What does Google say about SEO?

Should You Really Be Monitoring Mozcast and SERP Weather Tools for Your SEO?

Gary Illyes Oct 02, 2017 ★★

Gary Illyes indicated at the Brighton SEO conference that SERP weather tools like Mozcast seemed quite relevant to him for measuring potential ranking variations and therefore Google updates.

Featured Snippets & SERP AI & SEO

Has Penguin Been Running on Autopilot for a Year – Should SEOs Still Worry About It?

Gary Illyes Oct 02, 2017 ★★

Still at the Brighton SEO conference, Gary Illyes indicated that since its real-time launch a year ago, Penguin had initially undergone a few adjustments but that it had been running on its own for a long time now, without any modifications needing t...

Algorithms AI & SEO Links & Backlinks

Is There Really a Top 3 of Google Ranking Criteria to Prioritize in SEO?

John Mueller Oct 02, 2017 ★★★

Two years ago, a Googler said that Google's algorithm primarily used 3 essential criteria: content, links, and RankBrain. Since then, John Mueller and Gary Illyes have repeatedly indicated that this reasoning doesn't hold up: the search engine uses m...

Algorithms Content AI & SEO Links & Backlinks

Should You Really React to Every Google Algorithm Update?

Gary Illyes Oct 02, 2017 ★★

We continue with Brighton SEO and the same Gary Illyes who maintained that 95 to 98% of Google's algorithm updates were not "actionable" by webmasters and SEOs. Basically, it was difficult or even impossible to modify certain points on your site to c...

Algorithms Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Pagination & Structure

Does Cart Abandonment Rate Actually Hurt Your Google Rankings?

John Mueller Oct 02, 2017 ★★★

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that the fact that an e-commerce site has a high shopping cart abandonment rate (abandoned pending orders) was not a relevance criterion in the algorithm...

Algorithms Content AI & SEO Social Media

Should You Choose a Dedicated Mobile Site (m.) or Responsive Design for Better SEO?

John Mueller Oct 02, 2017 ★★★

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that Google's mobile search engine does not give better rankings to dedicated mobile sites (with URLs like m.yoursite.com) compared to responsive sites...

Content AI & SEO Mobile SEO Social Media Search Console

Should You Worry About an HTTP Warning Label in Google Search Results Like Mobile?

Gary Illyes Sep 25, 2017 ★

Gary Illyes stated at Brighton SEO that Google has no plans to indicate in the SERPs that a URL is not secure (meaning it's HTTP and not HTTPS) with a specific message, as was previously done with non-mobile-friendly URLs.

Domain Age & History Featured Snippets & SERP HTTPS & Security AI & SEO Mobile SEO Domain Name Local Search

Is Responsive Design Really Enough to Successfully Navigate the Mobile First Transition?

Gary Illyes Sep 25, 2017 ★★

Gary Illyes also explained at the same Brighton SEO conference that responsive design sites have little to worry about regarding the Mobile First project and that at this level, everything should go smoothly for them...

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Mobile SEO

Does Google's "Fetch as Google" Tool Actually Show How Googlebot Sees Your Site?

John Mueller Sep 25, 2017 ★★

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that the "Fetch as Google" feature in Search Console, which displays a page as seen by both users and search engines, is not used by the search engine's algorithm. It is primarily a tool made available to webmasters....

Algorithms Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Local Search Social Media Search Console

Is Reporting Spammy Sites to Google Still Worth Your Time?

John Mueller Sep 25, 2017 ★★

John Mueller explained during a hangout that Google does not read all the "spam reports" that are sent to them, but that the search engine's anti-spam teams attempt to process those that seem most important and those that have the greatest impact on ...

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Penalties & Spam Search Console

Does Google Really Use Disavow Files to Identify Spammy Websites?

Gary Illyes Sep 25, 2017 ★★

Gary Illyes indicated on Twitter that the disavow file is solely used by Google to ignore certain links (those designated by the file) but that it does not use this data for other purposes, such as detecting spammy sites more broadly. He added that s...

AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Links & Backlinks PDF & Files Penalties & Spam Social Media

Has Google Really Made HTTPS Migration Instantaneous?

Gary Illyes Sep 25, 2017 ★★

Gary Illyes indicated, again at the Brighton SEO conference, that during a migration from HTTP to HTTPS, there should now be virtually no transition period (and therefore no drop) in a site's rankings in Google's SERPs (previously, the search engine'...

Featured Snippets & SERP HTTPS & Security AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Redirects

Is Click-Through Rate (CTR) Really a Ranking Factor for SEO?

John Mueller Sep 25, 2017 ★★

John Mueller explained during a hangout that if Google uses the click-through rate in SERPs (or pogosticking), it's primarily to evaluate and improve relevance algorithms, but not to assign a score to a page or website for a given query. The use of t...

Algorithms Domain Age & History Content Featured Snippets & SERP AI & SEO Search Console

How Does Google's Algorithm Adapt Its Ranking Criteria Based on Your Queries?

John Mueller Sep 25, 2017 ★★★

John Mueller explained during a hangout that Google's relevance algorithm doesn't use the same criteria with the same weight for all queries and that the calculations could change in their very essence depending on the keywords that were typed, the m...

Algorithms Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO

Can Adding a Chatbot Actually Improve Your Website's SEO Rankings?

John Mueller Sep 25, 2017 ★★★

John Mueller explained during the same hangout that adding a chatbot (an automated tool that responds to visitors' questions in real-time) does not improve a site's or web page's rankings on Google.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Links & Backlinks

Should you still rely on Google's cache date to verify page crawling?

John Mueller Sep 18, 2017 ★

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that it's better not to pay too much attention to the date shown (last bot visit) when displaying the "Cached" version of a page (or using the "cache:" syntax for a URL). He had already stated this last year. In shor...

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Domain Name Web Performance Local Search Social Media

Do you really need to optimize your XML sitemap loading speed?

John Mueller Sep 18, 2017 ★★★

John Mueller explained on Twitter that an XML Sitemap file doesn't need to load faster or slower, as long as a timeout doesn't occur, of course. But the loading time of this file isn't taken into account in its analysis once the search engine has rea...

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

Do HTML ID attributes have an impact on natural search rankings?

John Mueller Sep 18, 2017 ★★★

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that the content of "id=" attributes in an HTML tag (example: ) is not taken into account (in terms of text relevance analysis) by the algorithm...

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

How Does Google Actually Detect Duplicate Content During Indexing?

Gary Illyes Sep 11, 2017 ★★★

Gary Illyes provided some insights on Twitter about how Google handles duplicate content phenomena: it's done through page comparison (not based on keyword analysis), the analysis is performed during indexing, so a page considered canonical (original...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing Featured Snippets & SERP AI & SEO Local Search Social Media Search Console

Do Large Sites with More Pages Rank Better on Google?

John Mueller Sep 11, 2017 ★★

John Mueller explained on Twitter that Google does not rank large sites (those with many pages) better "by default" compared to small sites...

Domain Age & History Content Featured Snippets & SERP AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Social Media Search Console