versions.

Content Crawl & Indexing Mobile SEO Domain Name

Does noindex really track links or does Google eventually ignore everything?

John Mueller Dec 14, 2018 ★★★

A noindex page will temporarily follow links, but in the long run, these pages will be completely ignored, links included. Ensure that critical links for indexing are on indexable pages.

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

Why don't your social profiles show up in Google Knowledge Panels?

John Mueller Dec 14, 2018 ★★

Structured data markup can indicate social profiles to Google, but it often takes time before Google recognizes them.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO