John Mueller

★★ Should you really worry if the homepage doesn't appear at the top for a site: query?

If the homepage doesn't appear at the top or on the first page of a site: query, it's not concerning. Site: queries are artificial. The important thing is that the homepage is indexed and appears for ...

Apr 09, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ How can a small site truly compete with the giants of SEO?

Entering a market dominated by large players is always difficult, and there is no magic trick. However, it is not impossible: Google also receives complaints from major sites about small sites surpass...

Apr 09, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How does the geolocation of your visitors affect your Core Web Vitals?

For Core Web Vitals, Google measures the actual experience of users. If 90% of visitors come from countries with slow connections and have a poor experience, it is this experience that will be taken i...

Apr 09, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does the product review update only apply to specialized review sites?

Google's product review update applies to all types of product review content, whether hosted on an e-commerce site, an affiliate blog, or elsewhere. It's the type of content that matters, not the typ...

Apr 09, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does referral traffic really affect Google rankings?

Google does not take referral traffic into account when determining rankings in search results. Having many visitors from ads or social media does not mean that Google will rank the page higher....

Apr 09, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why do your Lighthouse scores never reflect your users' reality?

Lighthouse results (lab data) are approximations based on assumptions. Real user data (field data) depends on many factors such as devices, location, and connections. There can be significant discrepa...

Apr 09, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really create separate XML sitemaps by country for multilingual content?

For international content, it is not necessary to create separate XML sitemaps by country. Hreflang annotations can be in the sitemap or in the pages. Google does not differentiate the source of hrefl...

Apr 09, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does AMP really ensure good Core Web Vitals?

Even though AMP makes it easier to create fast pages, it is entirely possible for an AMP page to fail Core Web Vitals tests. AMP is not an automatic guarantee of success against performance criteria....

Apr 09, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Do poor comments really drag down the ranking of the entire page?

Google assesses the overall quality of a page. If user-generated content (comments, reviews) diminishes the perceived quality of the page as a whole, it will impact its ranking. It's not about the sou...

Apr 09, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why do your Core Web Vitals optimizations take 28 days to show up in Search Console?

The Chrome User Experience Report data used for Core Web Vitals in Search Console has a collection delay of about 28 days. A technical change tested today in Lighthouse will only be visible in Search ...

Apr 09, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do Core Web Vitals really only serve to separate tie results?

Core Web Vitals primarily serve as a tiebreaker signal when multiple results are considered equivalent in relevance. Google can then favor the page that meets the Core Web Vitals thresholds. This is n...

Apr 09, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why won't the Page Experience update be instantaneous?

The Page Experience update planned for May 2021 will likely not be optimized for quick updates. Google will have to wait for enough CrUX data to be collected (about 28 days) before updating signals. T...

Apr 09, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google really calculate an EAT score for your website?

Google does not have a measurable EAT score (Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness). It is not a unique metric that Google calculates for a site. Algorithms evaluate quality in various ways, but not t...

Apr 09, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should You Still Use rel='next' and rel='prev' Tags for Pagination?

John Mueller indicated in a webmaster hangout that Google no longer needs the "next" and "prev" pagination tags to recognize paginated content. It is therefore no longer necessary to integrate them in...

Apr 06, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really wait for links to come in 'naturally' or take the initiative?

Google's recommendation is to create exceptional content that will naturally attract links over time. However, it is also advised to be proactive: advertising, reaching out to local press, and activel...

Apr 01, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really clean up your artificial links if Google already ignores them?

Google's algorithms generally detect and ignore artificial or spam links before they are even removed. Therefore, removing links already ignored by Google will have no impact on ranking....

Apr 01, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you be worried about massively removing backlinks after a manual penalty?

Mass removal of links after a manual penalty is not seen as an alarm signal by Google. If the site was artificially boosted by these links, its visibility will naturally decrease after their removal, ...

Apr 01, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ How long can a 503 error last without risking deindexation?

The server code 503 indicates a temporary error. Google recommends not using it for more than 2 to 7 days maximum, after which Google will begin to progressively deindex the affected URLs....

Apr 01, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really stop all large-scale repetitive link tactics?

Repeating a link-building tactic with a very large number of sites can be identified as an artificial scheme by Google's webspam team, even if the individual tactic seems legitimate....

Apr 01, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why does your site fluctuate between page 1 and page 5 of Google's results?

Significant fluctuations between page 1 and pages 4-5 indicate that Google's algorithms are uncertain about how to rank the site. The solution is to significantly improve the overall quality of the si...

Apr 01, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available