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 Does Google Use Machine Learning to Assess Website Quality?
John Mueller explained in a hangout that machine learning algorithms were primarily used by Google to understand whether a site is generally of good or poor quality, but not in the context of a specif...
John Mueller Jun 19, 2017
★★ Should You Worry About a Drop in Your Site's Crawl Rate?
John Mueller explained on Twitter that the fact that a website experiences a lower crawl rate at a given time from the search engine's robots is not necessarily a negative signal for your future visib...
John Mueller Jun 12, 2017
★★★ Does the Order of Hreflang Tags Really Matter for SEO?
John Mueller indicated on Twitter that hreflang tags in a page's source code could be listed in any order, it didn't matter at all. Makes sense......
John Mueller Jun 12, 2017
★★★ How Long Can You Use a 503 Code Before Risking Deindexation?
John Mueller reminded us on Twitter that using a 503 code (Service Unavailable) is not a problem if it's implemented for a few hours (for a quick maintenance operation, for example), but it should not...
John Mueller Jun 12, 2017
★★★ Does Google Really Perform a Seasonal Spring Cleaning of Its Index?
John Mueller indicated in a hangout that Google does not perform a "spring cleaning" of its index by removing, at that time of year, more low-quality pages. One might wonder why it would do that, anyw...
John Mueller Jun 12, 2017
★★ Do You Really Need Hreflang Tags on a Monolingual Website?
Still on the subject of Hreflang tags, John Mueller indicated, also on Twitter, that if your site is published in a single language, you are not obligated to use Hreflang tags. Logical there too. Howe...
John Mueller Jun 12, 2017
★★ Will Google Launch a Public Sandbox to Test Mobile First Index Before Deployment?
In 2009, when Google launched its new Caffeine indexing structure, the search engine set up a "sandbox", or new version of its index on a specific URL, to test the new infrastructure being implemented...
John Mueller Jun 06, 2017
★★★ Does Nofollow Really Burn Your Crawl Budget?
John Mueller indicated on Twitter that using a "nofollow" attribute on links does not "burn" crawl budget for a website. Fortunately so. We can even say that this technique is rather beneficial in thi...
John Mueller Jun 06, 2017
★★★ How can you know exactly how Google sees and understands your web page?
John Mueller explained on Twitter that if you want to know how Google sees your web page, it's better to use Search Console (Crawl section > Fetch as Google) than the "Cached" option available in sear...
John Mueller Jun 06, 2017
★★★ Does Noindex Really Control How Googlebot Crawls Your Site?
John Mueller reminded us on Twitter that while the meta robots "noindex" tag allows you to manage whether or not a page gets indexed on Google, it is by no means a way to control how Googlebot crawls ...
John Mueller May 29, 2017
★★★ How Many Pages from the Same Website Can Appear in Google Results?
John Mueller indicated on Twitter that the same site can appear multiple times (with different pages) on the same results page. There is no (longer any) limit to the number of URLs from the same site ...
John Mueller May 29, 2017
★★ Is it true that no one at Google fully understands the algorithm anymore?
A persistent rumor that has been flourishing in numerous articles for several months claims that "no one at Google would understand the search engine's algorithm globally anymore, as it has become so ...
John Mueller May 22, 2017
How Will Google Roll Out Mobile First Indexing: All at Once or Site by Site?
John Mueller indicated in a hangout that it is possible that the Mobile First project (currently planned for 2018) will be launched not all at once for all websites, but for batches of sites, one afte...
John Mueller May 22, 2017
★★ Should Widget Signature Links Always Be Nofollow?
John Mueller indicated in a hangout that if a link wasn't systematically set to "nofollow" in a widget signature (such as "Widget created by [link]"), the search engine could automatically do it itsel...
John Mueller May 22, 2017
★★ Search Console Geolocation vs Hreflang: Which One Delivers the Real SEO Boost?
John Mueller has indicated the difference between geolocation of a site (in Search Console) and the use of the Hreflang tag. Geolocation seems stronger, with a genuine effort from Google to present th...
John Mueller May 22, 2017
★★ Should You Really Avoid Empty Link Anchors for SEO?
We asked the question on Twitter about empty link anchors (for example on an image that would be added via CSS). John Mueller responded that this type of link was followed by Google but that the absen...
John Mueller May 22, 2017
★★ Should You Really Disavow All Links Coming from Spammy Sites?
John Mueller indicated that links from "spammy" sites are not necessarily unnatural. And that the priority should be to track down (and disavow) unnatural links. He also explained that you can have na...
John Mueller May 22, 2017
★★★ Does Google Really Keep All Your Past SEO Mistakes in Memory Forever?
When asked whether Google could forget certain practices performed by a website in the past, John Mueller replied that the search engine had "a lot of storage space". We can confirm this: Google forge...
John Mueller May 15, 2017
Should You Really Use Special Characters in Title Tags and Meta Descriptions?
John Mueller indicated that, most of the time, Google ignored and removed special characters (Unicode) sometimes placed in Title tags and meta "description" tags (arrows, sun symbols, triangles, etc.)...
John Mueller May 15, 2017
★★ Should You Really Optimize Your Site for RankBrain?
John Mueller explained on Twitter that RankBrain is not a relevance criterion in Google's algorithm and that there is no point in "optimizing your site for RankBrain." It is primarily a system (and th...
John Mueller May 15, 2017
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