What does Google say about SEO? /
This category compiles all official Google statements regarding JavaScript and technical aspects of search engine optimization. Modern JavaScript frameworks (React, Angular, Vue.js) and web application architectures (SPA, SSR, CSR) present critical challenges for crawling and indexing. Google's guidance on JavaScript rendering, dynamic DOM manipulation, AJAX implementation, and API calls is essential for ensuring client-side content visibility. SEO professionals will find authoritative positions on implementation best practices, differences between server-side and client-side rendering, and recommendations for optimizing load times while guaranteeing content accessibility to search crawlers. Understanding data formats (JSON, XML) and their SEO implications completes this vital resource. These official declarations help prevent common technical implementation mistakes that can severely impact the search performance of modern websites and JavaScript-powered applications. Access to Google's verified positions on these technical matters enables practitioners to make informed architectural decisions and implement JavaScript solutions that maintain strong organic search visibility while delivering enhanced user experiences.
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★★★ How Can You Prevent Google from Indexing Your Pre-Production Site?
John Mueller posted a fairly lengthy message on Google+ about the best way to prevent a test site (pre-production) from being indexed by Google, as we unfortunately see so often. If this mishap happen...
John Mueller Aug 21, 2017
Does disavowing poor-quality backlinks really carry a negative impact?
Gary Illyes indicated on Twitter that a disavowed site, therefore designated as providing low-quality links, was not negatively impacted subsequently by Google's algorithm. The links it provides are s...
Gary Illyes Aug 14, 2017
★★ Does Googlebot Send a Referrer When Crawling Your Pages?
John Mueller indicated on Twitter that Googlebot, when crawling a page, does not return a referrer URL, as a user would when browsing on a browser. A Googlebot visit is therefore similar to direct tra...
John Mueller Aug 14, 2017
★★ What's the Maximum Page Size Google Will Actually Crawl?
John Mueller explained that Googlebot's current crawl limit for a web page is 200 MB (the last known limit in 2015 was 10 MB)....
John Mueller Aug 14, 2017
★★ Should You Really Deindex Your Internal Search Results Pages?
John Mueller explained on Twitter why Google requires internal search results pages from a website to be deindexed: they create infinite crawl spaces, are often low-quality pages, and frequently prese...
John Mueller Aug 14, 2017
Are PBNs Really Detected and Penalized by Google?
John Mueller indicated in a hangout that Google's algorithms detect PBNs without too much difficulty and, for those that slip under the radar, the "webspam team" loves diving into them......
John Mueller Aug 14, 2017
★★★ Does the Order of URLs in an XML Sitemap File Actually Matter to Google?
John Mueller explained on Twitter that you can structure your XML Sitemap file absolutely however you want in terms of field order, and this won't cause any problems for Google. The file is read autom...
John Mueller Aug 07, 2017
★★★ Does Google Really Consider a Disavow File as a Spam Signal?
In the series of odd questions, another internet user asked Gary Illyes whether submitting a disavow file to Google for a site was a spam signal for the search engine. Gary naturally replied that it w...
Gary Illyes Aug 07, 2017
★★ How Is Google Rolling Out Mobile First Indexing Site by Site?
John Mueller indicated on Twitter that Google was considering launching the Mobile First index site by site, as soon as the algorithm determines that the site in question will be ready for it. Therefo...
John Mueller Jun 26, 2017
★★★ How Long Does It Really Take for Google to Process a Site Migration?
Gary Illyes explained at the SMX Advanced conference that processing a site migration (domain name change and/or URL structure change) by Google can take 3 months, depending on the site's size, and no...
Gary Illyes Jun 26, 2017
★★ Should You Create a Specific Meta Tag to Optimize Your Content for Featured Snippets?
Gary Illyes explained at the SMX Advanced conference that Google would not be offering specific data on the appearance of your site's content in featured snippets in the Search Console in the short te...
Gary Illyes Jun 19, 2017
★★★ Does Google Simply Ignore Spammy Links or Do They Trigger Penalties?
Gary Illyes indicated on Twitter that if links were not recognized as "blatant attempts to manipulate" the search engine's algorithm, there was a strong chance they would be purely and simply ignored ...
Gary Illyes Jun 12, 2017
★★★ How Long Can You Use a 503 Code Before Risking Deindexation?
John Mueller reminded us on Twitter that using a 503 code (Service Unavailable) is not a problem if it's implemented for a few hours (for a quick maintenance operation, for example), but it should not...
John Mueller Jun 12, 2017
★★★ Does Nofollow Really Burn Your Crawl Budget?
John Mueller indicated on Twitter that using a "nofollow" attribute on links does not "burn" crawl budget for a website. Fortunately so. We can even say that this technique is rather beneficial in thi...
John Mueller Jun 06, 2017
★★★ How can you know exactly how Google sees and understands your web page?
John Mueller explained on Twitter that if you want to know how Google sees your web page, it's better to use Search Console (Crawl section > Fetch as Google) than the "Cached" option available in sear...
John Mueller Jun 06, 2017
★★★ How Many Pages from the Same Website Can Appear in Google Results?
John Mueller indicated on Twitter that the same site can appear multiple times (with different pages) on the same results page. There is no (longer any) limit to the number of URLs from the same site ...
John Mueller May 29, 2017
★★ Should You Really Disavow All Links Coming from Spammy Sites?
John Mueller indicated that links from "spammy" sites are not necessarily unnatural. And that the priority should be to track down (and disavow) unnatural links. He also explained that you can have na...
John Mueller May 22, 2017
★★★ Does Google Really Keep All Your Past SEO Mistakes in Memory Forever?
When asked whether Google could forget certain practices performed by a website in the past, John Mueller replied that the search engine had "a lot of storage space". We can confirm this: Google forge...
John Mueller May 15, 2017
★★ Does Domain Age Really Impact Google Rankings?
John Mueller indicated on Twitter that the age (seniority) of a domain name is not a relevance criterion for Google's algorithm (although this is a deeply rooted belief in the SEO community). It's pos...
John Mueller Apr 24, 2017
★★★ Should You Really Remove the Priority Parameter from Your XML Sitemaps?
Gary Illyes indicated on Twitter that the priority indexing parameters in XML Sitemap files were a "bag of noise." Basically, this indication serves no purpose and, for once, we completely agree with ...
Gary Illyes Apr 10, 2017
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