Gary Illyes

★★★ Can Using Capital Letters in Title Tags Actually Get You Penalized by Google?

Some webmasters sometimes ask Google really bizarre questions. Like the one asking whether putting words entirely in capital letters in a Title tag could trigger a Google penalty. Gary Illyes' answer ...

Apr 24, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Do Clicks on a 404 Page from Search Results Actually Trigger Deindexing?

Gary Illyes indicated on Twitter that if a user clicks on a link in a SERP and lands on a 404 page, this will not send a signal to Google to remove that URL. For this page to be deindexed, it will be ...

Apr 24, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Really Remove the Priority Parameter from Your XML Sitemaps?

Gary Illyes indicated on Twitter that the priority indexing parameters in XML Sitemap files were a "bag of noise." Basically, this indication serves no purpose and, for once, we completely agree with ...

Apr 10, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Is Bounce Rate Really a Ranking Factor on Google?

Gary Illyes reaffirmed on Twitter for the 478th time that bounce rate is not taken into account by Google's algorithms, simply because "it's not a good relevance signal". And once again, we can only a...

Apr 10, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do Social Signals Like Facebook Likes Actually Impact Google Rankings?

Gary Illyes indicated on Twitter for the 3,487th time that Google's algorithm does not take into account Facebook "Likes" (like the vast majority of social signals in general, for that matter). Some b...

Apr 03, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Are Google's SEO Penalties and Adsense Really Independent From Each Other?

The same Gary Illyes indicated, also on Twitter, that just like with the Adwords Team, there was no interaction between the Search Quality Team (the teams that inflict penalties on websites that attem...

Apr 03, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does Googlebot Really Use Cookies to Crawl Your Website?

Gary Illyes published one of his "DYK" (Do You Know) posts about cookies: Googlebot generally doesn't make use of cookies, but it can if it detects it cannot get to the content without them?. In other...

Mar 27, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★ What Does Google's Fred Update Really Reveal About Penalized Sites?

The same Gary Illyes indicated during the SMX West conference the Fred update of March 9th, arguing that this algorithm update was based on points present in Google's guidelines. But he didn't say whi...

Mar 27, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★ Is Google's Page Layout Algorithm Still Penalizing Your Site in 2024?

Gary Illyes indicated on Twitter that the Page Layout algorithm, which has been updated several times in the past and aims to penalize pages with too many ads embedded in editorial content, somewhat l...

Mar 20, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★ Are Quality Comments Really an Important Ranking Signal for Google?

Gary Illyes painfully attempts to provide information on Twitter with his "DYK" (Do You Know...) posts, which are unfortunately most of the time incomprehensible and totally useless. Latest example: "...

Mar 13, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★ How Long Does It Actually Take Google to Process a Spam Report?

Gary Illyes indicated on Twitter that the time it takes for Google's Search Quality Team to process a "spam report" can vary, but as a general rule, it takes a few hours or a few days. However, the st...

Feb 20, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★ Why Does Google Refuse to Display Backlink Types in Search Console?

The "Links to your site" section of Search Console displays a large number of backlinks pointing to your site, but without specific mention of those that are dofollow, nofollow or disavowed, for examp...

Feb 13, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Is PageRank Still a Key Ranking Factor in Google's Algorithm in 2024?

Gary Illyes reminded us on Twitter that, almost 20 years after Google's creation, the search engine still uses PageRank as a relevance criterion. Thankfully... 🙂 And he shared the link to the document...

Feb 13, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Can You Still Trust the Site: Operator to Audit Your Page Indexation?

Gary Illyes indicated on Twitter that Google is not at all considering removing the "site:" query syntax, which allows you to obtain a sample of the pages that the search engine indexes for a given we...

Feb 06, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★ Will Google Really Warn Us Before Major Penguin Updates Hit?

Gary Illyes indicated on Twitter that Google would make sure to be "transparent" regarding Penguin if major changes were to take place in the future on this algorithmic filter. It's difficult to know ...

Jan 30, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★ Should You Still Track Penguin Version Numbers to Adjust Your SEO Strategy?

On the other hand, still on the subject of Penguin, the same Gary Illyes, also on Twitter, indicated that there would no longer be numbered versions (the last one was 4.0 in August 2016). Moreover, ma...

Jan 30, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ How Is Google Now Rolling Out Its Algorithms Internationally?

Gary Illyes indicated on Twitter that, increasingly, Google is trying to perform algorithm launches at a global level from the start and not in one country (often the United States) or one language (E...

Jan 30, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can Google's Quality Raters Actually Penalize Your Website?

Gary Illyes indicated on Twitter that Google had Quality Raters not only in the United States, but "in tons of countries" around the world, in order to rate search results like a user located in the c...

Jan 23, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★ Should You Enable International Targeting in Search Console Without Fearing SEO Penalties?

The same Gary Illyes, again on Twitter, indicated that specifying a target country in the "International Targeting" section of Search Console does not diminish the site's relevance score and visibilit...

Jan 23, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Already Be Optimizing Your Site for Google's Mobile First Index?

Gary Illyes reminded (with a Japanese Googler) on Twitter that the "Mobile First" index was not yet live. Let's remember that nothing will really happen before - at least - the second quarter of 2017 ...

Jan 02, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available