What does Google say about SEO? /
Artificial intelligence is fundamentally reshaping search engine optimization and Google's algorithms. This category compiles Google's official statements regarding AI usage in search, including machine learning technologies, large language models (LLMs), and new generative search experiences like SGE and AI Overview. SEO practitioners will find Google's positions on how AI-generated content (ChatGPT, Gemini, Bard) impacts website rankings and organic visibility. Google has clarified its guidelines concerning artificial intelligence for content creation, distinguishing acceptable practices from manipulative techniques that violate search quality standards. Understanding these official declarations is crucial for adapting SEO strategies to algorithmic evolutions, particularly with the increasing integration of machine learning into ranking systems. This category also covers the impact of AI-generated answers in SERPs, E-E-A-T quality criteria applied to AI-assisted content, and recommendations for maintaining organic search presence in the era of generative search. Essential insights include how Google evaluates content quality regardless of production method, focusing on helpfulness and user value rather than creation process. A must-follow resource for staying ahead in modern search engine optimization.
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★★★ Is it true that Google is massively ignoring product aggregation sites?
A large product aggregator website is facing an indexing anomaly. Googlebot has crawled the site 1.17 million times in just a few weeks. Only 4 pages are indexed out of a total of 180,000, and even th...
John Mueller Oct 06, 2026
★★ Should you hide your sitemaps in robots.txt instead of submitting them publicly?
Sitemap files can be submitted via Search Console or indicated in the robots.txt file. Google can discover sitemaps through these methods, which is useful for sites that do not want their sitemap to b...
John Mueller Oct 01, 2026
★★★ Do sitemaps really influence Google's choice of the canonical URL?
Google uses sitemaps to help choose the canonical version of a URL. If a URL is listed in a sitemap, it increases the chances that Google will select it as the canonical version....
John Mueller Oct 01, 2026
★★★ Are XML News Sitemaps Really Essential for News Websites?
News websites benefit from specific sitemaps that list the last 1,000 modified pages. This facilitates the tracking of significant updates by Google's systems....
Martin Splitt Oct 01, 2026
★★★ Is it really necessary to stick to 50,000 URLs per sitemap?
Each sitemap file can contain up to 50,000 URLs and has a size limit of around megabytes. Files can be compressed, but the size limit concerns the uncompressed version....
John Mueller Oct 01, 2026
★★★ Is a XML sitemap really necessary for small websites?
Google recommends keeping a sitemap file activated, even for small sites, as most content management systems generate it automatically. There is no negative impact, even if the site remains small....
John Mueller Oct 01, 2026
★★★ Why does Google fail to crawl your sitemaps and how can you fix it?
The 'Couldn't Fetch' errors can be due to the host load, where Google did not have time to extract the sitemap file, or to an insufficient crawl request, often based on the perceived quality of the si...
John Mueller Oct 01, 2026
★★ Why does Google deindex your pages due to errors served with HTTP 200?
A business and supplier site has seen its pages deindexed by Google. The search engine has chosen a third-party online betting site as the canonical URL, with no apparent content relation. Live testin...
John Mueller Sep 29, 2026
★★★ Should we abandon traditional position tracking in SEO?
John Mueller responded on Reddit to questions about how impressions are counted for generative AI results in Search Console. Google already has a help document on the subject, but John Mueller admits ...
John Mueller Sep 16, 2026
★★★ Is it true that programmatic SEO is incompatible with quality content?
In a response published on Bluesky, John Mueller warns against programmatic SEO. According to him, this practice can lead the site to be perceived as spam or nearly so, or of low quality. To recall, p...
John Mueller Sep 08, 2026
★★★ Should you really clean up outdated links on your site?
On Reddit, John Mueller responded to a question about old outgoing links pointing to a site that has changed ownership and now hosts dubious content. His answer: Google does not penalize this type of ...
John Mueller Sep 01, 2026
★★ Does Google really launch its SEO updates before officially announcing them?
John Mueller reiterated a position that has been stated numerous times in the past: Google never announces an update late. The announcement comes almost simultaneously with the actual deployment. Why ...
John Mueller Aug 25, 2026
★★★ Why does Google show hreflang URLs marked as ‘not indexed’ in search results?
Gary Illyes (Google) clarified how alternative hreflang URLs work during canonicalization, following a question posed on LinkedIn by Faiez Javaid. The initial question was: If Google selects a single ...
Gary Illyes Aug 18, 2026
★★★ Does Googlebot send other HTTP requests besides GET and POST on your site?
Gary Illyes confirmed on LinkedIn that Google's crawlers do not only send HTTP GET and POST requests, but also HEAD, OPTIONS, PUT, PATCH, and DELETE requests, in response to several questions received...
Gary Illyes Aug 11, 2026
★★★ What should you do when your SEO metadata contradicts itself?
On Bluesky, John Mueller responded to a user who reported that a product page displayed 'out of stock' while the server HTML and structured data indicated 'available'. John Mueller advises against hav...
John Mueller Aug 04, 2026
★★★ Are internal search result pages still considered spam by Google?
Internal search result pages were previously considered automatically generated content and should be blocked, although this is no longer stated in current policies....
John Mueller Jul 30, 2026
★★★ Can internal search results truly harm your Google ranking?
If search result pages contain irrelevant terms, they could be perceived as an attempt to manipulate Google’s ranking system, which could affect the overall quality of the site....
John Mueller Jul 30, 2026
★★★ Does the Search Console removal tool really block Google from crawling your pages?
The Search Console removal tool does not prevent pages from being crawled; it only removes them from search results. It is not a solution for managing search result pages....
John Mueller Jul 30, 2026
★★★ Why does Google ignore your robots.txt rules even when they explicitly disallow access?
A Reddit user was managing a Shopify client whose internal search bar was being exploited by spam: spammer requests were generating search result URLs pointing to third-party sites. The client had blo...
John Mueller Jul 28, 2026
★★★ Should you hide an HTML link to optimize the anchor text that Google considers?
On Reddit, a user explained that he had a homepage containing two links to the same services page: a prominently visible 'Services' button at the top, and a second link in a FAQ section lower down, wh...
John Mueller Jul 21, 2026
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