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 Create Alternative Versions of Your Site for AI Bots?
Developers are experimenting with a technique that involves detecting AI bots and serving them raw Markdown instead of complete HTML. The objective: reduce token usage (up to 95% according to one deve...
John Mueller Feb 10, 2026
★★ Is Google really acting as a technical consultant for WordPress plugin developers?
Google's Search Relations team identifies WordPress plugins generating crawl problems and submits issues on their open source repositories. WooCommerce quickly resolved a reported problem concerning a...
Gary Illyes Feb 03, 2026
★★ Should you really get rid of session IDs in your URLs?
Session IDs in URLs are an obsolete practice from the 2000s. Crawlers don't need to access session IDs because they don't maintain session persistence. These parameters can be blocked via robots.txt....
Gary Illyes Feb 03, 2026
★★ Is double URL encoding silently killing your crawl budget?
Double percent encoding of URLs (encoding an already encoded URL) represents about 2% of issues. Google decodes URLs once, but if they have been encoded twice, the URLs remain incorrect and the site c...
Gary Illyes Feb 03, 2026
★★ Should you replace GET parameters with PUT requests to protect your crawl budget?
It is very rare that Googlebot uses HTTP PUT requests. Using PUT requests instead of GET parameters for actions like adding to cart would help prevent these URLs from being crawled....
Gary Illyes Feb 03, 2026
★★ Should You Really Wait for a Google Update to Explain Your Ranking Fluctuations?
In January 2026, Google results experienced very high volatility. Google officially confirmed no update that would explain these fluctuations. Questioned on Bluesky about a ranking drop in the USA, Jo...
John Mueller Feb 03, 2026
★★★ Should you really block faceted navigation in robots.txt?
To control the crawling of faceted navigation, the most reasonable method is to use robots.txt to block these paths. Google's robots.txt file provides examples of parameter combinations to allow or bl...
Gary Illyes Feb 03, 2026
★★★ Is faceted navigation really eating up half of your crawl budget?
Faceted navigation (filters and sorting on e-commerce sites) accounts for nearly 50% of crawl problem reports received in 2025. It creates URL combinations that can overwhelm servers because Googlebot...
Gary Illyes Feb 03, 2026
★★★ Are your WordPress calendar parameters secretly destroying your crawl budget?
Calendar and event date parameters account for 5% of issues. Certain WordPress plugins create infinite calendar URL spaces on every path of your site, which prevents Google from detecting soft 404s an...
Gary Illyes Feb 03, 2026
★★ Are short URL parameters really draining your crawl budget?
Irrelevant parameters (UTM, session IDs) make up 10% of reported issues. Google handles standard parameters well like session_id, j_session_id or utm_medium, but short non-standard parameters (like s=...
Gary Illyes Feb 03, 2026
★★★ Are action parameters in your URLs sabotaging your crawl budget?
Action parameters (such as add_to_cart=true or add_to_wishlist=true) in URLs represent approximately 25% of crawl problem reports. These parameters can double or triple your crawlable URL space. Googl...
Gary Illyes Feb 03, 2026
★★ Do you really have to wait 24 hours for robots.txt changes to take effect with Google?
robots.txt files are cached by Google for a duration that can extend up to approximately 24 hours. Modifications made to robots.txt are therefore not immediate but remain the most sensible method for ...
Gary Illyes Feb 03, 2026
★★★ Should you implement an LLMs.txt file to improve your SEO?
John Mueller from Google clarified that the presence of LLMs.txt files on certain Google sites does not in any way represent a recommendation or endorsement from the company. This clarification follow...
John Mueller Jan 27, 2026
★★★ Why Will Google Gemini Remain Ad-Free While ChatGPT Integrates Them?
Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, confirmed at the World Economic Forum in Davos that Google has "no plans" to integrate advertising into Gemini. This statement comes just after OpenAI's announc...
Google Jan 27, 2026
★★ Will Google's Universal Commerce Protocol Really Kill E-commerce SEO?
An SEO professional named Ramon Eijkemans expressed strong concerns, claiming that "SEOs are screwed" with the arrival of UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol). According to him, UCP will handle all optim...
John Mueller Jan 20, 2026
★★★ Are favicons disappearing from SERPs a signal of a Google penalty?
John Mueller confirmed on LinkedIn that the display or disappearance of favicons in Google search results is not affected by core updates. This clarification follows the complaint of a user whose favi...
John Mueller Jan 20, 2026
★★★ Should you abandon SEO to focus on GEO (AI optimization)?
On Reddit, John Mueller reframed the SEO/GEO debate as a resource allocation question rather than a terminology issue. Fundamentally, John Mueller neither validates nor rejects the term GEO, which ref...
John Mueller Jan 13, 2026
★★ Why is Google installing hidden LLMs.txt files on its own sites without having planned it?
A few weeks ago, the existence of LLMs.txt files was discovered on several sites linked to Google. According to John Mueller, these files were not added intentionally to facilitate AI discovery, but a...
John Mueller Jan 13, 2026
★★ Should small businesses really abandon SEO technical optimization?
For typical small businesses, focusing on minor ephemeral technical details isn't sustainable. They should instead invest their time in what genuinely matters for their customer base and what truly de...
Danny Sullivan Jan 08, 2026
★★★ Should you really stop obsessing over technical SEO details?
Focusing on the core objectives of SEO rather than on small technical details allows you to weather changes over time. Data shows that the best practice remains to focus on truly excellent content....
Danny Sullivan Jan 08, 2026
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