What does Google say about SEO? /
This category compiles all official Google statements regarding its ranking algorithms and their successive updates. Algorithms form the foundation of the search engine and determine website visibility in search results. Here you'll find Google communications about Core Updates, those major algorithm refreshes deployed several times yearly, alongside historical algorithms such as Panda (content quality), Penguin (link spam), Hummingbird (semantic understanding), and artificial intelligence innovations like RankBrain and BERT. SEO professionals will discover official positions on recent thematic updates including the Helpful Content Update, designed to reward genuinely useful content for users, and Spam Updates targeting manipulative practices. Understanding Google's official statements about these algorithms is crucial for anticipating ranking fluctuations, adapting SEO strategies to search engine evolution, and aligning practices with official recommendations rather than relying on speculation or misinformation. This resource helps practitioners distinguish between confirmed algorithmic factors and industry myths, enabling data-driven optimization decisions. Whether responding to sudden traffic changes or planning long-term SEO strategies, these official declarations provide the authoritative foundation needed for effective search engine optimization in an ever-evolving digital landscape.
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★★★ Do Blockquote Tags Really Impact SEO Rankings?
John Mueller explained on Reddit that content embedded within a "blockquote" tag (quote element) is not treated in any specific way by search engine algorithms......
John Mueller Apr 23, 2019
★★ Should You Really Worry About Negative SEO and Use the Disavow File?
At the Pubcon Florida event, Gary Illyes explained that he had previously analyzed hundreds of "negative SEO" cases and that none of them, in his opinion, had any impact on the targeted site. He also ...
Gary Illyes Mar 11, 2019
★★★ Should You Really Worry About Toxic Links and Negative SEO?
When a user complained about a Negative SEO attack from one of their competitors, John Mueller responded on Twitter that they didn't need to do anything special because Google's algorithms ignore toxi...
John Mueller Feb 25, 2019
★★★ Does Google's Algorithm Really Work Differently Depending on Your Query Type?
John Mueller explained in a hangout that Google's algorithm could function differently depending on the type of query posed by the user (he takes an example from the medical field in his explanations)...
John Mueller Feb 25, 2019
★★★ Does anyone truly understand how search engines really work internally?
Frédéric Dubut (Bing) explained on Twitter that very few people within the teams managing the search engine have a global vision of the "algorithm core" and generally understand how the engine and its...
Google Feb 25, 2019
★★★ Does RankBrain Really Ignore Click-Through Rate and Time on Page?
Gary Illyes explained his vision of the RankBrain algorithm on Reddit: "RankBrain is a 'PR-sexy' machine learning component that uses historical search data to predict what a user would most likely cl...
Gary Illyes Feb 11, 2019
★★ How Many People Actually Work on Google's Search Algorithm?
Sundar Pichai, Google's CEO, indicated during his testimony before the US Congress that currently, approximately one thousand people work on "core search," the heart of the search engine, within the M...
Google Dec 31, 2018
★★★ Does Having Your Content Scraped Negatively Impact Your Google Rankings?
John Mueller indicated last week, again on Twitter, that having your content "scraped" (stolen, copied/pasted) by other websites is neither a quality criterion nor a relevance criterion for Google's a...
John Mueller Dec 17, 2018
★★★ How Does Google Actually Measure Trust When Ranking Your Website?
John Mueller confirmed in a hangout that Google uses a certain number of criteria (without specifying which ones) to evaluate the quality of a site as a whole, and therefore the quality of the content...
John Mueller Dec 03, 2018
★★★★ Does Buying Your Domain Name for 10 Years Actually Improve Your SEO?
John Mueller explained on Twitter for the 1,458th time 🙂 that the purchase duration or expiration date of a domain name with a registrar is not a relevance criterion taken into account by the search e...
John Mueller Nov 26, 2018
★★★★ Does the Alt Attribute Really Matter for Classic Web Search Rankings?
John Mueller explained in a hangout that the Alt attribute of images plays a fairly minor role in optimizing a page for web search. Indeed, the words that this attribute contains will certainly alread...
John Mueller Nov 19, 2018
★★★ Do Business Accreditations and Certifications Actually Influence Google Rankings?
There are many organizations, particularly in the United States, that grant "accreditations" or scores to businesses based on numerous criteria. One of the most well-known is the BBB (Better Business ...
John Mueller Nov 19, 2018
★★★ Is Mobile First Indexing Really Behind Google's Recent Search Result Fluctuations?
John Mueller explained on Twitter that the latest major changes and Google algorithm updates we've seen over the past several months, even weeks, were not related to Mobile First Indexing....
John Mueller Oct 15, 2018
★★★ Should You Avoid Quotation Marks and Citations to Optimize Your SEO?
John Mueller indicated on Twitter that quoting someone or putting quotation marks around a word or phrase did not change the treatment that Google used in its analysis....
John Mueller Oct 15, 2018
★★★ Should You Delete Low-Traffic Pages to Improve Your SEO?
John Mueller responded to a question about "content cannibalization" (low-traffic pages on a site receiving no SEO traffic). One approach proposed by an internet user was to delete this content, consi...
John Mueller Oct 08, 2018
★★★ How Does Google Detect Links Created Solely for SEO Purposes?
John Mueller reminded forum users that Google considers a link to be low quality and in violation of its webmaster guidelines from the moment it was created solely for SEO purposes, even if the link m...
John Mueller Oct 08, 2018
★★★ How Does Google Actually Decide Between Manual Penalties and Algorithmic Spam Filters?
John Mueller explained during a hangout that Google has always tended to favor algorithmic filters to fight spam, rather than manual actions. A manual action will only be imposed (as part of a group p...
John Mueller Oct 01, 2018
★★ Should You Prioritize Technical Simplicity Over Complexity to Avoid Algorithmic Penalties?
John Mueller indicated on Reddit that it's better to implement a website for which you're certain about how search engines will process the pages. Rather than designing a site that's very uncertain at...
John Mueller Sep 24, 2018
★★★ What really happens when a Google manual action expires without any fixes?
John Mueller reminded us on Twitter that manual actions do indeed expire at some point. However, if nothing has been done to fix the problem in the meantime, it could be picked up by a new part of the...
John Mueller Sep 10, 2018
★★★ How Do Panda and Penguin Really Penalize Your Site: Page by Page or Globally?
At the Search Masters Brazil conference, Gary Illyes confirmed that, while data was still collected by Google at the individual page level of a website, potential "algorithmic penalties" were subseque...
Gary Illyes Aug 27, 2018
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