What does Google say about SEO?

Do Breadcrumbs Really Pass PageRank Just Like Other Internal Links?

Gary Illyes Jun 26, 2017 ★★★

Gary Illyes explained that Google particularly appreciates breadcrumbs and that these links are treated like any other internal links on the page for internal PageRank distribution...

Domain Age & History Structured Data AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Pagination & Structure

How Is Google Rolling Out Mobile First Indexing Site by Site?

John Mueller Jun 26, 2017 ★★

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that Google was considering launching the Mobile First index site by site, as soon as the algorithm determines that the site in question will be ready for it. Therefore, there would be no fixed date planned, but rath...

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

Should You Really Use URL Parameters in Search Console?

Gary Illyes Jun 26, 2017 ★★★

Gary Illyes explained on Twitter that the indications provided by webmasters in the "URL Parameters" section of Search Console were directives followed by the search engine's algorithms, and that you had to be very careful because it could quickly pr...

Algorithms Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Domain Name Social Media Search Console

How Does Google Actually Distinguish Near Duplicate Content from Pure Duplicate Content?

Gary Illyes Jun 19, 2017 ★★★★

Gary Illyes explained on Twitter his vision of "near duplicate content": he sees it in two forms: either it's slightly modified content on another page, or the same content, but in a different environment (code, graphic design). Overall, we can say t...

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Social Media

How Does Google Use Machine Learning to Assess Website Quality?

John Mueller Jun 19, 2017 ★★

John Mueller explained in a hangout that machine learning algorithms were primarily used by Google to understand whether a site is generally of good or poor quality, but not in the context of a specific search corresponding to a specific penalty. The...

Algorithms Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO

Should You Create a Specific Meta Tag to Optimize Your Content for Featured Snippets?

Gary Illyes Jun 19, 2017 ★★

Gary Illyes explained at the SMX Advanced conference that Google would not be offering specific data on the appearance of your site's content in featured snippets in the Search Console in the short term (although tests had been conducted in this dire...

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

Should You Panic About the Mobile First Indexing Delay in 2018?

Gary Illyes Jun 19, 2017 ★★

Once again at the SMX Advanced conference, Gary Illyes confirmed that the "Mobile First" project would not be launched in 2017 and that 2018 was more realistic as a timeline, as indicated a few weeks ago. He reiterated the search engine's intention t...

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Mobile SEO

Are Page Speed and HTTPS Really Minor Ranking Factors?

Gary Illyes Jun 19, 2017 ★★

Gary Illyes explained on Twitter that the page load time criterion (Page Speed) was, like the HTTPS criterion, more of a "tie breaker", a criterion to separate 2 pages that would have a very (too) close relevance score for a given query. Nothing defi...

Algorithms Domain Age & History HTTPS & Security AI & SEO Web Performance Social Media

Should You Really Stop Buying Links for SEO in 2024?

Gary Illyes Jun 19, 2017 ★★

Once again Gary Illyes at the SMX Advanced conference, who explained that "buying links literally corresponds to throwing money out the window". He specified that Google is getting better and better today at detecting this type of link, even on large...

AI & SEO Links & Backlinks

Does Google Simply Ignore Spammy Links or Do They Trigger Penalties?

Gary Illyes Jun 12, 2017 ★★★

Gary Illyes indicated on Twitter that if links were not recognized as "blatant attempts to manipulate" the search engine's algorithm, there was a strong chance they would be purely and simply ignored by Google. Example: sitewide backlinks (identical ...

Algorithms Domain Age & History AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Links & Backlinks Penalties & Spam Social Media

Should You Worry About a Drop in Your Site's Crawl Rate?

John Mueller Jun 12, 2017 ★★

John Mueller explained on Twitter that the fact that a website experiences a lower crawl rate at a given time from the search engine's robots is not necessarily a negative signal for your future visibility. There can be many reasons for this and it i...

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Social Media

Does Google Really Perform a Seasonal Spring Cleaning of Its Index?

John Mueller Jun 12, 2017 ★★★

John Mueller indicated in a hangout that Google does not perform a "spring cleaning" of its index by removing, at that time of year, more low-quality pages. One might wonder why it would do that, anyway?...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO

Does the Order of Hreflang Tags Really Matter for SEO?

John Mueller Jun 12, 2017 ★★★

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that hreflang tags in a page's source code could be listed in any order, it didn't matter at all. Makes sense...

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Do You Really Need Hreflang Tags on a Monolingual Website?

John Mueller Jun 12, 2017 ★★

Still on the subject of Hreflang tags, John Mueller indicated, also on Twitter, that if your site is published in a single language, you are not obligated to use Hreflang tags. Logical there too. However, they can be interesting for targeting a speci...

Content AI & SEO Social Media International SEO

How Long Can You Use a 503 Code Before Risking Deindexation?

John Mueller Jun 12, 2017 ★★★

John Mueller reminded us on Twitter that using a 503 code (Service Unavailable) is not a problem if it's implemented for a few hours (for a quick maintenance operation, for example), but it should not last longer, such as several days, as this could ...

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Social Media

Is Guest Blogging Really Under Threat from a Wave of Google Penalties?

Gary Illyes Jun 06, 2017 ★★

Gary Illyes indicated on Twitter that the recently published post about guest blogging was simply a "general reminder" of best practices and was not necessarily the announcement of an upcoming series of penalties specifically targeting sites implemen...

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How can you know exactly how Google sees and understands your web page?

John Mueller Jun 06, 2017 ★★★

John Mueller explained on Twitter that if you want to know how Google sees your web page, it's better to use Search Console (Crawl section > Fetch as Google) than the "Cached" option available in search results (or the "cache:" query syntax). Indeed,...

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Does Nofollow Really Burn Your Crawl Budget?

John Mueller Jun 06, 2017 ★★★

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that using a "nofollow" attribute on links does not "burn" crawl budget for a website. Fortunately so. We can even say that this technique is rather beneficial in this area...

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Will Google Launch a Public Sandbox to Test Mobile First Index Before Deployment?

John Mueller Jun 06, 2017 ★★

In 2009, when Google launched its new Caffeine indexing structure, the search engine set up a "sandbox", or new version of its index on a specific URL, to test the new infrastructure being implemented and gather feedback from webmasters before final ...

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How Many Pages from the Same Website Can Appear in Google Results?

John Mueller May 29, 2017 ★★★

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that the same site can appear multiple times (with different pages) on the same results page. There is no (longer any) limit to the number of URLs from the same site in a SERP for a given query. The era of "clusterin...

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