What does Google say about SEO?

Is Google really penalizing your site, or is it just an algorithm update?

Gary Illyes Apr 12, 2023 ★★★

If a URL or site is sanctioned by Google, this appears in Search Console via the manual actions report. If automated systems rank your URLs lower without manual action, you need to check the documentation on content quality.

Content AI & SEO Domain Name PDF & Files Penalties & Spam Search Console

Should you really abandon NALT thesaurus URIs to boost your SEO rankings?

John Mueller Apr 12, 2023 ★★

Google Search does not currently support URIs for thesaurus terms like NALT (National Agricultural Library Thesaurus). It is acceptable to use them if they are useful for your site outside of Google. The documentation lists the structured data format...

Images & Videos Pagination & Structure PDF & Files

Why are robots.txt unreachable errors always your own fault?

Gary Illyes Apr 12, 2023 ★★★

robots.txt unreachable errors are common and always linked to site parameters. Google can't do anything about it. You need to check your firewall settings, network components, CDN, and blocked IPs. Submitting the robots.txt file for indexing is point...

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO PDF & Files

Should you really redirect all your 404 errors to your homepage?

Lizzi Sassman Apr 12, 2023 ★★★

Redirecting deleted old pages to your homepage depends on the content. You need to ask yourself whether this would make sense for the user or if it would be confusing. 404 errors are normal on the internet and sometimes the best solution when there's...

Domain Age & History Content AI & SEO Redirects

Should you really maintain redirects when migrating to a new domain?

Gary Illyes Apr 12, 2023 ★★★

When switching to a new domain, you must absolutely redirect the old site to the new one instead of simply deleting it. The old domain has likely accumulated valuable signals that you cannot afford to lose. The complete transition can take anywhere f...

Domain Age & History AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name Redirects

Is deliberately serving different HTTP status codes to Googlebot really that risky for your site?

Gary Illyes Apr 12, 2023 ★★★

Serving a 410 status code to Googlebot and 200 to users is cloaking and a very bad idea. With multiple Terms of Service conditions, something will eventually go wrong and your site can disappear from search results. To remove content, simply use the ...

Content Crawl & Indexing HTTPS & Security AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Penalties & Spam

Does Google really treat 308 and 301 redirects the exact same way?

Lizzi Sassman Apr 12, 2023 ★★★

Google treats 308 and 301 status codes identically. Both mean permanent relocation. Googlebot treats 308 as fully equivalent to 301, and these codes are strong signals that the redirect should be canonical.

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Redirects

Does Google really distinguish between WiFi and Wi-Fi for SEO purposes?

Gary Illyes Apr 12, 2023 ★★

Google treats WiFi and Wi-Fi with hyphen as equivalent from a comprehension standpoint. However, since users employ both spellings interchangeably, Google displays slightly different results to match the user's spelling.

AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Local Search

Does a zero review count hurt your product page's search rankings?

Lizzi Sassman Apr 12, 2023 ★★

It's not a problem if the review count is zero—it's completely normal for new product pages that don't have reviews yet. This property is often empty and set to 0 initially. It simply means there's nothing to display in the rich result. Without a rat...

Domain Age & History E-commerce AI & SEO Local Search

Can you really use a single subdirectory to manage multiple international markets with hreflang?

John Mueller Apr 12, 2023 ★★★

It is possible to use a subdirectory like website.com/eu for international expansion. Hreflang annotations apply per page and you can add multiple annotations on the same page. You can specify a list of countries in English or simply use the EN langu...

Domain Age & History AI & SEO International SEO

Should you really worry about millions of unindexed URLs on your website?

John Mueller Apr 12, 2023 ★★★

Google's systems recognize and manage incidents where millions of unwanted URLs are created accidentally. This can temporarily increase crawling for a few weeks. The fact that these URLs are not indexed causes no problem for rankings or quality evalu...

Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Domain Name

Does content quality really impact how fast Google indexes your pages?

Gary Illyes Apr 12, 2023 ★★★

The amount of content Google indexes and the speed of indexation depend on the accessibility of the site for Googlebot and the quality of the content. The higher the quality, the more pages from the site Google can index.

Domain Age & History Content Crawl & Indexing Web Performance

Why do some migrated sites appear in Google within minutes while others take months to show up?

Gary Illyes Apr 12, 2023 ★★

The time required for a migrated domain to appear in Google Search depends on the site itself and can range from a few minutes to several months. It is generally faster for higher quality sites.

AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO Domain Name Web Performance

Why Is Your Evergreen Content Suddenly Losing Rankings to News Articles?

Danny Sullivan Apr 11, 2023 ★★★

On Twitter, Danny Sullivan responded to a complaint from the Celebrity Net Worth website. They were complaining that their excellent content about Gwyneth Paltrow was being outranked by poor quality content. Danny Sullivan explained that since she is...

Algorithms Domain Age & History Content Discover & News AI & SEO Images & Videos Social Media

Should You Really Use AI to Create SEO Content in 2024?

John Mueller Apr 11, 2023 ★

John Mueller doesn't like artificial intelligence when it comes to content creation. This is evident from his latest tweets. Examples: "Summit Gupta: Should we now use ChatGPT to publish content on our website? It gives 80% unique content. John Muell...

Content E-commerce Featured Snippets & SERP AI & SEO JavaScript & Technical SEO

How Does Google Actually Discover Your New Domains for Indexing?

Gary Illyes Apr 11, 2023 ★★★

Gary Illyes confirmed that Google examines domain name registrations to discover new domains to include in the Google search index. This information was shared in the Search Off The Record podcast. Regarding subdomains or subfolders, it depends on th...

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

Does CDN Geographic Location Really Impact International SEO Rankings?

John Mueller Apr 11, 2023 ★★★

Regarding international SEO and multilingual websites, John Mueller stated that CDN location doesn't matter for SEO. A user asked him the following question on Mastodon: "For a multilingual site with different local target audiences and a .com, with ...

Content AI & SEO Domain Name Local Search International SEO

Is password protection really the ultimate solution for blocking staging site indexation?

John Mueller Apr 05, 2023 ★★★

Using password protection is an excellent way to prevent search engines from indexing staging site content, while also preventing random users from accessing it.

Content Crawl & Indexing

Does the no-index tag really block all indexing without any exceptions?

Gary Illyes Apr 05, 2023 ★★★

If you put a no-index tag on your pages, they will absolutely not be indexed, especially if you don't modify the head element in any way. It's the second choice after robots.txt for blocking a staging site.

Domain Age & History Crawl & Indexing

Are orphaned pages really invisible to Google's crawlers?

Gary Illyes Apr 05, 2023 ★★

If you don't create any links to a page and don't mention it anywhere, it's very difficult for Google to discover it. The internet is like deep space: without a link to a resource, it's practically impossible for Google to find it.

Domain Age & History JavaScript & Technical SEO Links & Backlinks