What does Google say about SEO? /
The Content category compiles all official Google statements regarding textual content creation, optimization, and evaluation in the context of search engine optimization. It encompasses fundamental aspects such as editorial quality, E-E-A-T criteria (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness), duplicate content issues, and thin content concerns. Google's positions on these topics are critical for understanding how algorithms assess the relevance and added value of web pages. This category also includes recommendations on structural elements like headings (H1, H2, Hn tags), meta descriptions, and semantic optimization. With the introduction of the Helpful Content system, Google has reinforced the importance of a user-first approach rather than a search engine-first methodology. SEO professionals will find here official guidance for creating content that meets algorithmic expectations while delivering genuine value to users, a balance that has become essential for achieving and maintaining strong rankings in search results. These declarations provide clarity on content strategies that align with Google's evolving quality standards and ranking factors.
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★★★ How Do You Effectively Manage Sitemaps When Your Site Exceeds 50,000 URLs?
In his "SEO Snippets" video series, John Mueller has just published one about Sitemaps and the Sitemap Index system that allows you to create such files when a website has more than 50,000 URLs....
John Mueller Apr 09, 2018
★★★ Do Structured Data Really Influence Rankings in Google?
John Mueller reminded on Twitter that integrating structured data tags could be a good thing for Google's understanding of a web page's content, since they explain and "label" a certain number of conc...
John Mueller Apr 09, 2018
★★★ Do Brackets, Parentheses and Quotation Marks Really Impact Your Google Rankings?
A user asked on Twitter about characters like [brackets], (parentheses) and "quotation marks" and how they were taken into account by Google. Pete Meyers responded that they were all equivalent in ter...
John Mueller Apr 09, 2018
★★★ Should You Switch Domain Names After a Google Penalty?
John Mueller indicated on Reddit that Google doesn't have a "magic button" or "reset button" that its teams would activate to make all traces of penalties disappear, even after they've been lifted by ...
John Mueller Apr 02, 2018
★★★ Does Your URL Extension (.html, .php, .asp) Really Impact Your Google Rankings?
In his "SEO Snippets" video series, John Mueller indicates that whether a URL ends with .html, .php, .asp or another extension (or none at all) does not influence Google's relevance algorithm. The suf...
John Mueller Apr 02, 2018
★★★ Does Google's Nofollow Attribute Really Still Work the Same Way Since 2005?
At the SMX West conference, Googler Nathan Johns recently stated that "the functioning of the nofollow attribute has never been modified since its creation" in 2005. 13 years later, therefore, it stil...
Google Mar 26, 2018
★★ How Long Does It Really Take to See Results After Cleaning Up Low-Quality Content?
John Mueller explained during a hangout that improving overall quality or removing low-quality content from a site could have an impact (positions/traffic) sometimes only after 6 months, the time it t...
John Mueller Mar 26, 2018
★★★ Should You Really Worry About 404 Errors in Search Console?
John Mueller released a new "SEO Snippets" video in which he answers a question about 404 errors that may appear in Search Console and correspond to an old version of a website. John explains that the...
John Mueller Mar 26, 2018
★★★ Does Google Really Penalize Backlinks from Adult Websites?
Still at the SMX West conference, the same Nathan Johns explained that aside from the SafeSearch filter, no other treatment is applied to so-called "adult" sites and that the links they create or poin...
Google Mar 26, 2018
★★★ Does Google's Algorithm Really Ignore Affiliate Links?
John Mueller indicated on Twitter that Google's algorithm does not take into account in its relevance and PageRank calculations a certain number of links of all kinds and that "he would not be surpris...
John Mueller Mar 19, 2018
★★ Should You Mass-Produce Content to Improve Your SEO Rankings?
John Mueller indicated on Twitter that Google's relevance algorithm does not give a specific advantage to websites that provide more information (in terms of volume) than another. "A website should no...
John Mueller Mar 13, 2018
★★ Does Server Location Really Impact Your Site's Geographic SEO Targeting?
A user asked John Mueller on Twitter whether changing the hosting country of their server (for example from the United States to Germany) could make Google think that the website it hosts had changed ...
John Mueller Mar 13, 2018
★★★ Is the Meta Refresh Tag Really Effective for SEO Redirects?
Google has indicated several times in the past that redirections using the "meta refresh" tag should not be used. However, John Mueller mentioned on Twitter last week that it does work anyway, but is ...
John Mueller Mar 05, 2018
★★★ Does Page Speed Really Impact Google's Mobile First Indexing?
John Mueller explained on Twitter that the Mobile First index and the page loading speed criterion were two separate things. Indexing and page ranking should not be confused, as some believe, especial...
John Mueller Mar 05, 2018
★★★ How Does Googlebot Really Crawl Your Website?
John Mueller published a video last week (the first "SEO Snippet" - videos succeeding those of Matt Cutts - since their launch), explaining how Google crawls a website and the way Googlebot works....
John Mueller Mar 05, 2018
★★★ Are Schema.org Structured Data Really Essential for Your SEO in 2024?
Gary Illyes indicated at the Pubcon conference that structured data tags (Schema.org) were here to stay because they allowed Google to better understand the content of a page....
Gary Illyes Feb 26, 2018
Should You Worry About Google's Contradictory Statements on Search Console?
As is often the case unfortunately, John Mueller and Gary Illyes contradicted each other last week. John initially indicated that all features from the old Search Console would be transferred to the n...
John Mueller Feb 26, 2018
★★ Why Are Hreflang Tags Considered the Most Complex Aspect of SEO?
John Mueller indicated on Twitter that "hreflang tags are one of the most complex aspects of SEO, if not the most complex. It seems as simple as a meta tag, but their implementation quickly becomes di...
John Mueller Feb 26, 2018
★★★ Should You Really Stop Buying Links in 2024 to Avoid Google Penalties?
John Mueller reminded on Twitter that selling and buying links was against Google's recommendations (and therefore subject to penalties), whether the buying and selling sites are small or large....
John Mueller Feb 12, 2018
★★★ Should You Change Your XML Sitemap Name Daily to Improve SEO Rankings?
John Mueller explained in a hangout that it's not a good idea to modify the name of your XML Sitemap files daily (for example with a date, like sitemap-2018-02-12.xml, etc.) with numerous redundant an...
John Mueller Feb 12, 2018
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