What does Google say about SEO? /
This category compiles official Google statements regarding Google Discover and Google News, two critical content distribution platforms for publishers. Google Discover has emerged as a significant traffic source, operating on a personalized recommendation model without user queries. Official Google positions on these topics are vital for understanding content selection criteria, eligibility factors, and necessary technical optimizations. SEO professionals will find guidance on E-E-A-T quality requirements, technical specifications including structured data markup, AMP formats, and editorial policy compliance. Google News maintains strict inclusion standards, while Discover prioritizes engagement metrics and contextual relevance. Mastering these official guidelines enables publishers to optimize visibility within these feeds, maximize referral traffic, and align content strategies with recommendation algorithms. These declarations also illuminate algorithm updates specific to these platforms and evolving journalistic standards expected by Google. Understanding the nuances between these two services helps publishers differentiate their optimization approaches and capitalize on opportunities for increased content distribution beyond traditional search results.
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★★ Should you offer Markdown versions of your content to enhance your visibility in AI-generated results?
An SEO consultant saw claims circulating that Google Search Central would serve Markdown versions of its blog articles to boost its visibility in AI-generated results. He delved into the topic, inspec...
John Mueller Apr 21, 2026
★★★ Does Google really share cached content between its different crawlers?
Google uses an aggressive internal cache independent of standard HTTP mechanisms. If Google News crawled a page 10 seconds ago, web search can reuse that copy rather than making another request, thus ...
Gary Illyes Mar 12, 2026
★★ Is HTML5 semantic markup really useless for SEO?
Using HTML5 semantic tags (article, section, nav, header, footer) or respecting the hierarchical structure of headings (single H1, then H2, etc.) has no significant impact on search engine optimizatio...
Gary Illyes Feb 26, 2026
★★ Why Can't Google Announce Its Core Updates in Advance?
On Bluesky, John Mueller responded to an article by Barry Schwartz regarding Core Updates. According to John Mueller, it is impossible for Google to announce a precise date in advance for these update...
John Mueller Dec 23, 2025
★★ Should you completely rethink your SEO strategy for Google Discover?
During the Google Search Central Live event in Zurich, Andy Almeida (from Google's Trust & Safety team) presented a slide indicating "minimal alignment" between Discover rankings and classic Search ra...
Google Dec 16, 2025
★★ Are you leaving 40% of your potential traffic on the table by only tracking performance on the classic Web tab?
It is recommended to check your performance not only on Google Search's main Web tab, but also on other tabs such as Images, Videos, and News to get a complete view of your traffic....
Daniel Waisberg Dec 04, 2025
★★ Why Is Your Google News Report Invisible in Search Console?
The Google News report in Search Console is only visible if your property has reached a minimum number of impressions in Google News. This report does not cover the News tab in Google Search, which is...
Daniel Waisberg Dec 04, 2025
★★ Why does your Discover report stay hidden in Search Console even when you're getting traffic?
The Discover report in Search Console is only visible if your property has reached a minimum number of impressions in Google Discover....
Daniel Waisberg Dec 04, 2025
★★ Does Search Console Insights really only show Google Search traffic?
The Search Console Insights report primarily displays traffic from the main Google Search tab. One exception exists for the additional traffic sources card, which also includes Discover and Google New...
Daniel Waisberg Dec 02, 2025
★★ Are you really maximizing all the traffic breakdown data hidden in Search Console?
Search Console allows you to compare traffic from Google Search against Discover and Google News. Search traffic is also broken down by tabs: Video, Image, and News....
Daniel Waisberg Dec 02, 2025
★★★ How to Adapt Your SEO Strategy to the Death of Blue Link Lists?
In response to a Microsoft article about how AI search is changing conversion measurement, Gary Illyes, analyst at Google, admits that even for him, "change is hard to accept." Having started his care...
Gary Illyes Nov 25, 2025
★★ Can Google Discover really boost your visibility without driving traffic to your website?
Creators can now achieve greater visibility in Discover. Timely and high-quality content published across various social platforms can now be displayed alongside website articles....
John Mueller Nov 17, 2025
★★ How will creator profiles in Discover reshape the SEO traffic landscape?
Google has added profiles for publications and creators with a follow button in Discover, helping users stay updated on what you create online....
John Mueller Nov 17, 2025
★★★ How Should You Adapt Your SEO Strategy for the AI-Generated Answers Era?
Interviewed by Marina Mogilko on search engine optimization in the context of AI-powered search (AI Mode and AI Overviews), Robby Stein (VP of Product at Google Search) explains that SEO for AI (AEO, ...
Google Nov 04, 2025
★★★ Is Classic SEO Really All You Need to Rank in AI Search?
Fabrice Canel, Product Manager at Bing, states that to optimize visibility in AI Search, simply following usual SEO best practices is sufficient—a view shared by Google. In a recent blog post, his tea...
Google Aug 05, 2025
★★★ Should You Stop Chasing Every New SEO Trick That Comes Along?
On Bluesky, John Mueller shared a blog post about the often costly and counterproductive obsession with measuring everything, adding this comment: "SEO is complex, many elements are interconnected, an...
John Mueller Jul 08, 2025
★★★ Does semantic HTML structure really matter for Google's content understanding?
Using appropriate semantic HTML tags such as headings, sections and articles makes it easier for Google to understand content, compared to a succession of divs without structural meaning....
Martin Splitt Jun 26, 2025
★★★ Why use Bing to detect off-topic content penalized by Google?
A publisher of an educational site that migrated from javatpoint.com to tpointtech.com experienced a sudden traffic drop and partial de-indexing on Google. Thinking the migration was to blame, they so...
John Mueller Jun 17, 2025
★★ Why is Google republishing guides on robots.txt and meta robots right now?
Google has published a series of reminder articles on robots.txt and meta robots tags to help understand the control functions they offer. This series follows the December crawl information series and...
Google Mar 27, 2025
★★★ How does Google actually discover your pages before ranking them?
For a page to appear in search results, it must go through 4 distinct steps: discovery, crawling, indexing, and ranking/serving....
Google Mar 19, 2025
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