What does Google say about SEO?

How is Google Tackling the Problem of Fake Obituaries in Search Results?

Danny Sullivan Nov 21, 2023 ★★★

Google is encountering some issues with fake obituaries, to which the Mountain View firm is still struggling to provide solutions. In response to an internet user who shared the depressing dimension of the situation, Danny Sullivan affirmed that this...

AI & SEO

Should We Abandon the Topical Authority Concept and Return to Simple Relevance?

John Mueller Nov 21, 2023 ★★★

On Reddit, John Mueller confirmed the claims of a user who stated that the concept of Topical Authority was far from new and simply served to qualify the relevance of content in relation to a given topic: "this concept has existed forever and is actu...

Content AI & SEO Search Console

Is technical SEO really still essential for search rankings?

Gary Illyes Nov 21, 2023 ★★★

Technical SEO aspects are always very important. If Googlebot cannot access the site, if rendering fails severely, or if there are no words/tokens on the page, Google cannot do much for you.

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO

Is Search Console really the solution to fix all your SEO problems?

Gary Illyes Nov 21, 2023 ★★

Search Console and webmaster tools are very effective at recognizing technical problems. They can help with ranking issues, but are particularly useful for diagnosing technical problems.

Content AI & SEO Search Console

Does Google really prioritize your homepage first when it comes to crawling and indexing?

Gary Illyes Nov 21, 2023 ★★★

For Google, the homepage is the most important page on your site. It's the page users land on when they type your domain name directly. Google will try very hard to crawl and index this page. If it's not indexed, you likely have a problem.

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

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