Is it true that “creating the best possible site” has become Google’s worst SEO advice?

Why is Google moving away from this generic discourse?

For years, Google has repeated the same refrain: “Focus on the user, create the best possible site.” The problem? This formula doesn’t specify the execution order or budgetary trade-offs.

Does an e-commerce site with 50,000 pages need to prioritize migrating to HTTPS, optimizing server response time, or rewriting product listings? All three are important, but an SEO manager can’t do it all at once. Martin Splitt recognizes this deadlock: without a clear hierarchy, webmasters are navigating blind.

What exactly does “actionable recommendations” mean?

An actionable recommendation is a directive that specifies what to do, in what order, and with what expected impact. For example: “Migrate to HTTPS before optimizing the LCP if your site handles transactions.” Or: “Fix critical 404 errors before working on internal linking if your crawl rate is saturated.”

Splitt’s discourse suggests that Google could provide prioritization matrices or decision trees. But so far, nothing of the sort has been published. We remain with a commendable intention but no user manual.

Does this statement change anything immediately?

No. It's a confession of clarity, not an operational turnaround. Google admits that its discourse helps no one make informed decisions.

As long as no detailed documentation is released — with quantified examples, vertical use cases (e-commerce vs. media vs. B2B), and prioritization criteria — this statement remains in the realm of good intentions. Helpful for reframing the debate, but not for making swift development decisions.

• Google acknowledges the ineffectiveness of its past generic advice
• Webmasters need clear optimization hierarchies to arbitrate budgets and roadmaps
• No concrete documentation has yet been published to translate this intention into methodology
• Prioritization varies based on vertical, technical budget, and the current SEO health of the site
• This admission paves the way for more granular resources, but the timing remains unclear

Is this statement consistent with observed practices on the ground?

Yes and no. Yes, because it has been observed for years that Google’s guidelines lack operational granularity. Clients regularly ask us: “Where do we start?” Facing an audit listing 120 recommendations, it’s impossible to address everything. The question of marginal ROI becomes central.

No, because Google has already published more precise resources — Search Central, the “SEO Office Hours” videos, Core Web Vitals case studies. The issue isn’t a complete lack of actionable content; it’s that it’s scattered, sometimes contradictory, and never prioritized within a budget/impact arbitration logic.

What nuances should be added to this announcement?

Splitt does not say that all sites should follow the same sequence. An e-commerce pure player with a 3% conversion rate and an LCP of 4.5 seconds does not have the same priorities as a media site with 80% mobile traffic and a crawl budget issue on archives.

The real difficulty is that Google cannot publish a universal playbook. Each vertical has its specifics, and each CMS has its constraints. But one could imagine conditional matrices: “If your CWV is orange AND you monetize per transaction, start with X. If your problem is crawl budget AND you publish 50 articles a day, start with Y.” [To be verified]: no resource of this type officially exists to date.

In what cases does this approach not apply?

If your site has fewer than 100 pages and less than 10,000 sessions per month, detailed prioritization is often an unnecessary luxury. You can handle most optimizations in parallel without saturating your resources. Splitt’s discourse targets high-volume sites with overloaded tech teams and tight budgetary trade-offs.

Another case: sites manually penalized or affected by a major algorithm (Helpful Content, Spam Update). Here, the priority is clear: fix the cause of the penalty, regardless of anything else. No decision matrix is needed. Urgency overrides everything.

What should be done concretely while waiting for more precise guidelines?

First step: map your optimizations by estimated impact and implementation cost. Build a two-axis matrix (SEO impact / technical effort). Quick wins (high impact, low effort) should come first. Heavy projects with uncertain ROI should be last.

Second step: segment by issue. Do not mix speed, indexing, content, and backlinks in a single roadmap. Address each lever in its own track, with its own KPIs. For example: if your crawl budget is saturated, focus on robots.txt, pagination, and canonicals before touching on design or wording.

What mistakes should be avoided in this phase of uncertainty?

Mistake #1: waiting for Google to publish an official user manual before taking action. You’ll lose six months, even a year. The fundamentals remain the fundamentals: HTTPS, mobile-friendly, clean HTML structure, unique content, consistent internal links. None of these optimizations will ever be deprioritized.

Mistake #2: overemphasizing Core Web Vitals at the expense of indexing or content. Yes, speed matters. No, an LCP of 2.3 seconds will never compensate for an empty site or a shaky hierarchy. Prioritization must remain balanced, not obsessive over a single lever.

How can I check that my decisions are the right ones?

Implement incremental impact tracking. Before each deployment, note your KPIs (organic traffic, GSC impressions, Core Web Vitals, crawl rate). After deployment, measure the evolution over 4 to 6 weeks. If there’s no significant movement, either the optimization was secondary, or it masks a deeper issue.

Another method: test in a segmented environment. If you have multiple categories of similar content, deploy an optimization on one and keep the other as control. Compare traffic curves. This is more rigorous than a global before/after where ten variables change at once.

• Build an impact/effort matrix to prioritize optimizations
• Segment projects by lever (speed, indexing, content, links)
• Deploy in short iterations with before/after impact measurement
• Do not wait for Google guidelines to act on the fundamentals
• Balance efforts between technical, content, and authority
• Test in a segmented environment when possible