What does Google say about SEO?

Why Is the ALT Attribute Crucial for Your Google Images SEO Rankings?

John Mueller Sep 10, 2018 ★★★

John Mueller reminded us on Twitter of the critical importance of the ALT attribute for images in Google's dedicated search engine for this format.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Images & Videos Social Media

Can JavaScript Actually Prevent Your Site from Being Indexed in Mobile First?

John Mueller Sep 10, 2018 ★★★

John Mueller explained during a hangout that sites using a lot of JavaScript might not be transitioned to the Mobile First index.

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

What really happens when a Google manual action expires without any fixes?

John Mueller Sep 10, 2018 ★★★

John Mueller reminded us on Twitter that manual actions do indeed expire at some point. However, if nothing has been done to fix the problem in the meantime, it could be picked up by a new part of the algorithm (such as a Panda or Penguin-type filter...

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

Do White Spaces on Web Pages Really Hurt Your SEO Rankings?

John Mueller Sep 10, 2018 ★★

John Mueller explained during a hangout that white spaces (empty areas) on a web page, which may push textual content further down, do not pose specific SEO problems. Only ads that hinder content readability can represent an issue.

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

Do You Really Need Third-Party Tools to Identify Toxic Links for Disavowing?

John Mueller Sep 03, 2018 ★★★

During a hangout, John Mueller indicated that, as part of a link disavow process, Search Console data (the "Links to your site" section) was most of the time sufficient to verify that no toxic links were pointing to your website.

Content AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Search Console

Should You Really Exclude All Redirected URLs from Your XML Sitemap?

John Mueller Sep 03, 2018 ★★★

John Mueller has said it repeatedly in the past: when you create your XML Sitemap files, don't include any redirected URLs (301 or otherwise). He reiterated this on Twitter recently. Google uses this file, among other things, to establish the list of...

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name Pagination & Structure PDF & Files Redirects Social Media Search Console

Should You Really Redirect All Old URLs to the Homepage During a Migration?

John Mueller Sep 03, 2018 ★★★

John Mueller had already said this in the past. He reiterated it once again in a hangout: redirecting all the old URLs of a site to the homepage (particularly during a migration with massive changes to web page addresses) is a very bad practice that ...

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Domain Name Redirects

How Does Google Really Evaluate the Quality of a Backlink?

John Mueller Sep 03, 2018 ★★★

John Mueller explained on Twitter that the overall quality of the site linking to you is not the only source of information Google uses to qualify the quality of the link itself. Other criteria come into play.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Social Media

Should You Link from Your Homepage to Every Page on Your Site?

John Mueller Sep 03, 2018 ★★★

John Mueller discussed during a hangout the technique of implementing links from the homepage to all pages of a site, or to as many of these pages as possible. While this practice is quite logical for a very small site, it is not recommended for larg...

Domain Age & History Content Links & Backlinks Pagination & Structure

How Does Google Really Index PDF Files and Why Should This Change Your SEO Strategy?

John Mueller Sep 03, 2018 ★★★

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that when indexing PDF documents or others (certainly Word, Excel, PowerPoint or others), it first goes through a conversion phase from PDF to HTML. And it's this document converted to HTML that is then indexed.

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO PDF & Files Social Media

How Do Panda and Penguin Really Penalize Your Site: Page by Page or Globally?

Gary Illyes Aug 27, 2018 ★★★

At the Search Masters Brazil conference, Gary Illyes confirmed that, while data was still collected by Google at the individual page level of a website, potential "algorithmic penalties" were subsequently handled differently: Panda will impact the en...

Algorithms Domain Age & History AI & SEO

Can You Use the Same Image Multiple Times on Your Site Without an SEO Penalty?

John Mueller Aug 27, 2018 ★★★

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that an image could appear identically (under the same filename or not) on the same site, or across several different sites, this posed no problem for Google, and that this situation was in fact very common.

Domain Age & History Content E-commerce AI & SEO Images & Videos JavaScript & Technical SEO PDF & Files Penalties & Spam Social Media

Does Google Really Favor Fresh and Recent Content in Its Rankings?

John Mueller Aug 27, 2018 ★

When asked on Twitter: "Does Google favor 'fresh' content?", John Mueller answered "No". According to John, the search engine would not favor "fresh" content.

Algorithms Content AI & SEO Social Media

Which HTTP Redirect Should You Use During HTTPS Migration to Preserve Your SEO?

John Mueller Aug 27, 2018 ★★★

John Mueller indicated during a hangout that "Google strongly recommends 301 redirects during an HTTPS migration", and therefore to move URLs from HTTP to HTTPS, when he was asked about 302 or 303 redirects.

Content HTTPS & Security AI & SEO Domain Name Redirects

Does Author Reputation Really Impact Google Rankings?

John Mueller Aug 27, 2018 ★★

John Mueller indicated during a hangout that the search engine does not take an author's reputation into account in its analyses. The question arose because this point is sometimes mentioned in the Quality Raters guide that Google publishes from time...

Algorithms Content AI & SEO

Why don’t Google’s algorithm updates necessarily mean your site is bad?

John Mueller Aug 24, 2018 ★★★

The changes made to Google's algorithms, such as those observed during the broader core update, reflect general evolutions and do not indicate that the affected sites are bad. They are adaptations to the new relevance assessments of content for user ...

Algorithms Content AI & SEO

Why does the number of backlinks shown in Search Console change for no apparent reason?

John Mueller Aug 24, 2018 ★★★

The differences in the number of links in the new Search Console report compared to the old one can be explained by a slightly different calculation, but this does not necessarily reflect a change in the site's links. The new report is considered mor...

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

Should you really disavow your backlinks, or is it just a waste of time?

John Mueller Aug 24, 2018 ★★★

The link disavow tool in Search Console allows you to request Google to ignore certain links to your site, particularly in cases of negative SEO concerns or past wrongdoings. Only identified problematic links should be disavowed.

AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Search Console

Why do your rich snippets sometimes not appear in Google search results?

John Mueller Aug 24, 2018 ★★★

Reviews and offers can still appear in search results, but their display depends on the technical compliance of the markup and the reasonable quality of the site. They may not always be displayed, and their absence can be normal.

Domain Age & History Content Featured Snippets & SERP AI & SEO Local Search

Is Google really recommending hreflang markup for all multilingual sites?

John Mueller Aug 24, 2018 ★★★

Hreflang markup is recommended to indicate to Google which content version is relevant to which geographic users, which is important when the same content is available in different language or regional versions.

Domain Age & History Content International SEO