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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★★ Do you really need to stick to the supported page types for the reviewed-by schema?
The reviewed-by markup can only be used on officially supported page types (e.g., Medical Page). If schema.org does not allow it to be added to NewsArticle, you should not force a non-compliant implem...
John Mueller Jun 23, 2020
★★★ Why is Google Discover more demanding than traditional search for showcasing your content?
Google Discover follows the Google News guidelines for eligibility. Since the content is shown to users who are not actively searching for it, the systems are more cautious. A decrease in visibility o...
John Mueller Jun 23, 2020
★★★ How can you prioritize hybrid server/client rendering without harming your SEO?
For a hybrid rendering approach (server-side + client-side), prioritize critical content server-side: title, meta description, canonical, and the main content expected by the user (product description...
Martin Splitt Jun 17, 2020
★★ Should you include all your pages in a general sitemap?
General sitemaps must include all your pages. News sitemaps are limited to the last 1000 articles and are specifically meant for Google News, but can be used by any website. Including all URLs in a si...
John Mueller Jun 12, 2020
★★ Does Discover really work without strict technical criteria?
There are no specific technical requirements, mandatory formats, or necessary meta tags to appear in Discover (except for not blocking crawls). You need to create content that your audience really lik...
John Mueller Jun 12, 2020
★★★ Is it really necessary to use noindex to hide your low-traffic local pages?
For a news site, having 90% of articles that generate little organic traffic is normal. These local or ephemeral articles are not low quality, just less popular. Noindex is only useful if the content ...
John Mueller May 29, 2020
★★★ Why does Google not index all your pages despite active crawling?
When Search Console shows a lot of 'Discovered - currently not indexed' or 'Crawled - currently not indexed' pages, it is often because Google's algorithms are not convinced by the overall quality of ...
John Mueller May 15, 2020
★★★ Why does linking to the homepage undermine your hreflang strategy?
For Google to correctly recognize language variants, each page must link to the exact corresponding version in the other language (FR article → equivalent EN article), not to that language's homepage....
John Mueller May 14, 2020
★★★ Why do your hreflang links fail when they point to a homepage instead of an equivalent page?
To help Google understand the relationships between language versions, it's crucial to link each page to its exact translation (e.g., FR article → corresponding EN article), rather than to the target ...
John Mueller May 14, 2020
★★ Does Google Images really select the right image for your pages?
To ensure Google Images associates the right image with a page, integrate main images visibly and use structured data (e.g., article markup) to explicitly specify which images represent the page. This...
John Mueller May 13, 2020
★★★ Why does Google deindex your blog articles after an update?
When previously indexed articles are deindexed after an algorithm update, it is usually not a technical issue but a problem of perceived quality. Google decides that indexing fewer pages from this sec...
John Mueller May 01, 2020
★★★ Does Discover really have no exploitable eligibility criteria?
Discover is very organic, with no clear criteria to meet. Google can decide to highlight or downrank a site without any notion of a query. There is no guaranteed method to appear, unlike traditional s...
John Mueller May 01, 2020
★★★ Do old backlinks really lose their SEO value over time?
The value of a link does not depreciate with age per se. It’s the position of the link in the source site that evolves: an article on the homepage becomes archived, losing relevance. It’s not the link...
John Mueller May 01, 2020
★★★ Should you really set all guest article links to nofollow?
Guest articles containing links to your site must have nofollow links, as they are considered non-natural. This avoids potential spam concerns....
John Mueller Apr 09, 2020
★★★ Do you really need 1200px images to get featured in Google Discover?
Google Discover demands high-quality images that are at least 1200 pixels wide. A max-image-preview large meta tag can be used to allow Google to display large images, even without AMP....
John Mueller Mar 31, 2020
★★ Should you really place the schema.org publisher markup on every page of your site?
The schema.org publisher tag does not need to be present on every page of a site, only on important pages like the homepage or contact page. For articles, the schema.org article markup should be used ...
John Mueller Mar 31, 2020
★★★ Is Infinite Scrolling Really a Hindrance to Google's Indexing?
For sites using infinite scrolling, it is crucial that links to articles or products are explicitly available for Google to index. A paginated structure or interlinks between articles allows Google to...
John Mueller Mar 26, 2020
★★★ Do Blog Comments Carry as Much SEO Weight as Main Content?
John Mueller explained during a hangout that comments on a blog are of course read by the search engine, and that this text is part of the "main content", as if it were a continuation of the article, ...
John Mueller Dec 23, 2019
★★★ Should You Include a Date in Your Web Page URLs for Better SEO?
Google's webmaster Twitter account explained that including a date in web page URLs does not pose any problems....
Google Sep 30, 2019
★★★ Does Paying for Google Ads Give You Access to Privileged SEO Support?
Danny Sullivan reminded on Twitter that Google does not provide "SEO support based on business relationships (Editor's note: for Google Ads customers). It would be unfair to those who don't advertise....
Danny Sullivan May 13, 2019
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