What does Google say about SEO?

Should You Implement Regional Hreflang Tags Instead of Country-Level Ones?

John Mueller Oct 29, 2018 ★★★

Some SEO professionals (including Aleyda Solis) have advocated for implementing hreflang tags down to the regional level, within a country, instead of staying at the country level as is currently the case. John Mueller explained that this wasn't real...

Content AI & SEO International SEO

Does Producing Massive Amounts of Content Really Help You Rank Better on Google?

John Mueller Oct 23, 2018 ★★★

John Mueller explained, also on Twitter, that putting more and more content online did not make your site better in Google's eyes and would not help it rank better.

Content AI & SEO Social Media

Why Does Google Take Several Weeks to Index Some Web Pages?

Gary Illyes Oct 23, 2018 ★★★

We know that the Google search engine no longer just reads the HTML code of pages in a basic way as it did years ago, but tries to analyze web pages as if they were displayed in a browser. This "rendering" phase is important and, according to Gary Il...

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

Should You Still Bother With isRelatedTo and isSimilarTo in Product Schema?

John Mueller Oct 23, 2018 ★★★

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that Google does not take into account the "isRelatedTo" and "isSimilarTo" fields of the Schema.org Product tag. These two attributes allow you to indicate related or similar products.

Content Structured Data E-commerce AI & SEO Mobile SEO Social Media

Should you worry when Search Console shows AMP errors for no obvious reason?

John Mueller Oct 19, 2018 ★★★

According to John Mueller, delays in Search Console reporting can occur, leading to discrepancies in the display of AMP errors and other data. It is important not to overly worry, especially if no changes have been made recently to the site.

Domain Age & History Content Mobile SEO Search Console

Is it true that no mobile-first notification means your site is ready?

John Mueller Oct 19, 2018 ★★★

John Mueller indicates that not receiving a mobile-first indexing notification does not necessarily mean that the site is unprepared for this type of indexing. Google is deploying this feature gradually, checking various criteria to assess a site's r...

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Mobile SEO

Are drops in organic traffic always a penalty?

John Mueller Oct 19, 2018 ★★★

Google considers that ranking fluctuations, such as significant drops or increases in organic traffic, can be the result of normal algorithm changes, without specific focus on any particular site. The modifications do not directly target sites but ar...

Algorithms AI & SEO

Should you really trust Google's quality guidelines after facing an algorithm drop?

John Mueller Oct 19, 2018 ★★

Mueller recommends improving the perceived quality of a site after an algorithm update by referring to Google's quality guidelines and seeking external audience feedback to assess user trust in their content.

Algorithms Content AI & SEO

Can you over-optimize your homepage to the point where Google prefers to rank another page on your site?

John Mueller Oct 19, 2018 ★★★

Over-optimizing with keywords on the homepage can lead Google to rank a more relevant page on the site. It is advisable to monitor the use of keywords and balance the information provided to avoid being considered too optimized.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing

Do redirect chains really kill your link equity?

John Mueller Oct 19, 2018 ★★★

Mueller clarifies that 301 or 302 redirect chains do not necessarily lead to a loss of link equity, but they can affect user experience and loading speed, especially on mobile. It is recommended to optimize redirects for more effective accessibility ...

AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Mobile SEO Domain Name Web Performance Redirects

Do Google's quality algorithms really target all sites fairly?

John Mueller Oct 19, 2018 ★★★

When Google updates its quality algorithms, this can lead to significant variations in site rankings, which are based on holistic evaluations to improve search results overall rather than targeting specific sites.

Algorithms AI & SEO

Should you block the indexing of your internal search engine?

John Mueller Oct 19, 2018 ★★★

Google does not actively submit queries to internal search engines on sites. It is important to manage the indexing of pages generated by search to avoid an infinite space of URLs, focusing on high-priority pages or blocking indexing for those that a...

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

Why Is Your SPA Struggling to Get Indexed Despite SSR?

John Mueller Oct 19, 2018 ★★★

John Mueller advises focusing on improving the overall quality of a site with many unindexed pages. Even with server-side rendering, indexing depends on the value that Google perceives in the site's content.

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing

Can you really geo-target your AMP pages without risking a penalty?

John Mueller Oct 19, 2018 ★★

Implementing AMP specific to a geographic region is technically possible but complicated, as Google prefers to handle AMP versions globally and does not natively support conditional distribution by region.

Content AI & SEO Mobile SEO Local Search International SEO

Should you ditch rel=author for Schema.org on your content?

John Mueller Oct 19, 2018 ★★★

Google no longer supports the rel-author markup, even before the disappearance of Google+. It is advisable to use schema.org for articles to indicate who the authors of the content are, regardless of the Google+ platform.

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

Should you really compress your sitemap files using gzip?

John Mueller Oct 19, 2018 ★★

Using gzip compression for sitemap files is recommended to save bandwidth. It does not improve the speed of processing by Google, but it is beneficial from a resource management perspective.

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO PDF & Files Web Performance Search Console

Could a slow server be stealthily draining your crawl budget?

John Mueller Oct 18, 2018 ★★★

Server speed affects the number of pages Google can crawl each day. If a server is slow, Google may crawl it less frequently to prevent overloading.

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

Does JavaScript really block Google from indexing your pages?

John Mueller Oct 18, 2018 ★★★

For Google to index content generated by JavaScript, it must be able to execute the JavaScript on the page. If certain elements do not load correctly, it may pose a problem for SEO.

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

Is Dynamic Rendering still a viable solution for managing JavaScript in SEO?

John Mueller Oct 18, 2018 ★★

Dynamic Rendering is an acceptable solution for serving static content to Google when it cannot correctly process JavaScript, but the content must still be relevant to users.

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Pagination & Structure

How can you effectively use structured data to improve your SEO?

John Mueller Oct 18, 2018 ★★★

Structured data can be embedded anywhere on a page using JSON-LD. For data directly integrated into HTML, it must be visible to the user.

Domain Age & History Structured Data JavaScript & Technical SEO Pagination & Structure