What does Google say about SEO?

Why are your image URLs marked as soft 404s without affecting your visual indexing?

John Mueller Sep 26, 2018 ★★

When Google identifies URLs serving an image but not suitable for a web search landing page, they may be marked as soft 404s in the index coverage reports. This does not affect direct image indexing but rather concerns web landing pages.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Images & Videos Domain Name Search Console

Why has Google's cached page disappeared for your mobile-first site?

John Mueller Sep 26, 2018 ★★

The absence of a cached page in Google does not necessarily indicate an indexing problem. For sites that have switched to mobile-first indexing, the cached page is often unavailable, which is normal for optimized sites.

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

Do KML sitemaps still affect local SEO rankings?

John Mueller Sep 26, 2018 ★★

Google no longer considers KML sitemaps in local ranking, as this feature was deprecated several years ago.

Crawl & Indexing Local Search Search Console

How can you manage canonical and hreflang during content syndication without causing conflicts between markets?

John Mueller Sep 26, 2018 ★★★

When syndicating content, it is essential to use rel canonical tags to indicate the primary version for each market and hreflang tags to signal the appropriate local versions without overlapping canonicals between different markets.

Content Crawl & Indexing Local Search International SEO

Is there a maximum threshold for ads to avoid a Google penalty?

John Mueller Sep 26, 2018 ★★

Google has no specific guidelines regarding the proportion of ads by site type, but user preferences can indirectly influence rankings. The design of the site must stem from its audience and objectives, without any specific coding in the algorithms.

Algorithms Domain Age & History AI & SEO

Should you always place sponsored articles as noindex?

John Mueller Sep 26, 2018 ★★★

For sponsored articles, the most important thing is to ensure that all included links do not pass PageRank. Using the nofollow tag on these links is crucial, while the noindex tag on the article itself is optional.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing Discover & News Links & Backlinks

Does Googlebot really crawl your site only from the United States?

John Mueller Sep 26, 2018 ★★

Having Googlebot crawl from every country could overload web servers by multiplying traffic load. Currently, crawling is mainly done from the United States for practical reasons.

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO

Does Google Really Index Content Hidden in Accordions and Tabs?

Gary Illyes Sep 24, 2018 ★★★

Gary Illyes reminded us on Twitter that, contrary to what some recent studies had suggested, Google does properly index and gives "normal" weight to text content located in tabs or accordions. He indicates that if this is not the case for a given web...

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Pagination & Structure Social Media

Should You Prioritize Technical Simplicity Over Complexity to Avoid Algorithmic Penalties?

John Mueller Sep 24, 2018 ★★

John Mueller indicated on Reddit that it's better to implement a website for which you're certain about how search engines will process the pages. Rather than designing a site that's very uncertain at this level, which might work for a while but coul...

Algorithms Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO

Why Will the Mobile First Index Transition Take Several More Years to Complete?

John Mueller Sep 24, 2018 ★★★

John Mueller explained during a hangout that even though many webmasters have received messages in recent days indicating that their site has been validated in the Mobile First Index (MFI), the migration work at this level is far from finished for Go...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Mobile SEO Redirects Search Console

Can Cookie Banners Actually Prevent Google from Crawling Your Most Important Pages?

John Mueller Sep 17, 2018 ★★★

John Mueller reminded us on Twitter that Google cannot crawl a page if displaying it requires the user to accept cookies.

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Social Media

Should You Really Add Your Brand Name to Every Title Tag?

John Mueller Sep 17, 2018 ★★★

John Mueller indicated, also on Twitter, that adding the site name (company or brand name) at the end of each Title tag on a website's pages poses absolutely no problem whatsoever.

Domain Age & History Content Featured Snippets & SERP AI & SEO Social Media

Should You Structure Your XML Sitemaps Differently Based on How You Submit Them to Google?

John Mueller Sep 17, 2018 ★★★

John Mueller explained during a hangout that if an XML Sitemap file was submitted via an anonymous ping, the URLs it contained had to be present in the directory (and subdirectories) of the Sitemap file. However, if the Sitemap is submitted via Searc...

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name PDF & Files Search Console

How Does Google Choose Between Publication Date and Last Updated Date in Search Results?

John Mueller Sep 17, 2018 ★★★

John Mueller provided an interesting insight during a hangout about the date displayed in Google's SERPs (particularly to the left of the snippet, which usually takes the meta "description" tag): it can be either the publication date or the last modi...

Content Featured Snippets & SERP AI & SEO

Should You Really Aim for 100ms Download Times to Optimize Google's Crawl?

John Mueller Sep 17, 2018 ★★

John Mueller explained on Twitter that an interesting metric, in terms of page load times, could be to look at the Search Console, in the "Crawl > Crawl Stats" section, and then try to have the "Time spent downloading a page (in milliseconds)" curve ...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Web Performance Social Media Search Console

Does the white space above the fold really hurt organic search rankings?

John Mueller Sep 13, 2018 ★★★

White space at the top of the page is not a problem for SEO. The issue arises if all the content above the fold consists of ads, as this can disrupt the user experience by hiding the sought-after content.

Domain Age & History Content JavaScript & Technical SEO

Do sidebar links hurt your page rankings?

John Mueller Sep 13, 2018 ★★★

Links in your site's sidebar are acceptable from an SEO perspective. They should be used based on what is useful for users. Conduct A/B tests to see what works best for your visitors.

AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Links & Backlinks Pagination & Structure

Are Google algorithm changes really normal, or do they hide bugs?

John Mueller Sep 13, 2018 ★★★

Changes in search algorithms affect how sites are ranked. There are no bugs to add or subtract from organic results; it's a normal process of algorithm evolution.

Algorithms AI & SEO

Should you really self-manage canonicals on a multilingual site?

John Mueller Sep 13, 2018 ★★★

For international sites, use the hreflang tag without altering the canonicals. Each version of a page should point to itself while hreflang tags link the pages together, tailored to their specific audiences.

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing International SEO

Why does Google sometimes show the original publish date instead of the update date?

John Mueller Sep 13, 2018 ★★

Google may sometimes show the original publish date instead of the modification date based on what is deemed most relevant to the user. The algorithms can choose between these dates depending on the context.

Algorithms Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO