What does Google say about SEO?

Why isn't your site regaining its ranking after a manual penalty has been lifted?

John Mueller May 17, 2018 ★★★

When a manual action is lifted, your site's status goes back to normal. However, if your position was due to unnatural links that have been removed, your site may not regain its initial ranking.

AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Penalties & Spam

Does Mobile First Indexing really work without mobile optimization?

John Mueller May 17, 2018 ★★★

Mobile First Indexing concerns Google's ability to index the mobile content of your site. Even if your site is not optimized for mobile, it will still be indexed. However, it's important that the content is accessible and consistent between the deskt...

Content Crawl & Indexing Mobile SEO

Can Google really exclude your pages from results because of soft 404s?

John Mueller May 17, 2018 ★★★

If a page is identified as irrelevant or a product is unavailable, it may be treated as a soft 404. This means Google could choose not to display this page in search results until it is updated to reflect valid content.

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

Can you block MP4 video files in robots.txt without risking SEO penalties?

John Mueller May 17, 2018 ★★★

It is acceptable to block video resources such as MP4 files in the robots.txt file. This will not affect your ranking in web search, but the videos will not appear in Google’s video search.

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Pagination & Structure PDF & Files

Should you still optimize the length of your meta descriptions for Google?

John Mueller May 17, 2018 ★★★

The length of snippets displayed in Google search results can vary depending on the device used and the search query. It is advisable to write meta descriptions that capture the essence of the page, regardless of display length changes.

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

Do social signals really affect organic search rankings?

John Mueller May 17, 2018 ★★★

Google does not directly measure social signals such as clicks on posts from Facebook or Twitter. These networks use nofollow tags, making them less influential in terms of organic search ranking.

AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Social Media

Does Google Cache really reveal the mobile-desktop differences that affect your ranking?

John Mueller May 17, 2018 ★★

When a mobile and desktop page display the same content, there is no apparent difference in the cache. However, if a mobile page is different, it will appear differently in the cache, which does not necessarily affect the ranking.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Mobile SEO Web Performance Local Search

Does Google really merge similar pages into a single indexed version?

John Mueller May 15, 2018 ★★★

Google may consider pages to be identical if the content is very similar, which can lead to indexing only one version by using the hreflang attribute to direct users to the correct page based on their language or region.

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO International SEO

Is user-agent-based prerendering now Google’s only recommended method?

John Mueller May 15, 2018 ★★★

Check the implementation of prerendering to ensure it is based on the user-agent rather than escaped fragments, as Google no longer uses the hashbang format for prerendering.

Domain Age & History Content

How Does Google's Two-Phase JavaScript Crawling Really Affect Your Rankings?

Google May 14, 2018 ★★★

At the Google I/O event, Tom Greenaway, a search engine engineer, indicated that Google crawls JavaScript pages using a two-phase process (largely due to available machine resource management): a first pass, then a second one a few days later, genera...

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

Why Is Google Still Using Chrome 41 to Index Your Pages?

John Mueller May 14, 2018 ★★★

John Mueller also indicated during the Google I/O event that, to render web pages when analyzing code, Google was using Chrome version 41, even though the browser was currently and officially at version 66!

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO

Why Does Googlebot Still Refuse to Follow Certain Types of Links in 2024?

Google May 14, 2018 ★★

Let's wrap up with, once again, the Google I/O event and a presentation by a Google engineer outlining which types of links are followed by Googlebot on a web page. The following links will be followed: Followed link Followed link These, however, wil...

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

Should You Keep the Same URL or Create a 301 Redirect When Updating Content?

John Mueller May 09, 2018 ★★

When an internet user asked about replacing old content with new content on a website, John Mueller explained that it's better to keep the same URL and change the content of that page rather than redirecting an old URL to a new one...

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Domain Name Redirects

Should You Use a 404 Instead of a 403 to Remove Pages from Google's Index?

John Mueller May 09, 2018 ★★★

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that, to signal to Google that a page no longer exists and to see it disappear from the index, a 404 code (Page not Found) should be preferred over a 403 code (Forbidden).

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

Can You Really Harm a Competitor's Site with External Canonical Tags?

John Mueller May 02, 2018 ★★

A method of performing negative SEO based on "canonical" tags issued from low-quality sites has resurfaced recently following an article on this subject. John Mueller has, for his part, indicated that since this tag was created, webmasters have attem...

Content Crawl & Indexing Discover & News AI & SEO

Should You Split Your Content Across Multiple Pages to Improve Google Indexing?

John Mueller May 02, 2018 ★★★

John Mueller indicated during a hangout that it was not a good strategy to split content across multiple pages solely to increase the number of pages indexed by Google because, by doing so, you also reduce the volume of text for each page and therefo...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO

Should You Avoid Internal Links to Noindex Pages?

John Mueller May 02, 2018 ★

John Mueller explained on Twitter that there's no problem if a website creates many internal links to pages that are deindexed from the search engine...

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

Does the HTTPS SEO Boost Really Work the Same for Every Website?

John Mueller May 02, 2018 ★★★

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that the "SEO boost" given when a website switches to HTTPS does not depend on the type of site or its topic, but is identical for all information sources...

Domain Age & History Content HTTPS & Security AI & SEO Social Media

Where Should Pagination Tags Be Placed for Google to Recognize Them?

John Mueller May 02, 2018 ★★★

John Mueller reminded that pagination tags (rel=next and rel=prev) must be in the "Head" section of the source code for paginated content. If these indications are found in links (A tag) and therefore in the "Body", they will not be taken into accoun...

Content AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Pagination & Structure

Should You Really Avoid Redirects in Hreflang Tags at All Costs?

John Mueller Apr 23, 2018 ★★★

John Mueller reminded us on Twitter that URLs specified in Hreflang tags should not be subject to 301, 302 or any other type of redirect. In other words, they must return a 200 code and not be redirected in any way (even using functions other than 30...

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