SEO statements by Google

★★★ Should you really remove canonical tags from pages that are 301 redirected?

When a 301 redirect is used, there is no need to insert a canonical tag. The 301 redirects traffic and indexing to the new URL, making the canonical tag redundant....

Mar 19, 2014 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really use noindex or 404 to manage low-value pages?

For pages deemed to have low value, using 'noindex' or returning a 404 error are acceptable practices to signal to search engines not to index them anymore....

Mar 19, 2014 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Could internal links between sites in the same group harm your SEO?

Internal links between sites in the same group do not pose a problem, as long as they are placed with a user-centric logic rather than to manipulate SEO....

Mar 19, 2014 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do variations in URLs really affect your page rankings?

Different forms of URLs for the same page (with or without slash, with index.html) are not a problem if they clearly point to the same resource and are recognized as such by Google....

Mar 19, 2014 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really avoid submitting mass page deletions to Google?

After deleting numerous pages, it's better to let Google discover these changes naturally through crawling rather than forcing it with a mass submission that might resemble an attack....

Mar 19, 2014 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really limit the number of breadcrumbs per page?

If you use multiple breadcrumbs on a page, Google will currently choose the first one. Having multiple breadcrumbs can help Googlebot better understand your site's structure, especially if an item bel...

Mar 19, 2014 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How can you handle out-of-stock product pages without losing your SEO visibility?

When products on an e-commerce site are no longer available, Google advises different strategies depending on the number of affected products and pages. For a small number of pages, it's best to redir...

Mar 17, 2014 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really unblock JavaScript and CSS for Googlebot to understand your responsive design?

It is essential not to block JavaScript and CSS so that Googlebot can determine whether your site is designed responsively and improve the analysis and rendering of your site's content....

Mar 12, 2014 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why does Google still require rel alternate and rel canonical for mobile and desktop versions?

To manage the mobile and desktop versions of your pages, use a rel alternate link from the desktop page to the smartphone version, and a rel canonical link from the smartphone page to the desktop vers...

Mar 12, 2014 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really treat Googlebot-Mobile like a mobile user for redirects?

Ensure that smartphone user agents are properly redirected from the desktop version to the smartphone version and treat Googlebot-Mobile the same way as a smartphone user so that Google can properly a...

Mar 12, 2014 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is high-quality content truly enough to generate natural backlinks?

Google encourages sites to avoid spam techniques and focus on providing a high-quality user experience. Creating original and engaging content that naturally invites other sites to link to it is recom...

Mar 10, 2014 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really disavow toxic links to rank better?

For sites impacted by poor link practices, Google advises going through a reassessment and disavow process. This involves cleaning link profiles by removing or disavowing spam links to improve their r...

Mar 10, 2014 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you block 404 pages in robots.txt to protect your crawl budget?

404 errors indicate that a page no longer exists, and that does not pose a problem in itself. Blocking these pages via robots.txt is unnecessary as it prevents Google from discovering 404 errors, whic...