Gary Illyes

★★★ How Does Google Actually Discover Your New Web Pages?

Gary Illyes indicated at the Pubcon event that the two main pathways Google considers for identifying new URLs to crawl are first the tracking of hyperlinks by its bots, and secondly XML Sitemap files...

Oct 29, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why Does Google Take Several Weeks to Index Some Web Pages?

We know that the Google search engine no longer just reads the HTML code of pages in a basic way as it did years ago, but tries to analyze web pages as if they were displayed in a browser. This "rende...

Oct 23, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google Really Index Content Hidden in Accordions and Tabs?

Gary Illyes reminded us on Twitter that, contrary to what some recent studies had suggested, Google does properly index and gives "normal" weight to text content located in tabs or accordions. He indi...

Sep 24, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How Do Panda and Penguin Really Penalize Your Site: Page by Page or Globally?

At the Search Masters Brazil conference, Gary Illyes confirmed that, while data was still collected by Google at the individual page level of a website, potential "algorithmic penalties" were subseque...

Aug 27, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Really Force Google to Crawl Faster During an HTTPS Migration?

Gary Illyes indicated on Twitter that, in the case of an HTTPS migration, there was no reason to implement specific actions to obtain faster crawling from Google. The migration will be taken into acco...

Aug 20, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can You Really Use Hreflang Tags to Target Continents or Regions?

Gary Illyes reminded on Twitter that Hreflang tag codes only exist for countries and specifically not for continents or regions. Therefore, you cannot indicate in a page's Hreflang tags labels such as...

Aug 06, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can the Meta Keywords Tag Actually Penalize Your Site on Google?

Back to the future: a user asked on Twitter whether using the meta "keywords" tag could trigger a Google penalty 🙂 Gary Illyes responded that it wouldn't ;-)....

Jun 25, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Are Schema.org Structured Data Really Essential for Your SEO in 2024?

Gary Illyes indicated at the Pubcon conference that structured data tags (Schema.org) were here to stay because they allowed Google to better understand the content of a page....

Feb 26, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why Do Featured Snippets Change So Frequently in Google Results?

Gary Illyes indicated at the Pubcon conference that the featured snippets currently displayed in the SERPs can vary significantly for the same query from one day to the next, because Google engineers ...

Nov 21, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why Are Structured Data Becoming Essential for SEO Success?

Gary Illyes indicated at the Pubcon conference that 2018 would be notably focused at Google on structured data (Schema.org markup) and that we should expect quite a few innovations in this area in the...

Nov 13, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Delete Old Content from Your Website to Improve SEO?

Gary Illyes indicated at an SEO event that it was unfortunate, in his opinion, to delete content on news sites solely on the grounds that it was "old" and therefore "obsolete". According to Gary, old ...

Oct 30, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Will Search Console Finally Offer a Full Year of Historical Data?

Gary Illyes hinted during the SMX East conference that the new version of Search Console (whose official launch date is not yet known) should provide one year of data (particularly for the "Search Ana...

Oct 30, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should You Really Be Monitoring Mozcast and SERP Weather Tools for Your SEO?

Gary Illyes indicated at the Brighton SEO conference that SERP weather tools like Mozcast seemed quite relevant to him for measuring potential ranking variations and therefore Google updates....

Oct 02, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Has Penguin Been Running on Autopilot for a Year – Should SEOs Still Worry About It?

Still at the Brighton SEO conference, Gary Illyes indicated that since its real-time launch a year ago, Penguin had initially undergone a few adjustments but that it had been running on its own for a ...

Oct 02, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should You Really React to Every Google Algorithm Update?

We continue with Brighton SEO and the same Gary Illyes who maintained that 95 to 98% of Google's algorithm updates were not "actionable" by webmasters and SEOs. Basically, it was difficult or even imp...

Oct 02, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★ Should You Worry About an HTTP Warning Label in Google Search Results Like Mobile?

Gary Illyes stated at Brighton SEO that Google has no plans to indicate in the SERPs that a URL is not secure (meaning it's HTTP and not HTTPS) with a specific message, as was previously done with non...

Sep 25, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Is Responsive Design Really Enough to Successfully Navigate the Mobile First Transition?

Gary Illyes also explained at the same Brighton SEO conference that responsive design sites have little to worry about regarding the Mobile First project and that at this level, everything should go s...

Sep 25, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does Google Really Use Disavow Files to Identify Spammy Websites?

Gary Illyes indicated on Twitter that the disavow file is solely used by Google to ignore certain links (those designated by the file) but that it does not use this data for other purposes, such as de...

Sep 25, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Has Google Really Made HTTPS Migration Instantaneous?

Gary Illyes indicated, again at the Brighton SEO conference, that during a migration from HTTP to HTTPS, there should now be virtually no transition period (and therefore no drop) in a site's rankings...

Sep 25, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How Does Google Actually Detect Duplicate Content During Indexing?

Gary Illyes provided some insights on Twitter about how Google handles duplicate content phenomena: it's done through page comparison (not based on keyword analysis), the analysis is performed during ...

Sep 11, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available