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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★★★ Should you really use rel=canonical over noindex for aging content?
To manage old blog articles that remain relevant, it's better to use the rel=canonical tag pointing to your main page rather than deindexing them with noindex. This allows you to preserve historical a...
Gary Illyes Jun 30, 2022
★★★ Should you really master technical SEO before producing content?
Even with an excellent content strategy, if Google cannot crawl your website, your content will have no impact. It is crucial to master technical aspects before investing in content....
Alan Kent Jun 29, 2022
★★★ Should you really create specific content for every step of the buyer's journey?
You need to have relevant content for users at different stages of their buying journey: homepage for inspiration, category pages to target product ranges, and advisory content for buyers in the resea...
Alan Kent Jun 29, 2022
★★★ Should you really describe every product variant in your canonical page?
The canonical product page must include text describing all available variants (colors, sizes), either in the product description or via alternative text on color selectors, to match searches across a...
Alan Kent Jun 29, 2022
★★★ Is user experience really a decisive ranking factor at Google?
The performance of web pages is so important that user experience has been integrated as a Google ranking signal, influencing the positioning of pages in search results. If two pages have the same tex...
Alan Kent Jun 29, 2022
★★★ Is 'the best possible content' really Google's strategic compass, or just clever marketing spin?
Google Search's final objective is to present the best possible content to users performing a search. Algorithms change over time, but this ultimate goal does not. Therefore, you must focus on creatin...
Alan Kent Jun 29, 2022
★★★ Why should e-commerce product titles absolutely contain the brand name and color?
Page titles should include details such as brand name and product color to provide useful information to buyers and clearly distinguish between different products. These titles are used as the foundat...
Alan Kent Jun 29, 2022
★★★ Is Google Search Console really enough to catch all your technical SEO problems?
Google Search Console is the recommended tool for detecting technical issues on your site. It offers several reports covering different types of potential problems....
Alan Kent Jun 29, 2022
★★★ What's the real maximum HTML crawl limit that Googlebot accepts in 2024?
In 2015, John Mueller indicated that Googlebot would not crawl more than 10 MB of source code for a given page. Last week, the online help on this subject (English only) was updated and the figure of ...
John Mueller Jun 27, 2022
★★★ Should You Still Put Keywords in Your Domain Name and Use Hyphens in URLs?
A quick reminder on two well-known points, but things often need to be repeated for the message to get through: John Mueller reiterated on Twitter that the presence of keywords in domain names is larg...
John Mueller Jun 27, 2022
★★★ Does Hidden Content in Accordions and Tabs Really Carry the Same SEO Weight as Visible Content?
Gary Illyes also explained in the recent podcast in question that the fact that text is potentially visible (examples: in a tab, an accordion, in short hidden by default but made visible upon user act...
Gary Illyes Jun 27, 2022
★★ How is Google really evolving its anti-spam tactics to stay ahead of manipulators?
Google released its annual Webspam report detailing the efforts deployed to prevent spam and malicious content from affecting search results. The report mentions the changes observed over the years in...
John Mueller Jun 23, 2022
★★★ Does specifying width and height in HTML really help your rankings?
To avoid content shifts and improve SEO, you must specify the width and height attributes directly in the HTML markup of the image. This simple practice helps prevent a negative signal from Google....
Alan Kent Jun 22, 2022
★★★ Is your website losing Google rankings because images lack width and height attributes?
When a web page fails to specify image dimensions (width and height), the page content shifts as the image loads. This behavior is considered a negative signal by Google Search and can affect your ran...
Alan Kent Jun 22, 2022
★★★ Why does Google prefer hyphens over underscores in URLs—and what's the real impact on your rankings?
Google recommends using hyphens rather than underscores in URLs. Google's tokenizer uses certain parts of the URL to understand page content, and cannot easily segment at the underscore level because ...
Gary Illyes Jun 21, 2022
Is Lighthouse really missing poor quality anchor text on your site?
Google's Lighthouse tool uses a limited list of English phrases to detect non-descriptive link text like 'click here'. This detection doesn't work for other languages and remains very basic....
Martin Splitt Jun 21, 2022
★★★ Is Google really unable to crawl your navigation if it doesn't use proper anchor links?
For content discovery, Google focuses on technical links. Navigation must use anchor elements with appropriate href attributes. If unlinked images, onclick events, or other methods are used, Google pr...
Gary Illyes Jun 21, 2022
★★★ Does Googlebot really fail to index content hidden behind user clicks?
Googlebot does not trigger user interactions like clicks. If content requires a click to load via an XHR request (a network request initiated by JavaScript), Google will probably not see that content....
Gary Illyes Jun 21, 2022
★★★ Has hidden content become just as important as visible content for Google?
Google used to consider content not visible on the page as less important than visible content, but that's no longer the case. Content simply needs to be present in the HTML or immediate JavaScript....
Gary Illyes Jun 21, 2022
★★ Does web accessibility directly impact your Google rankings?
Webmaster guidelines include accessibility as part of user experience, notably mentioning the importance of alt text for images and other standard accessibility practices....
Lizzi Sassman Jun 21, 2022
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