What does Google say about SEO?

How can you optimize pages for robust indexing without JavaScript?

Google Mar 28, 2024 ★★★

The best solution to ensure indexing is to place important information directly in the initial HTML, before any JavaScript processing, so that it remains accessible even if rendering fails or is blocked.

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO

Why is the indexing of your pages still a mystery to Google?

Google Mar 28, 2024 ★★★

Google does not communicate specific criteria or deadlines for indexing a page, as this varies depending on the pages and content. It is recommended to focus on the entire site rather than specific pages, and Google does not necessarily index all con...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO

Is Server-Side Rendering Essential for Optimizing Large Websites?

Google Mar 28, 2024 ★★

For large websites, it is advisable to use Server-Side Rendering (SSR) to generate HTML on the server side and deliver important information right from the initial HTML.

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO

Is it true that Google can overlook misleading update dates on websites?

Google Mar 28, 2024 ★★

Google notes that many websites use fake update dates (like '2024 update year') that add no real value for users. Google sometimes tries to ignore this misleading information.

Why should you use the img tag instead of a CSS background-image for SEO?

Google Mar 28, 2024 ★★★

For an image to be indexed in Google Images, you need to use the HTML img tag instead of a CSS background image (background-image). CSS images have a much lower chance of being selected by Google, especially for product images.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing E-commerce Images & Videos

Why Doesn't the Author Info Location Affect SEO Rankings?

Google Mar 28, 2024 ★★

When it comes to indicating the author of a piece of content, it's not about a technical element or the precise positioning of components on the page. What matters is the content itself and the unique expertise, not the exact location of the link to ...

Domain Age & History Content Links & Backlinks

How does Google decide if a video is the main content of a page?

Google Mar 28, 2024 ★★★

Google only indexes in video mode pages where the video is the main content. Videos are not considered main if they are found in blog articles that complement the text, additional videos on product pages, or pages listing multiple category videos.

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing Discover & News E-commerce AI & SEO

Can You Actually Publish Content at Scale Without Risking a Google Penalty?

John Mueller Mar 26, 2024 ★★★

On X, John Mueller clarified that publishing content at scale is not considered spam by Google, as long as the content in question meets quality standards. In the past, Google had already indicated that there was no problem with publishing thousands ...

Domain Age & History Content Discover & News AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Pagination & Structure Penalties & Spam

Should You Worry About SEO Impact When Switching from www to non-www URLs?

John Mueller Mar 26, 2024 ★★

On Reddit, John Mueller explained that changing a site's canonical URLs from www to its non-www version doesn't have a major impact on the site's ranking in search results. However, he specified that such a change could cause a slight temporary fluct...

Algorithms Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name Pagination & Structure

Should You Still Worry About Toxic Backlinks in 2024?

John Mueller Mar 26, 2024 ★★★

On Reddit, John Mueller responded to a question about the impact of unwanted backlinks on a site's ranking. He advised his interlocutor not to worry excessively, as Google's systems are designed to ignore this type of links, and do so with considerab...

Content AI & SEO Links & Backlinks

Should you use the noindex directive in your robots.txt file?

John Mueller Mar 26, 2024 ★★★

On LinkedIn, John Mueller revealed that there had been internal discussions at Google about the possibility of supporting the noindex: directive in the robots.txt file. This option had been considered to allow site owners to block both crawling and i...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Links & Backlinks PDF & Files Social Media

Should You Show Google the Same Content in Every Country to Get Properly Indexed?

John Mueller Mar 26, 2024 ★★★

On Reddit, John Mueller explained that presenting different content, in this case sidebars, depending on the user's country had no negative effect in terms of SEO: "Google most often crawls from a single location – and that's the content that will be...

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO

What exactly is a web crawler and why does Google insist on this definition?

Gary Illyes Mar 14, 2024 ★★

A crawler is software that retrieves information and resources from websites. For a search engine to index and rank content, it must first retrieve it using a crawler.

Content Crawl & Indexing

Is Googlebot really just crawling without making any indexing decisions?

Gary Illyes Mar 14, 2024 ★★★

Googlebot is solely responsible for retrieving pages. It makes no decisions regarding indexation. Its only function is to fetch the content.

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing

How does Googlebot actually crawl your web pages?

Gary Illyes Mar 14, 2024 ★★★

Googlebot is composed of three distinct systems: the fetcher that retrieves pages, a controller that merges links discovered in HTML with those from sitemaps, and a scheduler that orchestrates when and what to crawl.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing Links & Backlinks Pagination & Structure Search Console

Does your crawl budget really depend on Search demand?

Gary Illyes Mar 14, 2024 ★★★

The crawl limit is not controlled solely by Search, but also by other Google services. If Search demand decreases, the crawl limit decreases as well. To increase crawl, you must convince Search that your content is worth fetching.

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO

Does crawl budget really exist at Google?

Gary Illyes Mar 14, 2024 ★★

Internally at Google, they don't think in terms of crawl budget. This concept was created in the documentation to explain to people that there are finite resources and limits to what can be crawled.

Crawl & Indexing PDF & Files

Should you block certain pages from Google crawl to optimize your crawl budget?

Gary Illyes Mar 14, 2024 ★★★

Google should not crawl all pages of a website. Certain pages such as shopping carts or hyper-filtered product pages are not useful as entry points from search results, even if they are useful for users already on the site.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing E-commerce AI & SEO

Is Google really running out of storage space to index your content?

Gary Illyes Mar 14, 2024 ★★★

Google must manage what gets put into the index and what gets excluded from it. Often, exclusion isn't due to low content quality, but simply because there's no more available storage space.

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

Does linking from your homepage really accelerate the crawl of your new pages?

Gary Illyes Mar 14, 2024 ★★★

The homepage is almost always the most important page of a site for Google. Creating links from the homepage to new important pages tells Google that it should crawl these pages earlier.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Links & Backlinks