Gary Illyes

★★★ Why isn't your new website's homepage getting indexed by Google?

When a new website fails to get its homepage indexed, it's almost always due to a technical problem. Google cannot evaluate content quality before it has crawled and indexed at least a few pages, so t...

Jun 22, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Is hreflang distorting your indexation reports in Search Console?

With hreflang, when multiple regional versions have quasi-identical content (ex: Germany, Austria, Switzerland with the same language), Google may canonicalize toward a single version. Reporting in Se...

Jun 22, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why will your 'site under construction' pages never get indexed by Google?

Generic 'site under construction' pages automatically created by hosting providers for newly purchased domains are typically detected by Google's soft error system and will not be indexed, because the...

Jun 22, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why do some pages get indexed in seconds while others never appear in Google at all?

Indexing time varies enormously depending on the interest and popularity of the content. For a viral event with numerous backlinks (like Eurovision), indexing can happen in seconds. For isolated conte...

Jun 22, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can Google still index the entire web?

The internet has reached a size where it is no longer possible to index it in its entirety, even with considerable resources. Search engines must make choices and prioritize the most relevant and high...

Jun 22, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google really impose an indexation quota on your website?

Google does not apply an indexation quota per site. A single site can have different types of content indexed simultaneously. However, Google may choose not to index certain pages to make room for new...

Jun 22, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does deleting old content really boost your new pages' indexation speed?

It is not necessary to delete old content (even irrelevant content) to improve the indexation of new content. Google does not have an indexation quota per site. Old and new content can coexist without...

Jun 22, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really be using Google Search Console's 'Request indexing' button?

For a normally well-built website, it is generally not necessary to use the 'Request indexing' feature in Search Console. This feature is mainly useful for testing whether a page can be indexed, detec...

Jun 22, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is the site: operator truly reliable for measuring your website's indexation?

The 'site:' command in Google Search does not display all indexed pages on a site, only a selection. It is not technically feasible to list all pages using this operator. To obtain the total number of...

Jun 22, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ What can you really do with the site: operator beyond just checking indexation?

The 'site:' operator is useful for searching unwanted keywords on your site (spam, injected content), finding localized versions of pages, or checking which images are indexed. Google Alerts can also ...

Jun 22, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Implement HTTP 103 Early Hints to Improve Your SEO?

On LinkedIn, Gary Illyes clarified how Google handles 103 Early Hints responses in HTTP headers: "HTTP 103 should be handled gracefully by Googlebot. If the server response is formatted as described i...

Jun 20, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should You Really Consolidate Pages Ranking for the Same Queries?

During the June 2023 SEO Office Hours, Gary Illyes recommended consolidating text results from the same domain that appear one above the other. Referred to as "host clusters" by Google, these results ...

Jun 13, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Your Video Really Need to Be at the Top of the Page to Rank as Primary Content?

Another point addressed during Google's SEO Office Hours concerns the position of videos within content. The recent change to video thumbnail display seems to have generated some confusion among certa...

Jun 13, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ 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...

Jun 13, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google really penalize multiple domains targeting the same market, or is this just another SEO myth?

Using two domains with different TLDs to target the same country with identical keywords may be considered search result manipulation according to Google's anti-spam policies. This can also create con...

Jun 07, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is it really worth your time submitting an XML sitemap to Google?

Submitting a sitemap tells Google where your content is located, but it absolutely does not guarantee that URLs will be crawled or indexed. Crawling and indexing depend on content quality and relative...

Jun 07, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does Google really reprocess your sitemap on every crawl?

Google doesn't reprocess a sitemap that hasn't changed since the last crawl, as a resource optimization strategy. As soon as a change appears (URL or lastmod), the sitemap is analyzed again. Deleting ...

Jun 07, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does Google really ignore structured data that contains parsing errors?

If structured data contains parsing errors, Google cannot extract information from it and ignores it completely....

Jun 07, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ How can you permanently block Googlebot from crawling your website?

To block Googlebot permanently, add a disallow / rule for the Googlebot user-agent in robots.txt. To block complete network access, create a firewall rule denying Googlebot IP ranges, available in the...

Jun 07, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ 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....

Jun 07, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available