John Mueller

★★★ Should you reduce the number of pages on your site to boost your SEO?

It is advisable to concentrate a site on fewer pages rather than having many individual pages. This avoids the need to gather signals for each page and allows for a stronger focus on the site's power....

May 14, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why shouldn't you rely on the site: command for diagnosing indexing?

The site: command is not designed for diagnostic use. The numbers displayed are optimized for speed and provide an overview, not to be exhaustive. You should rely on Search Console data to know the ac...

May 14, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why should you avoid using 'Read More' as anchor text?

Google uses the anchor text of links to understand the context of the destination page. A generic text like 'Read More' provides no information. It is recommended to use descriptive text such as 'Read...

May 14, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do Images Really Improve Your Pages' SEO Rankings?

John Mueller explained on Twitter that adding images to a web page doesn't automatically give it a "bonus" in terms of SEO. A web page with images is not necessarily ranked better than the same page w...

May 10, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is Page Load Time Really a Decisive SEO Factor for Your Google Ranking?

John Mueller, Gary Illyes and Martin Splitt (the stellar team from Google Zurich) imagined in one of their "Search off the record" podcasts a search engine named Steve that they would create from scra...

May 10, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why does Google continue crawling 301 redirected URLs for over a year?

Even after more than a year of a 301 redirect, Google may continue to crawl the old URLs if there are external links pointing to them. However, after a few passes, Google switches the canonical to the...

May 07, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why isn't Search Console showing any Core Web Vitals data for your site?

If Search Console is not showing a Page Experience report, it is likely because Google does not have enough site data, based on the Chrome User Experience Report. You would then need to manually test ...

May 07, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is it true that the homepage carries more SEO weight than other pages?

Google does not automatically give more weight to the homepage. On some sites, we want the homepage to carry the most weight, while on others, we prefer that products or categories take priority. This...

May 07, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is it true that JavaScript is compatible with SEO?

Using JavaScript and loading content with JavaScript is not automatically bad for SEO. It is essential to check the details with the URL inspection tool to see if Google can view the navigation and co...

May 07, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you stop using nofollow on About and Contact pages?

Having an 'About' or 'Contact' page linked throughout the site is standard structure. Google knows this is a normal part of a site and does not consider it the most important page just because it is l...

May 07, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does duplicate content really harm your SEO rankings?

Duplicate content does not penalize a website. Google indexes pages separately even if large portions of text are identical. Google simply tries to show the most relevant version in the results. If so...

May 07, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does AMP's Core Web Vitals rely on Google's cache or your origin server?

For Core Web Vitals, Google considers what users actually see. If your AMP pages are valid and displayed via the AMP cache, this will be factored in for Core Web Vitals assessment....

May 07, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is it true that Google crawls your site only from the United States?

Google crawls sites from a single location, typically somewhere in the United States. Google does not crawl from different locations to see if there is different content. If the content is not accessi...

May 07, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really make all your affiliate links nofollow?

For affiliate links, the key is that they either have a nofollow attribute or that the redirect URL is blocked by robots.txt to avoid transferring PageRank. A configuration with an intermediate URL an...

May 07, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you abandon dynamic rendering for Googlebot?

Dynamic rendering (different versions for Googlebot and users) is no longer recommended by Google. It’s easy to misconfigure, and Googlebot can see errors that are invisible to users. Do not route Lig...

May 07, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ What caused your site to suddenly vanish from Google’s index?

When Google reduces a site’s indexing, it usually keeps the most relevant URLs over an extended period. If the entire site disappears suddenly from the index, it’s likely a technical issue rather than...

May 07, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why might your geo-targeted content disappear from Google's index?

Google crawls sites from a primary location, usually in the United States. If the content varies based on IP and is not accessible from the U.S., Google will not be able to index it. To index local ve...

May 07, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does URL length really affect your Google ranking?

URL length plays no significant role in search engine optimization. Google accepts URLs as they are, whether long or short. Length does not affect rankings in search results....

May 07, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why do orphan pages hurt your SEO even when indexed?

Creating pages that are only accessible via the XML sitemap (not linked within the site) is a bad practice. Google can find and index them, but can't give them any weight because there is no context o...

May 07, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is it true that Googlebot ignores your 'Load more' buttons and how can you fix that?

For lazy loading content, Google recommends using the Intersection Observer API. Googlebot renders pages with an extremely long viewport and can load content detected as visible. Scroll events or 'Loa...

May 07, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available