What does Google say about SEO?

Does the Google Sandbox Really Exist or Is It Just an SEO Myth?

Gary Illyes May 29, 2017 ★

Gary Illyes explained on Twitter that Google has no mechanism that could be likened to a "sandbox". The concept of the "sandbox" has been in the air for over 10 years and would characterize a specific Google algorithm that more or less penalizes a si...

Algorithms Domain Age & History AI & SEO Social Media

Does Noindex Really Control How Googlebot Crawls Your Site?

John Mueller May 29, 2017 ★★★

John Mueller reminded us on Twitter that while the meta robots "noindex" tag allows you to manage whether or not a page gets indexed on Google, it is by no means a way to control how Googlebot crawls a site. And for good reason, since in order to rea...

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

How Will Google Roll Out Mobile First Indexing: All at Once or Site by Site?

John Mueller May 22, 2017 ★

John Mueller indicated in a hangout that it is possible that the Mobile First project (currently planned for 2018) will be launched not all at once for all websites, but for batches of sites, one after another, when Google is certain that for these s...

Content AI & SEO Mobile SEO

Does Adding a Video to a Page Really Improve Its SEO Ranking?

Gary Illyes May 22, 2017 ★★★

Gary Illyes explained on Twitter that "simply having a video on a web page" does "absolutely not" help it achieve better ranking in the SERPs. And fortunately!...

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

Should You Really Disavow All Links Coming from Spammy Sites?

John Mueller May 22, 2017 ★★

John Mueller indicated that links from "spammy" sites are not necessarily unnatural. And that the priority should be to track down (and disavow) unnatural links. He also explained that you can have natural links from a spammy site and unnatural links...

Content AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Links & Backlinks Penalties & Spam

Search Console Geolocation vs Hreflang: Which One Delivers the Real SEO Boost?

John Mueller May 22, 2017 ★★

John Mueller has indicated the difference between geolocation of a site (in Search Console) and the use of the Hreflang tag. Geolocation seems stronger, with a genuine effort from Google to present the site in question on the Google version for the s...

Domain Age & History Content Featured Snippets & SERP AI & SEO Domain Name Pagination & Structure Local Search Search Console International SEO

Is it true that no one at Google fully understands the algorithm anymore?

John Mueller May 22, 2017 ★★

A persistent rumor that has been flourishing in numerous articles for several months claims that "no one at Google would understand the search engine's algorithm globally anymore, as it has become so complex." John Mueller explained on Twitter that t...

Algorithms Content Discover & News AI & SEO Social Media

Should You Really Avoid Empty Link Anchors for SEO?

John Mueller May 22, 2017 ★★

We asked the question on Twitter about empty link anchors (for example on an image that would be added via CSS). John Mueller responded that this type of link was followed by Google but that the absence of an anchor (via text or the image's ALT attri...

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

Should Widget Signature Links Always Be Nofollow?

John Mueller May 22, 2017 ★★

John Mueller indicated in a hangout that if a link wasn't systematically set to "nofollow" in a widget signature (such as "Widget created by [link]"), the search engine could automatically do it itself. Let's remember that late last year, Google had ...

Content AI & SEO Links & Backlinks

Is HTTPS Really an Important Ranking Factor for SEO in 2024?

Gary Illyes May 15, 2017 ★

Gary Illyes indicated on Twitter that Google has no intention of modifying the weight (currently low) given to whether a site is in HTTPS in the search engine's relevance algorithm. It remains important to migrate a site to the secure version, if onl...

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

Can Google Actually Index and Understand Your Podcast Audio Content?

Gary Illyes May 15, 2017 ★★

The same Gary Illyes also indicated on Twitter that Google currently does not know how to read and understand the words spoken in an audio podcast that would be embedded on a website. No voice recognition system implemented by the search engine in th...

AI & SEO Social Media

Does a Page's Traffic Really Influence the Value of Its Links?

John Mueller May 15, 2017 ★★

John Mueller has indicated on Twitter that a link from a high-traffic page carries no more weight in Google's algorithm than a link from a low-traffic page. Let's remember that it's PageRank (which has nothing to do with traffic) that is taken into a...

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

Should You Really Use Special Characters in Title Tags and Meta Descriptions?

John Mueller May 15, 2017 ★

John Mueller indicated that, most of the time, Google ignored and removed special characters (Unicode) sometimes placed in Title tags and meta "description" tags (arrows, sun symbols, triangles, etc.). However, many SERPs still display them at presen...

Content Featured Snippets & SERP AI & SEO Local Search

Should You Really Optimize Your Site for RankBrain?

John Mueller May 15, 2017 ★★

John Mueller explained on Twitter that RankBrain is not a relevance criterion in Google's algorithm and that there is no point in "optimizing your site for RankBrain." It is primarily a system (and therefore an internal mechanism of the search engine...

Algorithms Content AI & SEO Social Media

Do Outbound 404 Links Really Hurt Your Page's SEO Performance?

Gary Illyes May 15, 2017 ★★★

Gary Illyes indicated on Twitter that a web page will not see its relevance score decrease because some of its outbound links point to a 404 URL. This situation does not imply any "punishment" from Google (quite logically)...

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

Does Google Really Keep All Your Past SEO Mistakes in Memory Forever?

John Mueller May 15, 2017 ★★★

When asked whether Google could forget certain practices performed by a website in the past, John Mueller replied that the search engine had "a lot of storage space". We can confirm this: Google forgets nothing in general, and even less so the manipu...

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

Can You Really Use Multiple H1 Tags Without Hurting Your SEO?

John Mueller Apr 24, 2017 ★★★

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that it is possible to use as many H1 tags as desired on a web page. No surprise here, the Googler is simply reiterating the specifications of the HTML language, which provides no directive at this level (and even mo...

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Social Media International SEO

Does Domain Age Really Impact Google Rankings?

John Mueller Apr 24, 2017 ★★

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that the age (seniority) of a domain name is not a relevance criterion for Google's algorithm (although this is a deeply rooted belief in the SEO community). It's possible that this is true in a direct way; however, ...

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

Should You Avoid PageRank Sculpting with Nofollow Links to Prevent Penalties?

Gary Illyes Apr 24, 2017 ★★★

Gary Illyes clarified on Twitter that performing "PageRank Sculpting" by creating silos through nofollow internal links cannot generate a penalty from Google. However, he continued with a very "Gary-esque" remark, noting that "if you have time to do ...

Domain Age & History AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Pagination & Structure Social Media

How Can You Check the Canonical URL of Your Pages Directly in Google?

John Mueller Apr 24, 2017 ★★★

John Mueller reminded us in a hangout of a trick that is actually quite little-known in general: the use of the "info:[URL]" search syntax on Google to find out the address considered canonical for a web page by the search engine. The result of this ...

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