Gary Illyes

★★ Can Google really display rich results without schema markup?

Even without specific schema markup, Google can automatically add certain rich results elements to the SERPs, such as review stars. Schema markup is not always necessary to obtain these enriched displ...

Apr 25, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can a Server Outage Really Destroy Your Google Rankings?

During the SEO Office Hours in April 2024, Gary Illyes explained that brief service interruptions, indicated by a 503 code, had no significant impact on the crawl rate. However, if these interruptions...

Apr 23, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Will Changing Your Web Host Hurt Your Google Rankings?

In the latest SEO Office Hours, Gary Illyes indicated that changing hosting providers has no negative impact on page rankings in Google search results, provided that downtime is minimal....

Apr 23, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Use Google's Indexing API to Speed Up Your Pages' Rankings?

Gary Illyes reminded us that the Indexing API is limited to job postings and event livestreaming: "It might still work, but since it's intended for these two things, I wouldn't be surprised if it sudd...

Apr 23, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why does the text result remain the most strategic element of Google SERPs?

The text result is the most common visual element on a Google search results page. It comprises few components, but most are controlled by the website owner....

Apr 23, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is Google really rewriting your title tags as often as people think?

The title link displayed in search results comes from the HTML title tag of the website, at least most of the time. It's one of the elements that website owners can control....

Apr 23, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can you really control what appears in your SERP snippet, or does Google have the final say?

The snippet (description excerpt) displayed in search results comes directly from the web page's content. It's an element that can be controlled by the site owner....

Apr 23, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do webmasters really have complete control over Google search result attribution elements?

The attribution elements of a search result include the favicon, the site name, and the visual URL (which typically resembles a breadcrumb trail). All of these elements can be controlled by website ow...

Apr 23, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why does Google display your URLs as breadcrumb trails in search results?

The visual URL displayed in search results generally takes the form of a breadcrumb trail, allowing the site structure to be shown in a hierarchical manner....

Apr 23, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ How can you precisely control the appearance of your results in Google's SERP?

Google provides comprehensive documentation on Search Central explaining how to control the different elements that make up a search result, allowing webmasters to optimize their display....

Apr 23, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google really rewrite your title tags whenever it wants?

Title links in search results are generated based on page content. In many cases, the title link is identical to the title element in the page's HTML, which site owners can control directly....

Apr 23, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can heading tags really replace your title tag in the SERPs?

Title links can also be generated from the heading tags (titles) present on the page, which means that site owners can control them directly....

Apr 23, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Can external anchor texts really take over your title tags in Google search results?

In certain cases, particularly when page content is unavailable, the title link can be generated from external sources such as anchor texts, which are the visible part of links....

Apr 23, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google really pull snippets only from what users see when they land on your page?

Generally, the snippet is chosen from what users would see when arriving on the page. Site owners have direct control over the snippet text because it comes solely from their page content....

Apr 23, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can Google really use your alt tags and meta descriptions to build your snippets?

If the page does not contain enough text, the snippet can be extracted from otherwise invisible text such as image alt attributes and the meta description element....

Apr 23, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How can you disable snippet display in Google search results using the nosnippet tag?

You can control whether Google displays a snippet in search results for a particular page by using the meta robots nosnippet tag....

Apr 23, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can you really control how long your snippets appear in Google search results with max-snippet?

You can control the maximum length of the snippet displayed in search results by using the meta robots max-snippet tag....

Apr 23, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How can you prevent specific content from showing up in your Google snippets?

If you don't want a particular passage to appear in the snippet, you can use the data-nosnippet HTML attribute on certain specific HTML elements....

Apr 23, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does your URL structure really impact how Google displays breadcrumbs in search results?

Changing your URLs can alter how breadcrumbs are displayed in Google search results....

Apr 23, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can you actually control how your site name appears in search results using structured data?

Modifying structured data can update your site name as it appears in search results....

Apr 23, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available