John Mueller

★★ Is it necessary to redirect your AMP URLs during a change?

When changing AMP URLs, redirections are less critical than for standard URLs because Google refreshes the AMP cache quickly. The delay between discovery and update is a few days, but it is still reco...

Mar 12, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Can you use different templates for each language version without harming international SEO?

For an international site organized in subdirectories, it is perfectly acceptable to use different templates or navigations for different international sections. Google can understand the templates fo...

Mar 12, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does the internal links report in Search Console truly reflect the state of your link structure?

The internal links report in Search Console is based on a sample of pages from the site, not all indexed pages. It is not on the same level as the index coverage report....

Mar 12, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ How does Google really assess the Core Web Vitals of a page in its search results?

Core Web Vitals are grouped by page type in Search Console and Chrome UX Report. When a URL appears in the results, Google evaluates its group to determine if it provides a good page experience. Highl...

Mar 05, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you worry about having 90% of your site in noindex?

A large number of noindex pages or pages returning 404 errors is not seen as a sign of poor quality by Google. Having 90% of pages in noindex is not problematic for SEO....

Mar 05, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really ignore Schema.org for e-commerce product variants?

Google does not use Schema.org to manage e-commerce product variants. For SEO, it is preferable to have fewer indexed pages that are stronger, using the canonical to group variants (sizes, colors) to ...

Mar 05, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Are city-specific pages really just doorway pages doomed by Google?

Creating pages for each city with largely identical content risks being viewed as doorway pages. Google's systems may become confused, and the webspam team could see this as excessive, especially if t...

Mar 05, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really start small to unlock your crawl budget?

For sites with a lot of content, it is recommended to start with a limited set of quality pages. Google will learn that the content is good and gradually increase the crawl to 1000 and then 10000 page...

Mar 05, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really block JSON files in your robots.txt?

Blocking the crawl of JSON files via robots.txt will prevent the indexing of content that is visible only after rendering on pages that require these JSON files, both on your site and on third-party s...

Mar 05, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Do you really need to include dates in structured data?

It is not necessary to specify dates in structured data. Google attempts to choose a relevant date based on multiple sources: structured data, visible content, and dates mentioned in the text. Ensurin...

Mar 05, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really regenerate your sitemaps to remove obsolete URLs?

If sitemap files point to non-existent pages or pages with an obsolete URL structure, they need to be regenerated to contain only current URLs. It's a matter of site hygiene rather than crawl budget....

Mar 05, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is there a magic number of links per page to optimize internal PageRank?

Google uses PageRank to understand the internal structure of a site, taking into account the links on a page. But there is no optimal number of links. A reasonable navigation structure for users will ...

Mar 05, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really count the number of H1 tags on a page?

There is no strict limit to the number of H1 tags on a page. With HTML5, having multiple H1s is compliant with the standard. Although having a clear focus is helpful, it does not necessarily require j...

Mar 05, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Do headings really hold as much importance as Google thinks?

Title tags help Google understand what you consider important on the page, to some extent. The anchor text of links is the most important part, but the context surrounding images and links also matter...

Mar 05, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can Google really figure out that a URL is duplicated without even crawling it?

Google uses a predictive approach: if several URLs with a similar structure show the same content, Google learns this pattern and can treat other similar URLs as duplicates without crawling them, in o...

Mar 05, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does using a canonical tag alone truly control page indexing?

Google takes multiple signals into account beyond the canonical tag to determine the canonical page. It may happen that Google still indexes variants despite the canonical, especially during the first...

Mar 05, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Are LSI keywords really beneficial for Google SEO?

Google does not have any concept of LSI keywords. It's an interesting theoretical topic in computer science regarding information retrieval, but SEOs do not need to concern themselves with it in their...

Mar 05, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How can you compel Google to refresh your JavaScript and CSS files during rendering?

To force Google to update JavaScript and CSS resources during rendering, use a content hash in the URL of the files. This way, Google will identify the new files, unlike persistent cache with identica...

Mar 05, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does the noindex of variants really contaminate the canonical page?

If product variants are set to noindex with a canonical pointing to the main page, the noindex is not transmitted to the canonical page. However, external links pointing to these noindex variants will...

Mar 05, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Will Core Web Vitals Change Again, and How Can You Prepare for Upcoming Updates?

Google plans to update Core Web Vitals metrics approximately once a year, notifying webmasters in advance. It's important to submit feedback to the Chrome team when calculations seem incorrect....

Mar 05, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available