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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★★★ 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
★ 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
★★★ Do accordions really hurt your SEO, or is it just an old myth?
Since around 2014, Google has been able to see content within collapsible elements or accordions. Hiding content in this way has no negative effect on how the content is represented in search results....
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
★★★ 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
★★★ 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
★★ Why won't Google give you precise criteria on certain UX aspects—and what should you do about it?
Google remains vague on certain UX aspects because they are difficult to define precisely. For example, navigation structure, titles, or readability levels cannot be specified exactly because they var...
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
★★★ Is page experience really enough to guarantee good UX for Google?
Page experience is a subset of user experience (UX). It includes technical elements such as Core Web Vitals, mobile compatibility, HTTPS, and intrusive interstitials, but does not cover all aspects of...
Martin Splitt Jun 21, 2022
★★★ Does Google Really Use Bing's Index as a Backup Database?
Alright, here's a fun one to wrap up this section and start the week on an amusing note: a user asked John Mueller if Google used Bing's index when it couldn't find satisfactory results in its own ind...
John Mueller Jun 20, 2022
★★★ Should You Publish Empty Pages While Waiting to Write Their Final Content?
John Mueller explained on Twitter that it's a poor SEO practice to publish pages empty of content (i.e., with only the graphic charter, menus, etc.), for example to get them indexed while waiting for ...
John Mueller Jun 20, 2022
★★★ Should You Really Fill the ALT Attribute of All Your Images with Your Site Name?
John Mueller indicated on Twitter that it was not a good practice to identically repeat a website's name in the ALT attribute of images that had little semantic meaning (bullets, lines, etc.) or simpl...
John Mueller Jun 13, 2022
★★★ Should You Block Human Access to Your XML Sitemaps?
John Mueller explained on Twitter that Google accepts the practice of blocking your XML sitemap files from regular users while keeping them visible only to search engine crawlers....
John Mueller Jun 13, 2022
★★★ Should You Invest in a CDN to Improve Your Organic Rankings?
John Mueller indicated during a hangout with webmasters that, generally speaking, using a CDN (Content Delivery Network) does not specifically provide an SEO bonus and does not bring a positive effect...
John Mueller Jun 13, 2022
★★ Should you really isolate your archived content to boost your SEO performance?
For obsolete content, it is recommended to move it to a clearly separated archive section. This helps Google focus on your main active content. Using noindex on archives is optional and depends on you...
John Mueller Jun 08, 2022
★★ Should you really abandon PDFs and iframes if you want your text content to rank properly?
Google converts PDFs to HTML pages for indexing. Hiding a PDF's OCR text in HTML is not recommended. If you want to index content as a web page, make it visible directly in HTML rather than embedding ...
John Mueller Jun 08, 2022
★★ Should you block API endpoint crawling to optimize your crawl budget?
Google discovers API endpoints through the JavaScript rendering of your pages. If these APIs don't contain content critical for indexing, it's recommended to block their crawl via robots.txt to save c...
John Mueller Jun 08, 2022
★★ Can you really force Google to display sitelinks in search results?
There are no meta tags or structured data that can force sitelink display. Google recommends good site structure, clear internal links, and explicit titles to help systems identify relevant pages to d...
John Mueller Jun 08, 2022
★★ Does Google really follow every HTTP status code in a chain, or does it stop at the first one?
Google processes only the final HTTP status code after following a complete redirect chain. When crawling a series of redirects, Google follows the entire chain to the final destination page and conce...
John Mueller Jun 08, 2022
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