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.
★★ Should you really add warning banners to your older content pieces?
Placing banners on old blog articles allows you to inform users that the content may be obsolete, that certain links may no longer work, or that more recent resources are available....
Lizzi Sassman May 09, 2024
★★ How Can You Actually Recover Your Traffic After Google's Helpful Content Update?
On X, John Mueller shared some insights for recovering visibility after an update with a negative impact, particularly the Helpful Content Update, which takes more time than other updates. As usual, t...
John Mueller May 07, 2024
★★★ Should You Really Keep Contact and About Pages for SEO?
John Mueller indicated that, although "Contact us" and "About" pages are not explicitly required according to Google's official documentation for developers, this does not mean they should be removed....
John Mueller Apr 02, 2024
★★★ How does Google decide if a video is the main content of a page?
Google only indexes in video mode pages where the video is the main content. Videos are not considered main if they are found in blog articles that complement the text, additional videos on product pa...
Google Mar 28, 2024
★★★ Can You Actually Publish Content at Scale Without Risking a Google Penalty?
On X, John Mueller clarified that publishing content at scale is not considered spam by Google, as long as the content in question meets quality standards. In the past, Google had already indicated th...
John Mueller Mar 26, 2024
★★ Should You 10x Your Content with AI to Recover Your SEO Traffic?
In a Reddit discussion about Google's recent updates and their impact on website traffic, a user expressed their desire to scale their content from 500 to 5,000 articles with AI assistance to compensa...
John Mueller Mar 12, 2024
★★★ Should You Drop Canonical Tags for Noindex on Syndicated Content?
On X, an SEO expert asked John Mueller what happens to the signals associated with a syndicated article on a partner platform once Google considers the partner as canonical. "Does this mean that all t...
John Mueller Feb 06, 2024
★★★ Should You Really Disavow Spammy and Toxic Backlinks Pointing to Your Site?
On Reddit, a site owner expressed concern after noticing hundreds of thousands of backlinks from AI-generated blog articles pointing to their site. In response, John Mueller stated that these links co...
John Mueller Jan 16, 2024
★★★ Should you really prioritize a hierarchical structure for large websites?
For large websites, a hierarchical structure is generally preferable. It allows different sections to be treated differently, particularly for crawling. For example, having a 'news' directory for news...
Gary Illyes Dec 18, 2023
★★★ What Causes the Significant Fluctuations in Discover Traffic?
<p>Traffic from Discover varies for several reasons: changes in user interests, types of content, and updates to Google Search. Since Discover is an extension of Google Search, it is impacted by algor...
Google Nov 30, 2023
★★ What content types should you really include in your sitemaps?
Sitemaps can include different types of web pages: articles, videos, images, or any other type of web page intended to appear in search results....
Martin Splitt Nov 16, 2023
★★★ Can you block Googlebot in certain countries without risking a penalty?
On X, John Mueller responded to a user that it was not possible to block a site from appearing in search results for a specific country, particularly the USA. Google's Senior Search Analyst also refer...
John Mueller Oct 24, 2023
★★ Does Google Really Replace Your Search Queries to Boost Ad Revenue?
In a recent article, since removed, Wired claimed that Google was deleting queries to replace them with other, more profitable queries. These rather serious allegations did not go unnoticed by Danny S...
Danny Sullivan Oct 10, 2023
★★★ Why Can Your Indexed URL Count Suddenly Skyrocket in Search Console?
In the September SEO Office Hours, Gary Illyes explained why it's sometimes possible to observe a sudden spike in indexed URLs in Google Search. There are multiple reasons that can explain this, but G...
Gary Illyes Sep 19, 2023
★★★ Can Spelling Mistakes Actually Hurt Your SEO Rankings?
John Mueller, once again, states that Google is rather lenient with typos, provided that the overall quality of the site is up to par. This statement is a response to a question asked by an internet u...
John Mueller Sep 12, 2023
★★★ Should You Really Avoid Depending on Google Discover Traffic for Your Site?
Google's John Mueller stated on Mastodon that it was a bad thing for your site to depend on Discover for traffic. He wrote: "If your site depends on Discover traffic, that's a bad idea, regardless of ...
John Mueller Aug 22, 2023
★★★ Do Semantic HTML Tags Really Improve Your SEO Rankings?
Someone asked John Mueller whether using an HTML article tag had an impact on Google. His response: "The HTML article tag has no particular effect on Google. The same goes for many HTML tags. Using th...
John Mueller Aug 22, 2023
★★ Does the HTML <article> tag really boost your SEO rankings?
The HTML article element has no particular effect in Google Search. It's similar to many other types of HTML tags. There's much more to using HTML than just Google Search. Sometimes there are accessib...
Google Aug 09, 2023
★★ Should You Place Your Blog Posts in a /blog/ Subfolder or at the Root of Your Site?
On Reddit, John Mueller responded to a user who was wondering whether it was better to place their blog articles in a /blog/ directory or if it was possible to put them at the root. His response: "Goo...
John Mueller Jul 11, 2023
★★ Should you prioritize semantic <section> and <article> tags over <div> for SEO?
Google's systems are not particular about similar elements. To group text, most elements are treated the same way, whether it's section, article or div....
John Mueller Jun 29, 2023
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