Official statement
Other statements from this video 1 ▾
Google treats <em> and <i> tags the same for SEO purposes. There is no algorithmic distinction between semantic emphasis and simple visual formatting. For SEO, this means that optimizing the choice between these tags in hopes of ranking gains is a myth, but adhering to HTML5 standards is still good practice for accessibility and code maintenance.
What you need to understand
What HTML5 differences exist between and ?
From a web standards perspective, denotes semantic emphasis. The marked content is to be understood as accentuated, carrying a particular meaning in the context of the sentence. A screen reader might modulate its voice to reflect this intent.
The tag is used solely for visual formatting, without semantic reach. It typically applies to technical terms, scientific names, foreign words, or inner thoughts. HTML5 recommends this distinction to accurately structure the markup, but Google claims to completely ignore it.
Why does this statement surprise some SEO practitioners?
For years, a part of the SEO community believed that semantic tags conferred an advantage. The idea was that marking emphasis with allowed algorithms to better grasp the intent behind content, particularly for natural language processing.
This belief was based on the assumption that Google utilized the semantic richness of modern HTML. The official statement sweeps this assumption away: for crawling and ranking, and are strictly equivalent. Engineers make no algorithmic distinction between these two tags.
Does Google really treat all formatting tags in the same way?
Be careful, this statement only refers to italics ( vs ). It says nothing about other pairs of tags, such as vs , or Furthermore, we know that Google places varying importance depending on the type of markup. Headings vs
to
hold hierarchical weight, convey PageRank, and structuring tags like
SEO Expert opinion
Is this statement consistent with field observations?
Yes, largely. No serious study has ever demonstrated a measurable impact of the choice between and on SERP positions. A/B tests where only this tag changes have never produced detectable ranking variations. This statement confirms what has been observed for years.
The only anecdotal cases circulating in the community stem from confirmation bias. Someone changes their site to , notices an improvement weeks later, and attributes the correlation to the tag. However, dozens of factors evolve in parallel: content freshness, backlinks, user behavior, algorithm updates. It is impossible to isolate the effect of an italic tag in this noise.
Should we conclude that HTML semantics is useless for SEO?
No. Google utilizes certain semantic tags, particularly structured data (schema.org), the
However, not all semantic tags are equal. and fall into a category that is little exploited algorithmically. Google prefers to analyze lexical context, co-occurrences, and the semantic embeddings of raw text. An emphasis tag on three words changes nothing in this analysis. [To be verified] if Google uses these tags for other internal purposes (citation extraction, tone analysis), but no documentation suggests this.
What risks are there if we completely ignore this official recommendation?
No direct SEO risk. You can continue to use everywhere without penalty. Google will not penalize you for imperfect HTML5 markup, as long as the visual rendering remains consistent and the content is crawlable.
The only concern relates to digital accessibility. Users of screen readers benefit from smoother navigation when real emphases are marked with . Certain regulations (RGAA, WCAG) impose semantically correct markup for public sites or those receiving assistance. But this is a legal and UX issue, not a Google ranking problem.
Practical impact and recommendations
What should you practically do with these tags?
Stop wasting time auditing your vs tags. If your site uses extensively for historical or CSS framework reasons, do not launch a redesign just to switch to . The SEO impact is null, and the risk of breaking existing CSS or scripts far outweighs the hypothetical benefit.
Instead, adopt a consistent convention for new content. If you are writing in modern HTML5, use for real emphases and for technical terms or citations. This improves the readability of the source code for developers and facilitates maintenance. But do not expect any ranking boost.
How can I check that my site is not abusing these tags?
An excessive use of emphasis tags can harm the user experience, even though Google does not care. Too many italics make a text hard to scan visually. Audit your site with a crawler (Screaming Frog, Oncrawl) and extract pages containing more than 20 or tags.
Then manually check these pages. If every second sentence is in italics, you dilute real emphasis and tire the reader. Reduce usage to truly important terms or citations. SEO is also about UX: a user quickly leaving the page will send a negative signal to Google, regardless of the tags.
Should we train writers on this distinction?
It all depends on your context. For a small editorial team using a wysiwyg CMS, the distinction / is invisible: the editor clicks on "italic" and the CMS automatically generates a tag. Training the team on this point is unnecessary.
If you work with writers who write directly in Markdown or HTML, give them a simple guideline: use to emphasize a word, for foreign words or technical terms. But make it clear that it is a rule of editorial consistency, not an SEO lever. Avoid overselling the impact of this practice.
- Do not launch a technical redesign to convert to across the entire site.
- Adopt a consistent convention for new HTML5 content.
- Audit pages with excessive italic usage (> 20 occurrences) to check UX.
- Only train writers if they are writing in HTML/Markdown, and do not oversell the SEO impact.
- Focus your efforts on high ROI optimizations: titles, internal linking, content, backlinks.
- Keep these tags for their primary function: improving readability and accessibility.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
Dois-je convertir toutes mes balises <i> en <em> pour améliorer mon SEO ?
La balise <em> est-elle plus forte sémantiquement que <i> pour les algorithmes ?
Est-ce que mixer <em> et <i> dans une même page peut pénaliser mon site ?
Les lecteurs d'écran font-ils une différence entre <em> et <i> ?
Faut-il privilégier <strong> plutôt que <em> pour mettre en avant des mots-clés ?
🎥 From the same video 1
Other SEO insights extracted from this same Google Search Central video · duration 1 min · published on 21/10/2013
🎥 Watch the full video on YouTube →Get real-time analysis of the latest Google SEO declarations
Be the first to know every time a new official Google statement drops — with full expert analysis.
💬 Comments (0)
Be the first to comment.