What does Google say about SEO?

Do 404 Errors Really Hurt Your Website's SEO Rankings?

John Mueller Mar 20, 2017 ★★★

John Mueller once again explained on Twitter that 404 errors returned by a website are not considered a low-quality criterion by Google and that there is no penalty that could affect a source of information on this subject...

Content AI & SEO Social Media

Are Quality Comments Really an Important Ranking Signal for Google?

Gary Illyes Mar 13, 2017 ★

Gary Illyes painfully attempts to provide information on Twitter with his "DYK" (Do You Know...) posts, which are unfortunately most of the time incomprehensible and totally useless. Latest example: "DYK quality comments can be a signal of a healthy ...

Content AI & SEO Images & Videos Social Media

Can a Brand New Page Really Rank for Highly Competitive Keywords?

John Mueller Mar 13, 2017 ★★

John Mueller indicated in a hangout that a newly created page can, despite its young age, rank well in Google's results, even for highly competitive queries. He takes as an example a page that would perfectly answer a trending topic and could rank ve...

Domain Age & History Content Discover & News AI & SEO

Do Font Choices Really Impact Your Google Rankings?

John Mueller Mar 13, 2017 ★★★

The same John Mueller also explained in this hangout that Google does not take into account the type of font used in a website's pages. It is not a relevance criterion. The only limitation: if the text is in an image with a somewhat "exotic" font tha...

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Images & Videos

Does Optimizing Keywords in URLs Really Matter for SEO?

John Mueller Mar 13, 2017 ★★★

John Mueller, once again, reminded us on Twitter that the presence of keywords in URLs is a weak ranking factor for the search engine's algorithm, especially since on mobile devices, we don't even see these addresses most of the time. We agree and sa...

Algorithms Content AI & SEO Mobile SEO Domain Name Social Media

How can you properly handle 503 errors during maintenance without losing your SEO rankings?

John Mueller Mar 13, 2017 ★★★

John Mueller provided some advice on Google's Webmaster Blog if you temporarily close your site for maintenance operations: block the payment system (for example via the robots.txt file), warn visitors (pop-up or interstitial), return a 503 error (bu...

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO PDF & Files Redirects

Does Panda Really Analyze Your Entire Site Architecture or Just Content Quality?

John Mueller Mar 06, 2017 ★

John Mueller indicated in a hangout that the Panda filter takes into account not only the quality of the content offered by a website, but also the entire site and therefore its architecture, without saying much more about it unfortunately. But overa...

Algorithms Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Pagination & Structure

How Can You Effectively Optimize Your Images for Google Images in 2024?

John Mueller Mar 06, 2017 ★★

John Mueller also reminded us this week of the various criteria taken into account by the Google Images algorithm: image file name, Alt attribute, Title attribute of a link pointing to the image, caption, text surrounding the image, etc. are all impo...

Algorithms Domain Age & History Content E-commerce AI & SEO Images & Videos Links & Backlinks PDF & Files

Should You Still Submit Your Site to Directories to Improve SEO?

John Mueller Mar 06, 2017 ★★

John Mueller, always him, indicated on Twitter that submitting a site to directories (particularly SEO directories) "generally" doesn't help with search engine optimization and rankings. Duly noted...

Content AI & SEO Social Media

What Does Maile Ohye's Departure After 12 Years at Google Mean for the SEO Community?

Google Feb 27, 2017 ★★★

Googler Maile Ohye announced that she was leaving Google after 12 years of dedicated service as Developer Programs Tech Lead, marked by numerous hangouts, conferences, and videos (including her latest titled "How to hire an SEO") explaining certain p...

Content AI & SEO

Does Google Really Remove All URL Variants When You Submit a Removal Request in Search Console?

John Mueller Feb 27, 2017 ★★

John Mueller also indicated that if you submit a URL removal request via Search Console, all versions of that address will be removed from the index: Http/Https, with and without "www". So it's worth knowing this before making any mistakes...

Content Crawl & Indexing HTTPS & Security AI & SEO Domain Name Search Console

Should You Really Link to Wikipedia or Authority Sites to Improve Your SEO?

John Mueller Feb 27, 2017 ★★

The same John Mueller indicated on Twitter that creating an external link on a page to very high authority sites like Wikipedia, Le Monde or... Google 🙂 doesn't play a role in SEO. Our experience (and common sense) shows this is true. However, linkin...

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

Should You Really Avoid Participating in SEO Contests?

John Mueller Feb 27, 2017 ★★

John Mueller indicated in a hangout that one should be wary of SEO contests and the links they could generate because these could prove harmful and contrary to the search engine's recommendations. An observation certainly made with regard to the "SEO...

Content AI & SEO Links & Backlinks

Should You Use Google's URL Inspection Tool to Speed Up Page Indexing?

John Mueller Feb 20, 2017 ★★

John Mueller provided an interesting insight during a hangout about how Google indexes web pages on a site. In fact, there are two possibilities for this: the "classic" method (Googlebot finds a link to your page and crawls it "naturally"), which res...

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

Should You Really Worry About Bounce Rate for SEO Optimization?

John Mueller Feb 20, 2017 ★★

John Mueller also indicated in this hangout that there is no point in inhibiting the browser's "Back" button when displaying a website in an attempt to manipulate the bounce rate. According to John Mueller, attempting to manipulate the "back" button ...

Content AI & SEO Local Search

Do You Really Need to Wait 4 to 12 Months to See Your First SEO Results?

Google Feb 20, 2017 ★

In her video "How to hire an SEO", Maile Ohye explains that it takes "4 to 12 months" for SEO actions to have an impact on a website ("In most cases, the SEO will need four months to a year to help your business first implement improvements and then ...

AI & SEO

How Long Does It Actually Take Google to Process a Spam Report?

Gary Illyes Feb 20, 2017 ★

Gary Illyes indicated on Twitter that the time it takes for Google's Search Quality Team to process a "spam report" can vary, but as a general rule, it takes a few hours or a few days. However, the story doesn't tell us whether this "spam report" wil...

AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Penalties & Spam

Why Does Google Refuse to Display Backlink Types in Search Console?

Gary Illyes Feb 13, 2017 ★

The "Links to your site" section of Search Console displays a large number of backlinks pointing to your site, but without specific mention of those that are dofollow, nofollow or disavowed, for example, making this tool complex and cumbersome to use...

Domain Age & History AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Links & Backlinks Penalties & Spam Local Search Social Media Search Console

Can Google's Advertising Bots Actually Discover New Pages for Indexing?

John Mueller Feb 13, 2017 ★★

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that Google's robots used for Adwords and Adsense advertising (examples: Mediapartners-Google, Mediapartners, AdsBot-Google and AdsBot-Google-Mobile-Apps) are not used to discover new URLs to crawl. Only "web search"...

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Is PageRank Still a Key Ranking Factor in Google's Algorithm in 2024?

Gary Illyes Feb 13, 2017 ★★

Gary Illyes reminded us on Twitter that, almost 20 years after Google's creation, the search engine still uses PageRank as a relevance criterion. Thankfully... 🙂 And he shared the link to the document explaining how Google worked at its inception. Ho...

Algorithms Domain Age & History AI & SEO Links & Backlinks PDF & Files Social Media