What does Google say about SEO?

Should you really sacrifice traffic volume for relevance?

Martin Splitt Nov 21, 2023 ★★★

Don't focus solely on traffic volume. It's misleading to look at traffic numbers without considering relevance. High traffic without relevance has no real value for your site.

AI & SEO

Does a truly unique perspective really hold the key to ranking in saturated niches?

Gary Illyes Nov 21, 2023 ★★

To break through in a saturated niche, try to offer something unique or your own perspective on the subject. If you write about topics where few people are speaking, it suddenly becomes much easier to break through.

AI & SEO

Should you really delete low-traffic pages from your website?

John Mueller Nov 21, 2023 ★★

The simple number of traffic is misleading and should not be the sole criterion. If a page has low traffic but it's the only one on the Internet on this topic, deleting it means no one will get this content. Instead, recognize poor quality content.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO

Should you really treat all crawl errors the same way?

Gary Illyes Nov 21, 2023 ★★★

For crawl errors: 404 errors can generally be ignored if the URL shouldn't serve content. Conversely, 500 errors must absolutely be checked because they indicate server problems that affect crawling.

Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Domain Name

Do you really need to match your title tag and H1 for SEO success?

Gary Illyes Nov 21, 2023 ★★

Page titles and H1 tags can be identical or different, it doesn't matter. They should simply be related to the page content, but they don't need to be exactly the same.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO

Should you be using generative AI to write your SEO content?

Gary Illyes Nov 21, 2023 ★★

Generative AI tools can be incredibly useful when facing writer's block, for quickly creating a page structure, or for suggesting word variations in your text. The problem isn't the tool itself but how it's being used.

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

Are You Wasting Time on Obscure Technical SEO Details Instead of Mastering the Basics?

Gary Illyes Nov 21, 2023 ★★★

Instead of obsessing over strange technical details, website owners should focus on the fundamentals: understanding how the internet works step by step, how search functions, and identifying where their content or page fails in this process.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO

Does duplicate content really always come from exact copy-paste?

Gary Illyes Nov 21, 2023 ★★

The vast majority of canonicalization issues stem from content duplicated exactly word-for-word. This can be caused by incorrect site configuration, for example failing to return a 404 when a random URL is entered.

Content Crawl & Indexing Domain Name

Are user feedback signals more revealing than traffic metrics when assessing page quality?

Gary Illyes Nov 21, 2023 ★★

The volume of negative feedback and irrelevant comments can be a faster indicator of page quality than traffic metrics. When irrelevant content has been removed, negative feedback has also disappeared.

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

Does SEO quality really come down to helping users accomplish what they came to do?

John Mueller Nov 21, 2023 ★★★

Quality might be simpler than most people think: it's about writing something that will help people accomplish what they need to accomplish when they land on the page. That's it.

Domain Age & History AI & SEO

Should you really be merging and redirecting content regularly to boost your SEO performance?

John Mueller Nov 21, 2023 ★★

Page merging and redirects are basic maintenance tasks that everyone should be doing on their site. Regularly reconsider whether you really need that content, if it's still relevant, and whether you can combine it or simplify it.

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Redirects

What does Google really recommend for optimizing page load speed?

Martin Splitt Nov 20, 2023 ★★★

Google recommends three main approaches to improve web page load speed: using the Core Web Vitals report and recommendations from PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse, implementing lazy loading, and optimizing images.

Domain Age & History Images & Videos Web Performance Search Console

Does page speed really improve your overall SEO rankings?

Martin Splitt Nov 20, 2023 ★★

Improving a website's page loading speed contributes to enhancing the site's overall organic search rankings.

Domain Age & History Web Performance

Is lazy loading really a recommended SEO best practice by Google?

Martin Splitt Nov 20, 2023 ★★

Google recommends implementing lazy loading (deferred loading) as a technique to improve the loading speed of web pages.

Domain Age & History Content Images & Videos Web Performance Search Console

Does image optimization really boost page speed and SEO, or is it just another ranking myth?

Martin Splitt Nov 20, 2023 ★★

Google recommends optimizing images as an essential method to improve page loading speed and natural search ranking.

Domain Age & History Images & Videos Web Performance

How can you pinpoint the exact Core Web Vitals problems that are actually hurting your SEO rankings?

Martin Splitt Nov 20, 2023 ★★★

Google recommends using the Core Web Vitals report to identify and fix performance problems affecting user experience and search rankings.

Web Performance Search Console

Why Does Google Recommend PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse for Speed Optimization?

Martin Splitt Nov 20, 2023 ★★★

Google recommends using PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse tools which provide concrete recommendations to improve page loading speed.

Domain Age & History Web Performance

Should you really be excluding non-canonical URLs from your XML sitemap?

Martin Splitt Nov 16, 2023 ★★★

Sitemaps must contain only canonical and indexable URLs, meaning those that should appear in search results. URLs that redirect elsewhere or are marked as noindex provide little value in the sitemap.

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Domain Name Search Console

Does an XML sitemap really accelerate Googlebot's crawling of your website?

Martin Splitt Nov 16, 2023 ★★★

An XML format sitemap can help search engines discover your site's pages faster and enables more efficient site exploration, particularly for sites with many pages.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO PDF & Files Search Console

Do you really need a sitemap to get indexed by Google?

Martin Splitt Nov 16, 2023 ★★★

Not all websites need a sitemap. You should consult Google's documentation to determine if your site actually needs one.

Crawl & Indexing PDF & Files Search Console