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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★★★ Does AI-generated content really need human review to rank on Google?
Google, through Gary Illyes, has clarified that AI-generated content is accepted by the search engine as long as it meets strict criteria for quality, originality, and factual accuracy. Illyes emphasi...
Gary Illyes Aug 19, 2025
★★ Can Core Web Vitals Sabotage Actually Hurt Your SEO Rankings?
The attack known as "Core Web Vitals poisoning" aims to artificially sabotage a website's web performance indicators (LCP, FID, CLS) in order to alter the scores measured by tools like webvitals-js. J...
John Mueller Aug 19, 2025
★★★ Why Is Your Google Crawl Suddenly Dropping and How Can You Fix It?
John Mueller explained that a sudden drop in Googlebot crawl is rarely caused by 404 errors; according to him, it is much more often a sign of server-side issues (429, 500, 503 errors) or timeouts. He...
John Mueller Aug 19, 2025
★★★ Why Does Google Ignore Social Signals and Other External Metrics in Its Rankings?
Gary Illyes explains that the search engine excludes external signals such as shares or views on social media from its ranking criteria, as it has no control over their reliability or validity. Accord...
Gary Illyes Aug 19, 2025
★★★ Should You Really Ditch Keyword-Based Domain Names for Your SEO?
Google advises small businesses against opting for domain names composed solely of generic keywords. John Mueller emphasizes that this choice can harm online visibility, as it makes it difficult to st...
John Mueller Aug 12, 2025
★★★ Should You Adapt Your SEO Strategy to Google's MUVERA Algorithm?
Google has not confirmed using MUVERA (Multi-Vector Retrieval via Fixed Dimensional Encodings), despite certain rumors circulating in the SEO community. Gary Illyes clarified on LinkedIn that he never...
Gary Illyes Aug 12, 2025
★★ JPEG, WebP, AVIF: Which image format should you choose for SEO in 2025?
Google supports multiple image formats including JPEG, AVIF, WEBP and BMP. JPEGs work everywhere and are acceptable, but other modern formats are also supported. The complete documentation lists all s...
John Mueller Aug 07, 2025
★★ Can social media really coexist with your website in Google Images results?
Web pages from a website and those from social networks containing the same image are very different in their context, so they can coexist in web search results. In image search, Google might recogniz...
John Mueller Aug 07, 2025
★★★ Should you really create a dedicated page for every image on your website?
If you want your images to be individually discoverable, create unique landing pages for each image with unique descriptive text. This helps Google understand that it's the main image of the page with...
John Mueller Aug 07, 2025
★★ Does publishing your images first guarantee canonicalization on Google?
Publishing an image first on your website and then waiting for indexation before publishing it on social media does not guarantee that your site will be considered the canonical version. Publication o...
John Mueller Aug 07, 2025
★★★ Why should photographers invest in their own website instead of relying solely on Instagram?
Photographers should maintain both a website and an active presence on social media. A website allows you to fully control the presentation and context of your photos, unlike social networks where you...
Martin Splitt Aug 07, 2025
★★★ Is it really a mistake to use generic keywords as your business name for SEO?
Small businesses and photographers often make the mistake of using a generic term as their brand name. It is more effective to use your own name as a brand because people can then easily find you by s...
John Mueller Aug 07, 2025
★★★ Why does Google index photo galleries with descriptive text better than isolated images?
For photo gallery pages, adding text with titles mentioning specific locations, moments, or types of photos helps users find these galleries. Google is more likely to index and display a well-describe...
John Mueller Aug 07, 2025
★★★ Why aren't your videos showing up in Google's video search results?
For a video to appear in video search results, it must be the primary element on the page. When users click on a video thumbnail, they expect to see a video, not a large photo gallery with a random vi...
John Mueller Aug 07, 2025
★★ Are responsive images really enough to boost your Google rankings?
Using responsive images (different versions for different devices) is a good practice, but it won't get your site to rank in the top position. These are best practices to follow, but you need to do mo...
John Mueller Aug 07, 2025
★★★ Do custom URLs on third-party platforms really hurt your SEO rankings?
A custom URL created on a third-party communication platform (such as a community forum) has no negative impact on the main website's search engine optimization. This configuration is perfectly accept...
John Mueller Aug 06, 2025
★★★ Does Google really prioritize support sites for help-related queries?
Google tries to recognize when a user is performing a search related to support and displays the support site in the results accordingly. Each site is shown in search results when it's appropriate....
John Mueller Aug 06, 2025
★★★ Should you host your customer support on the same domain for SEO benefits?
Having a support site on the same domain name with a different subdomain, or even on a completely different domain name, is a perfectly normal configuration that causes no SEO problems whatsoever....
John Mueller Aug 06, 2025
★★★ Subdomain vs separate domain: Does Google really make a difference for your SEO?
Google attempts to index both the main site and the support site, whether they're on different subdomains (support.example.com vs www.example.com) or on completely different domains. Both versions are...
John Mueller Aug 06, 2025
★★★ Should You Use LLMS.txt to Optimize Your SEO for AI?
Gary Illyes recently stated on Bluesky that the LLMS.txt file, designed to "control" LLMs' access to web content, strongly resembles the meta keywords tag from the 1990s, which quickly became obsolete...
Gary Illyes Aug 05, 2025
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