What does Google say about SEO? /
Pagination and site structure represent core foundations of web architecture and search engine optimization. This category compiles Google's official statements regarding hierarchical content organization, navigation systems, and pagination mechanisms. The stakes are significant: facilitating crawling and indexation by bots, optimizing crawl budget allocation, enhancing user experience, and efficiently distributing authority across pages. Google has evolved its guidance on rel next/prev tags, now deprecated, while maintaining the importance of logical silo-based architecture. Breadcrumb navigation remains a structural element valued for contextual page understanding. SEO practitioners will find official positions on internal linking strategies, tab-based organization, navigation menus, and their impact on organic visibility. Understanding Google's directives on these structural aspects helps avoid architecture mistakes that fragment authority or create indexation black holes, while building a solid foundation for long-term organic performance. Proper implementation of site structure principles directly influences how search engines discover, understand, and rank content, making this knowledge essential for technical SEO success and sustainable search visibility across large-scale websites.
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🕒 ~1 min 🎯 5 questions
★★★ Should you really monitor Search Console access for your SEO vendors?
Google recommends regularly checking verification access in Search Console when working with external teams. Verification access is found in the Search Console Settings menu....
John Mueller Jul 26, 2023
★★★ Should You Really Avoid Changing Your 301 Redirects Too Frequently?
On Reddit, John Mueller explained that it is possible to cancel a permanent 301 redirect, but that he doesn't recommend doing this to redirect content elsewhere in the short term: "I would prefer that...
John Mueller Jul 18, 2023
★★★ Should you really mark every affiliate link with rel=nofollow or rel=sponsored?
Affiliate sites are acceptable. There is no special structured data to signal that a site is affiliate-based. Affiliate links must be marked with rel=nofollow or rel=sponsored so that search engines k...
John Mueller Jul 11, 2023
★★ Should You Place Your Blog Posts in a /blog/ Subfolder or at the Root of Your Site?
On Reddit, John Mueller responded to a user who was wondering whether it was better to place their blog articles in a /blog/ directory or if it was possible to put them at the root. His response: "Goo...
John Mueller Jul 11, 2023
★★ Does the disavow tool really delete toxic backlinks from Google's index?
The link disavow tool tells Google not to count links for ranking, but it doesn't remove them from the web or from Google's systems. Links from foreign language websites are perfectly acceptable and c...
John Mueller Jul 11, 2023
★★★ Is Semantic HTML Markup Really an SEO Ranking Factor?
In a video published on the Google Search Central channel, John Mueller answered a question about the role of semantic HTML markup in SEO and website rankings. The famous Google employee clarified tha...
John Mueller Jul 04, 2023
★★ Should you really ban HTML tables for page layouts?
Table elements should be used to present tabular data and not to position text or create a layout....
John Mueller Jun 29, 2023
★★ Should you really use Hn tags instead of styling your headings visually with CSS?
It is recommended to use appropriate HTML heading elements to structure text blocks, rather than simply enlarging text visually....
John Mueller Jun 29, 2023
★★★ Is semantic HTML really decisive for your search rankings?
Semantic HTML helps search engines understand a page. It involves using HTML elements to structure content according to their meaning rather than their appearance....
John Mueller Jun 29, 2023
★★★ Should You Abandon Google Business Profile for Google Merchant Center for Your Products?
To silence the rumors about the potential disappearance of products from Google Business Profile (GBP) following an email promoting the Merchant Center service, Ginny Marvin from the Google AdsLiaison...
Google Jun 20, 2023
★★ Why doesn't Google cache certain pages on your website?
Some pages are not cached due to Google's infrastructure system design choices. This does not mean there is a problem with the indexation of these pages....
John Mueller Jun 20, 2023
★★★ Do Multiple Navigation Menus Actually Hurt Your Site's SEO?
Finally, Gary Illyes indicated that having multiple navigation menus (for example a main menu and a secondary menu) had no impact on a site's performance: "It's highly unlikely that having multiple na...
Gary Illyes Jun 13, 2023
★★ Does Google really care about the difference between HTML and XML sitemaps? Here's what John Mueller revealed
An HTML sitemap is intended for users and may indicate unclear navigation. An XML sitemap is exclusively for search engine crawlers. These are two different tools despite sharing a similar name....
John Mueller Jun 07, 2023
★★ Why isn't schema.org compliance enough to guarantee Google rich results?
Schema.org defines data types and attributes in an open and vendor-independent manner. Google, like other vendors, may have stricter specific requirements for certain attributes in order to use struct...
Martin Splitt Jun 07, 2023
★★ Do multiple navigation menus really hurt your SEO?
Having multiple navigation menus (main menu and secondary menu) has virtually no effect on a website's SEO performance....
Gary Illyes Jun 07, 2023
★★★ Should You Really Avoid Charitable Donations in Exchange for Google Business Reviews?
Joy Hawkins from Sterlingsky asked Google whether making a donation to a charitable organization in exchange for a review, whether positive or not, was acceptable or not. According to Google, the prac...
Google Jun 06, 2023
★★ Are you missing out on rich snippet opportunities? How to master search appearance fields and dominate your SERP real estate?
The URL table includes several boolean fields showing whether the URL was displayed with a specific search appearance, such as is_job_listing, is_events, etc....
Daniel Waisberg Jun 01, 2023
★★★ Did you know Google counts only one impression when multiple pages from your site appear in the same search results?
In the searchdata_site_impression table, data is aggregated by property. If two pages appear in the same Google search result, you will only see one impression. For position, it's the highest position...
Daniel Waisberg Jun 01, 2023
★★★ Should you really limit queries by date in Search Console to optimize your performance?
You should limit queries by date as much as possible to speed up queries and save processing costs. This is done with a WHERE clause to restrict the date range in the partitioned table....
Daniel Waisberg Jun 01, 2023
★★ Why does Google anonymize certain URLs in your Discover data, and what does it mean for your SEO strategy?
The searchdata_url_impression table includes a boolean field indicating whether the URL is anonymized for Discover in order to protect user privacy....
Daniel Waisberg Jun 01, 2023
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