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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★★★ Do You Really Need to Know How to Code to Become a Great SEO in 2024?
In the latest episode of the Search Off the Record podcast, Google's Martin Splitt and Gary Illyes addressed the question of the technical level required to work as an SEO professional. Their message ...
Gary Illyes Jun 24, 2025
★★★ Why does Googlebot persist in crawling your deleted pages with 410 status?
A site publisher noticed a drop in visibility on Google after Googlebot made millions of requests to non-existent pages, at a level close to a DDoS attack. One example: over 2.4 million requests targe...
John Mueller Jun 17, 2025
★★★ Why use Bing to detect off-topic content penalized by Google?
A publisher of an educational site that migrated from javatpoint.com to tpointtech.com experienced a sudden traffic drop and partial de-indexing on Google. Thinking the migration was to blame, they so...
John Mueller Jun 17, 2025
★★★ Is cutting back on JavaScript really the secret to better SEO performance?
If you can avoid JavaScript for what you're doing, you absolutely should. However, JavaScript remains necessary for certain features like enabling a website to work offline. This recommendation is hig...
Martin Splitt Jun 12, 2025
★★ Does Google really prioritize user experience over everything else in its ranking algorithm?
Google's agenda as a search engine is to build the best possible search engine. To achieve this, Google wants the web to be accessible, fast, and pleasant to use for users....
Martin Splitt Jun 12, 2025
★★ Do you really need to master web development to excel at technical SEO?
While some SEO specialists in specific domains like international content may not need deep technical knowledge, generalist SEOs and particularly technical SEOs should understand the aspects of web de...
Martin Splitt Jun 12, 2025
★★★ Do you really need to master web development to succeed in SEO?
To deeply optimize a system the way SEOs do, it is necessary to understand certain characteristics of that system. SEOs must understand how HTTP works, what a header is, how HTTPS functions, certifica...
Martin Splitt Jun 12, 2025
★★★ Can Ads Really Appear in Multiple Spots Within Google's AI Overviews?
Google has clarified that ads cannot appear simultaneously in multiple placements within AI Overviews. According to Ginny Marvin from Google's Ads Liaison, an ad can display either above/below or insi...
Google Jun 03, 2025
★★★ Should You Stop Using Google's Indexing API to Speed Up Your Pages' Ranking?
On Bluesky, John Mueller once again explained that the Indexing API should only be used for two types of content: job postings and live streams. John Mueller emphasized that many SEOs, often spammers,...
John Mueller Jun 03, 2025
★★★ How Can You Protect Your Site from AI Agent Saturation?
Gary Illyes warns about the massive influx of AI-powered bots, which threatens to saturate the web. According to him, it's not the crawling that consumes the most resources, but the processing and sto...
Gary Illyes Jun 03, 2025
★★★ Has Googlebot Really Evolved Technically Without Changing Its Core Crawling Principles?
Gary Illyes discussed the evolution of Googlebot in the Search Off the Record podcast. While the basic principles of crawling have changed little, notable technical improvements have taken place, such...
Gary Illyes Jun 03, 2025
★★ Does Google's Live Test Tool Actually Crawl Your Site in Real Time?
The Live Test tool in Search Console uses a high-priority real crawler, while property verification of the site is user-triggered and works almost instantly without any crawl delay....
Gary Illyes May 29, 2025
★★★ Has Google really been respecting robots.txt since day one?
Since Google's very beginning, robots.txt has been supported. Regardless of the crawling technology used, Google has always allowed site owners to opt-out of crawling via the robots exclusion protocol...
Gary Illyes May 29, 2025
★★★ Should you really worry about crawl budget before hitting 1 million pages?
For an individual website, a threshold of around 1 million pages is the point where site owners should start concerning themselves with crawl budget. Below that, it's generally not a problem....
Gary Illyes May 29, 2025
★★★ Does Google's crawling really consume the most server resources?
Contrary to popular belief, it's not crawling that consumes the most resources at Google, but indexation and processing of the data retrieved that are truly resource-intensive....
Gary Illyes May 29, 2025
★★ Does Googlebot really support HTTP/3 for crawling your website?
Googlebot currently supports HTTP/2 for more efficient crawling using streamed connections. HTTP/3 is not yet supported but could be in the future....
Gary Illyes May 29, 2025
★★ Is Google Really Crawling Less of the Web, and Should You Worry About It?
Last year, Google actively worked to reduce its footprint on the internet by optimizing its crawling requests to save resources....
Gary Illyes May 29, 2025
★★ Why has Google multiplied its crawlers since the arrival of Mediapartners-Google?
In 2006, Google AdSense introduced its own distinct user agent separate from Googlebot. From this period onwards, Google began to have increasingly more separate crawlers with their own identifiers....
Gary Illyes May 29, 2025
★★ Does Google really ignore robots.txt when users take action?
When an action is initiated directly by a user (such as manually submitting a URL for inspection), it may be appropriate to ignore robots.txt because it's not truly a robot but a specific user action....
Gary Illyes May 29, 2025
★★ Is Technical SEO Still Essential in the Age of Artificial Intelligence?
After distinguishing between "programmatic SEO" and "technical SEO," John Mueller explained that technical SEO (namely making sites crawlable, indexable, and understandable) will continue to make sens...
John Mueller May 27, 2025
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