John Mueller

★★ Can we really control the appearance of sitelinks in Google?

Sitelinks appear algorithmically based on user needs, not through specific markup. This is not something that can be directly optimized or forced to appear. If Google shows sitelinks, one can then con...

Apr 16, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does hreflang really boost rankings, or is it just an SEO myth?

Hreflang does not serve to improve rankings, but to ensure that Google shows the correct language version of a page already ranked in different countries. This is different from geographic targeting, ...

Apr 16, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Can you really combine noindex and canonical without SEO risks?

Theoretically, using noindex and canonical together is contradictory because it states that the pages are equivalent but must be treated differently. In practice, this causes no issues. If internal in...

Apr 16, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do Core Web Vitals on desktop really have no impact on Google rankings?

For now, only mobile user experience (mobile Core Web Vitals) will be used as a ranking factor, and only in mobile search results. Desktop results will not take Core Web Vitals into account. Other pag...

Apr 16, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really index all your pagination pages?

For pagination, differentiate between divided content (multi-part articles) that must be indexable, and category pages that serve only to find links to other content. For these latter pages, pages 2, ...

Apr 16, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is crawl budget really something to worry about for your website?

Crawl budget only becomes a real concern for sites with hundreds of thousands or millions of pages. For sites with a few thousand or tens of thousands of pages, Google can crawl everything, even in a ...

Apr 16, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can you really use review structured data for reviews copied from a third-party site?

If you copy reviews from a third-party site and display them on your own site (with permission), you can treat them as testimonials but cannot use 'review' structured data. Review structured data can ...

Apr 16, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does switching CMS really destroy your organic search rankings?

Switching CMS (e.g., from Squarespace to WordPress) will likely affect your ranking, positively or negatively depending on the quality of the migration. Google does not only look at text but at everyt...

Apr 16, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you create a robots.txt blocked intermediary site to manage thousands of redirects?

To manage thousands of redirected domains (e.g., domain marketplace), create an intermediary site where all domains redirect, block this site with robots.txt, and then redirect to the main site. This ...

Apr 16, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Is excluding Googlebot from adblock detection considered cloaking?

Excluding Googlebot from an adblock detection system is generally not considered cloaking. Google acknowledges that Googlebot has a unique setup without adblock. This is acceptable as long as fundamen...

Apr 16, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why does Search Console hide your international hreflang pages?

Search Console mainly reports on canonical URLs, making tracking very challenging for international sites using hreflang. Alternative pages may seem missing from reports even though they are properly ...

Apr 13, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really implement every possible hreflang variation?

You shouldn’t automatically create all possible language and regional variations just because the system allows it. If you don’t create unique content for these versions, it adds no value in terms of ...

Apr 13, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why does Google itself struggle with properly implementing hreflang on its own sites?

Implementing hreflang is often complex and error-prone. Google acknowledges that even its own sites have made mistakes (like using ES-LA for Latin American Spanish). If Google doesn’t always manage to...

Apr 13, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really implement hreflang for nearly identical content with just currency differences?

It is useful to implement hreflang between pages with nearly identical content but with regional differences like currencies (euros vs Swiss francs) or prices. Even if Google considers these pages as ...

Apr 13, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really implement hreflang between completely different languages?

If you have page versions in completely different languages (German/Chinese), hreflang may represent unnecessary effort if Google has no trouble distinguishing these versions. Hreflang is especially u...

Apr 13, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do 301 and 302 Redirects Really Matter Differently for SEO?

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that in most cases, Google treats 301 and 302 redirects in almost the same way, because it knows that 302 redirects can remain in place for months, or even longer. It...

Apr 12, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do Different Ads Between AMP and Non-AMP Pages Impact SEO?

John Mueller explained in a webmaster hangout that having the AMP version of a page display more or fewer ads than its "canonical" version (non-AMP HTML page) does not pose any problems in terms of SE...

Apr 12, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Changing Your Publication Date Actually Improve SEO Rankings?

John Mueller indicated in the same webmaster hangout that modifying the publication date in the source code for a page without actually changing its content did not improve the ranking of said page. A...

Apr 12, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does robots.txt really prevent the indexing of your pages?

The robots.txt file prevents crawling but not necessarily indexing. Google can index URLs blocked by robots.txt without their content. These pages may appear in site: queries without a snippet, but us...

Apr 09, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does the noindex tag really block the crawling of your pages?

The X-Robots-Tag with noindex prevents indexing but not crawling. Google must first crawl the page to see the noindex. Initially, Google will crawl these pages heavily before its systems learn that th...

Apr 09, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available