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 author pseudonyms harm your content's SEO?
Using pseudonyms for blog authors is generally acceptable. However, it is essential that readers can trust the author, especially in cases of sensitive content or required expertise, such as in medici...
John Mueller Jun 28, 2019
★★★ Do the medical certifications of authors really influence the ranking of health content?
Adding information about authors' qualifications, such as medical certifications, can enhance user trust and help Google's algorithms recognize the reliability of health information....
John Mueller Jun 27, 2019
★★ Should you display author biographies directly in articles for better SEO?
Google does not provide explicit guidelines on the necessity of showing E-A-T information and author biographies directly in an article, but it is important to present them in a way that highlights th...
John Mueller Jun 14, 2019
★★★ Should you really recycle the same URL for your annual seasonal content?
Use a single URL for articles that return every year, such as holiday articles. Updating these URLs instead of creating new ones for each year strengthens the accumulated SEO value of the page....
John Mueller Jun 13, 2019
★★ Is it really necessary to create dedicated author pages to enhance your website's EAT?
Author pages are not explicitly necessary for EAT, but it is important to show users that authors are experts. This can be done within the article itself or via links to a biography. Quality raters do...
John Mueller Jun 11, 2019
★★ Does Google really evaluate every article on your news site?
For news sites, Google mainly analyzes relevant and current sections to evaluate overall quality, not each article in isolation....
John Mueller Jun 06, 2019
★★ Should you really optimize news article URLs with keywords?
It is not mandatory to include keywords in article URLs to make them more visible. Keywords slightly modify relevance, but the impacts are generally minimal and do not notably affect ranking for large...
John Mueller May 31, 2019
★★ Do RSS feeds really replace XML sitemaps for indexing in Google News?
Google uses RSS feeds for indexing in certain Google News products. This can be confusing for those who traditionally use XML sitemaps....
John Mueller May 16, 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
★★★ Does the word count of an article really influence its ranking on Google?
Google does not count the number of words in a blog article. There is no minimum, maximum, or optimal word count required. What matters is providing useful information to the user....
John Mueller May 03, 2019
★★★ Is it true that Google News and Discover operate on the same index or are they two distinct circuits?
Content in Google News must be in the Google News index, while Google Discover can display any page indexed by Google. Both services operate independently, although they may appear related....
John Mueller May 02, 2019
★★★ Should you really leave pagination indexed on large websites?
For sites with numerous articles, it is advised to use a strong internal linking structure or to leave pagination indexed if the articles are not linked elsewhere. This ensures that Google can crawl a...
John Mueller May 02, 2019
★★ Do you really need a specific robots.txt to appear in Google Discover?
No specific directive like a robots.txt is needed for Google Discover. The pages visible in Discover are simply normal pages indexed by Google....
John Mueller May 02, 2019
★★ Can internal linking really replace an optimized site architecture?
To maximize the indexing of articles, it is advisable to establish relevant cross-links between the articles. This reduces the importance of link depth in the site's structure....
John Mueller May 02, 2019
★★★ Does quality really outweigh volume in SEO?
Google evaluates the quality of a page's content rather than the quantity of articles published. Even a blog with few posts can rank well if it contains high-quality content. It's more relevant to pro...
John Mueller Apr 05, 2019
★★ Should You Really Add Text Content Below Product Listings in E-commerce?
John Mueller explained during a hangout that adding a block of text below product listing pages on an e-commerce site, while only displaying the category name in H1 above the list, was not necessarily...
John Mueller Mar 11, 2019
★★★ Should You Really Worry About Toxic Links and Negative SEO?
When a user complained about a Negative SEO attack from one of their competitors, John Mueller responded on Twitter that they didn't need to do anything special because Google's algorithms ignore toxi...
John Mueller Feb 25, 2019
★★ Should you choose a single lengthy article or break it into multiple pages?
For extensive content, test whether your audience prefers a complete article on a single page or divided into several chapters. Determine what works best for user engagement and conversions....
John Mueller Feb 22, 2019
★★ Should you still use rel=next/prev for SEO pagination?
The rel=next attribute should only be used for paginated series and not to link related articles. It is best to create standard internal links for related articles....
John Mueller Feb 05, 2019
★★★ Will Google refuse to index your content if too many pages already cover the same topic?
John Mueller explained on Twitter that Google crawls and indexes content on a given topic, even if the search engine already has numerous pages covering this topic extensively in its index. No matter ...
John Mueller Dec 31, 2018
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