Gary Illyes

★★★ Is it true that Google indexes canonical AMP pages just like classic HTML?

When a page is both standalone and canonical (standalone AMP), Google treats it exactly like a normal HTML page and it can be indexed in the same way as a classic HTML page....

Nov 16, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does AMP really enhance your Google rankings?

AMP is not inherently a ranking signal in Google's algorithm. The AMP badge displayed in search results is purely visual and does not affect positioning....

Nov 16, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why does Google index your images with a completely separate system from the rest of your content?

Google uses a completely different indexing mechanism for images. During content conversion, image tags are extracted and their URLs are sent to a specialized image indexer that performs image recogni...

Nov 16, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why is video indexing so complicated for Google (and how can you take advantage of it)?

Video indexing is very complex because it requires processing around 20-24 frames per second plus the audio track to understand the content. Google uses the same indexing mechanism as for images, but ...

Nov 16, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why Does Google Sometimes Display the Wrong Date for Your Pages in Search Results?

Gary Illyes explained on Twitter that if the date displayed by Google in its search results was incorrect, the fault lay in the majority of cases with the website itself, which provided erroneous info...

Oct 19, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do Core Web Vitals Really Matter for Google Rankings?

Gary Illyes explained on Reddit that the "Core Web Vitals (CWV)" project, which was set to launch in 2021, would not be a heavily weighted criterion in the algorithm: "Google strives to present the hi...

Sep 09, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Index Automatically Translated Content Without Human Review?

Gary Illyes indicated on Twitter that the official recommendation was not to index content that would be translated automatically (with software/algorithm like GPT-3) without subsequent human review. ...

Aug 24, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should You Avoid JavaScript Redirects for SEO?

Gary Illyes explained on Twitter that implementing redirects from one URL to another (in this case based on the visitor's IP address to redirect them to a specific site depending on the country) was n...

Jul 13, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Really Be Using the rel=sponsored Attribute on Your Paid Links?

Gary Illyes indicated in a podcast that currently, approximately one million websites were using the "rel=sponsored" attribute in their links, 9 months after the official announcement......

Jun 22, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do You Really Need to Configure International Targeting in Search Console to Rank Locally?

Gary Illyes on Reddit explained that indicating in Search Console the target country of a site ("International Targeting" option) was "an important indication that can help in the country in question,...

May 11, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do All Your Hreflang URLs Really Need to Be Crawled and Indexed for Google to Recognize Them?

Gary Illyes explained on Reddit that for a site's Hreflang tags to be fully taken into consideration, all URLs referenced by these tags must be crawled and indexed....

Mar 09, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does a Google Manual Action Leave a Permanent Mark on Your SEO History?

Gary Illyes (Google Zurich) stated on Twitter that a site that gets "caught by the patrol" and receives a manual action starts from scratch in terms of "trust" once the penalty is removed and the "cle...

Mar 02, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Really Use Google's Disavow Tool to Improve Your SEO?

Google has never been a big fan of people using the disavow tool, but it remains online because it can help certain sites that have been subject to a manual action. Gary Illyes from Google said at the...

Oct 21, 2019 ⚡ Analysis available

★ Do You Really Need a Backlink Audit for Your Website?

The same Gary Illyes explained on this occasion that a website should only invest in a backlink audit if the site in question had been a "victim" of questionable SEO methods in the past. In other case...

Oct 21, 2019 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Really Disavow Toxic Links After a Google Core Update?

Gary Illyes explained at the PubCon event that "core updates", implemented by Google on average every 3 months, have no impact on the "netlinking" aspect and that there was no point in updating your l...

Oct 14, 2019 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is an XML Sitemap Really Essential for Your Google Rankings?

Gary Illyes (Google) indicated on Twitter that XML Sitemap files still remain the second source of URL discovery for the search engine today (he had already said this in 2014, so the situation has not...

Sep 02, 2019 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do XML Sitemaps Really Impact Your Site's Ranking?

Gary Illyes indicated on Twitter that the content of XML Sitemap files did not impact a site's rankings in the search engine's results....

Jul 02, 2019 ⚡ Analysis available

★ Is HTTPS Really an SEO Ranking Factor You Can't Afford to Ignore?

Gary Illyes explained on Twitter that it's really important to consider whether a site is HTTPS as a non-negligible relevance criterion for the search engine. He notably explained that "this signal af...

Jun 11, 2019 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should You Really Worry About Negative SEO and Use the Disavow File?

At the Pubcon Florida event, Gary Illyes explained that he had previously analyzed hundreds of "negative SEO" cases and that none of them, in his opinion, had any impact on the targeted site. He also ...

Mar 11, 2019 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does RankBrain Really Ignore Click-Through Rate and Time on Page?

Gary Illyes explained his vision of the RankBrain algorithm on Reddit: "RankBrain is a 'PR-sexy' machine learning component that uses historical search data to predict what a user would most likely cl...

Feb 11, 2019 ⚡ Analysis available