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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★★★ Should You Really Translate Image ALT Attributes to Optimize Your Multilingual SEO?
John Mueller indicated on Twitter that it was important, in terms of SEO, to also translate the ALT attributes (no, we don't say "ALT tags" 🙂) of a site's images, since this text is read by the search...
John Mueller Jan 29, 2018
★★★ Why Do Site Mergers and Splits Take Google So Much Longer to Index?
John Mueller explained on Twitter that when a website splits into multiple information sources (splitting into several domain names) or conversely, when several sites merge into one, the processing by...
John Mueller Jan 22, 2018
★★★ Can Spectre and Meltdown Security Patches Actually Hurt Your SEO Rankings?
John Mueller explained on Twitter that the Spectre and Meltdown patches, which slow down certain cloud service provider servers, should not have a significant impact on a site's page load time and the...
John Mueller Jan 22, 2018
★★★ Should You Delete Low-Quality Pages to Force Google to Index Everything?
John Mueller confirmed on Twitter that Google never indexes ALL pages of a website. And, as usual, following the search engine's well-oiled communication strategy, he added that the focus should prima...
John Mueller Jan 15, 2018
★★★ Why Does Google Ignore Images Declared in CSS Files?
John Mueller explained in a hangout that Google does not index images whose URL would be present in a CSS file. It only takes into account URLs present in the HTML code itself, and he recommended usin...
John Mueller Jan 15, 2018
★★★ Should You Really Include All Your Pages in Your XML Sitemap to Maximize SEO?
John Mueller has once again reminded us (as this has been stated several times in the past) that URLs present in the XML Sitemap file are often used by the search engine to define canonical page addre...
John Mueller Jan 15, 2018
★★★ Does Your Mobile Site Need the Same Structure as Desktop for SEO?
John Mueller clarified on Twitter that a site's architecture in its mobile version doesn't necessarily have to be the same as the desktop site, but this architecture must be crawlable by robots....
John Mueller Jan 08, 2018
Should You Use Google Tag Manager for SEO Testing?
John Mueller indicated on Twitter that he does not recommend using the Google Tag Manager tool to perform SEO tests on a number of tags, as a recently published article suggested. But he didn't explai...
John Mueller Jan 08, 2018
★★★ Does URL Folder Structure Really Impact Google Rankings?
Google indicated on Twitter that including folder names in a URL (example: www.yoursite.com/folder1/folder2/folder3/page.php) has no influence on rankings....
Google Jan 08, 2018
Should You Really Mark All Guest Blogging Links as Nofollow?
John Mueller also indicated in a hangout that, in his opinion, all links from guest blogging practices should be nofollow, which wouldn't prevent users reading the articles from clicking on the links ...
John Mueller Dec 27, 2017
★★★ Does Google Consider Hiding Structured Data from Users as Cloaking?
John Mueller indicated on Twitter that showing structured data tags to Googlebot only and not to the average user was considered by Google as cloaking and that this type of technique was therefore rep...
John Mueller Dec 27, 2017
★★★ Could Your Localized Pages Be Flagged as Doorway Pages by Google?
John Mueller clarified his definition of a "doorway page" in a hangout, in addition to the official definition: it refers to numerous pages offering identical or similar content, where the only thing ...
John Mueller Dec 27, 2017
★★ Should You Really Ignore Spammy Links in 2024?
Still in a hangout, John Mueller explains that today, Google tends to ignore spammy links rather than penalize sites that use them. And that it is now impossible to know whether, precisely, such and s...
John Mueller Dec 27, 2017
★★ Can an Expired SSL Certificate Really Not Affect Your Site's SEO?
Google recently sent a message to certain webmasters in Search Console indicating that their TLS certificate had expired and required renewal. However, John Mueller indicated in the same hangout as me...
John Mueller Dec 18, 2017
★★★ How Can You Tell If Your Site Has Moved to Google's Mobile First Index?
Regarding the Mobile First project, John Mueller indicated in a hangout that one way to know if a site has moved to the Mobile First index is to look at server logs and check Google's activity: if 80%...
John Mueller Dec 18, 2017
★★ Should You Use Generic Disavow Files Containing Lists of Toxic Sites?
Some webmasters use "standard" disavow files containing numerous toxic sites, even when these sites don't necessarily link to their website. However, John Mueller has indicated that Google does not en...
John Mueller Dec 18, 2017
★★★ How Should You Implement Hreflang Tags in a Mobile First Context?
John Mueller, on Twitter, explained that hreflang tags should follow a "mobile-to-mobile & desktop-to-desktop" pattern within the Mobile First project framework and in the case of a dedicated mobile s...
John Mueller Dec 04, 2017
★★★ Should Your Structured Data Really Reflect What's Visible on Your Pages?
John Mueller also indicated on Twitter that structured data tags (particularly Schema.org) inserted into a web page must absolutely describe the content visible to a user when they view the page in qu...
John Mueller Dec 04, 2017
★★ Should You Really Optimize TTFB to Improve Your Google Rankings?
John Mueller indicated on Twitter that Google does not take TTFB (Time To First Byte or server response time) into account in its algorithm or in any other way to measure the relevance of a result....
John Mueller Dec 04, 2017
★★★ Do You Really Need Perfect Keyword-Optimized URLs to Rank Well on Google?
John Mueller indicated on Twitter that a URL doesn't need to perfectly "match" the page content in its wording. For example, a page offering tomato soup recipes can have the URL tomates-leg-soup1.html...
John Mueller Nov 27, 2017
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