What does Google say about SEO?

Should you really add warning banners to your older content pieces?

Lizzi Sassman May 09, 2024 ★★

Placing banners on old blog articles allows you to inform users that the content may be obsolete, that certain links may no longer work, or that more recent resources are available.

Domain Age & History Content Discover & News AI & SEO Links & Backlinks

Should you really let your old articles stay with their original mistakes?

Lizzi Sassman May 09, 2024 ★★

For product or feature announcements, you must preserve the original content with its publication date. Retroactively modifying these contents would make the information incorrect and misleading.

Domain Age & History Content E-commerce AI & SEO

Should you really delete outdated content instead of simply marking it as deprecated?

Lizzi Sassman May 09, 2024 ★★★

When a feature is removed, it's preferable to delete the associated documentation and redirect to a page explaining what happened rather than leaving the outdated content with a warning.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO PDF & Files

Is using the canonical tag as a hidden redirect costing you your SEO rankings?

Lizzi Sassman May 09, 2024 ★★★

The canonical tag should only be used for equivalent content. Using it as a disguised redirect toward enriched or different content is not best practice.

Content Crawl & Indexing Redirects

Should you really stop adding dates to your titles just to make them look fresh?

John Mueller May 09, 2024 ★★★

Artificially adding 'updated for 2024' to titles without real content changes is misleading and appears as clickbait. This practice is not recommended.

Content AI & SEO

Should you redirect or create an explanatory page when discontinuing a tool?

Lizzi Sassman May 09, 2024 ★★

When a tool or feature is removed and multiple alternatives exist, creating an explanation page with the available options is preferable to a direct redirect to a single alternative.

Domain Age & History Images & Videos Redirects

Is auditing your documentation regularly really essential to maintain strong SEO performance?

Lizzi Sassman May 09, 2024 ★★

Implementing automatic reminder systems to periodically audit existing content allows you to verify that advice remains current and that links work properly.

Content AI & SEO Links & Backlinks PDF & Files

How Can You Actually Recover Your Traffic After Google's Helpful Content Update?

John Mueller May 07, 2024 ★★

On X, John Mueller shared some insights for recovering visibility after an update with a negative impact, particularly the Helpful Content Update, which takes more time than other updates. As usual, the famous Google employee advised affected site ow...

Algorithms Domain Age & History Content Discover & News Featured Snippets & SERP AI & SEO Web Performance Search Console

Why is Google admitting its own limitations with hreflang, AI, and migrations—and what should you actually do about it?

Gary Illyes May 07, 2024 ★★★

In a post shared on LinkedIn, Gary Illyes addresses several different topics. He notably admits his frustration with the hreflang tag, which indicates a site's language and regional variants, saying he's very open to finding a better solution, provid...

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

Does Google Merchant Center crawling count against your SEO crawl budget?

John Mueller Apr 30, 2024 ★★★

On X, Christian Radny asked SEOs a question: "Does Merchant Center exploration (automatic updates) count towards crawl budget?". John Mueller responded: "Of course, it's a load on your server. The goal is to avoid breaking your server due to high loa...

Content Crawl & Indexing E-commerce AI & SEO

Are Optimized Anchor Texts Still Essential for SEO in 2024?

John Mueller Apr 30, 2024 ★★

User Ionut on X asked John Mueller if the guidelines regarding link best practices were still valid today, particularly concerning anchor text. He explains that he tends to use generic words like "here" or "read more". John Mueller responded by stati...

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Links & Backlinks

Should you still optimize meta descriptions for SEO in 2024?

John Mueller Apr 25, 2024 ★★

Meta descriptions are not considered a major SEO factor by Google. Google's own team places little importance on meta description optimization because Google often generates its own content excerpts for snippets.

Content Featured Snippets & SERP AI & SEO

Do you still need rel=prev/next for pagination in 2024?

Gary Illyes Apr 25, 2024 ★★★

The rel=prev/next attribute for pagination is no longer considered by Google. It has been deprecated and is now completely ignored by the search engine. Webmasters can remove it without any negative impact.

AI & SEO Pagination & Structure

Is boilerplate content really hurting your pages' search rankings?

John Mueller Apr 25, 2024 ★★★

Google is capable of automatically detecting repetitive content such as footers, legal texts, or standardized product descriptions. This boilerplate content is not used for ranking and does not negatively affect the rest of the page's content.

Domain Age & History Content E-commerce

Are geolocation redirects killing your Google crawl?

John Mueller Apr 25, 2024 ★★

Automatic redirects based on user IP addresses are not the most SEO-friendly method. Google typically crawls from a single location and may only see one version of your site if all other versions are redirected automatically.

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Local Search Redirects International SEO

Should you configure the Content-Language header for PDFs and non-HTML files?

John Mueller Apr 25, 2024 ★★

For non-HTML files such as PDFs, it is recommended to use HTTP headers, particularly the Content-Language header, to indicate the language and geographic targeting of the content, ensuring a consistent multilingual experience.

Domain Age & History Content HTTPS & Security AI & SEO PDF & Files International SEO

Should you still optimize meta descriptions if Google ignores them anyway?

Gary Illyes Apr 25, 2024 ★★★

Google doesn't necessarily follow the meta descriptions written by webmasters. The search engine can extract any portion of text present on the page to create the snippet displayed in search results, without limiting itself to the meta description pr...

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO

Is one backlink really all Google needs to discover and index your site?

John Mueller Apr 25, 2024 ★★★

Google only needs one single link to discover a new website. Contrary to popular belief, it is not necessary to have numerous incoming links for Google to find and index your content.

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Links & Backlinks

Is boilerplate really a threat to your search engine rankings?

John Mueller Apr 25, 2024 ★★

Repetitive content (boilerplate) only becomes a problem when the majority of a site's pages are composed of it. Adding a few lines of legal text to pages that already have unique content doesn't create a duplication problem for Google.

Domain Age & History Content

How does Google really determine user location for local SEO?

Gary Illyes Apr 25, 2024 ★★

Google does not rely solely on IP address to determine user location. The search engine combines multiple signals to provide the appropriate local version of a site or search results.

Local Search International SEO