John Mueller

★★ 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

★★★ Does relevance really outweigh Core Web Vitals in Google?

Relevance is still more important than Page Experience in Google ranking. URLs in brand searches continue to be displayed even with poor Core Web Vitals because Google cannot show a third-party blog i...

Mar 05, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Is it really necessary to test your Core Web Vitals in the lab to prevent regressions?

Google recommends running your own tests in parallel for important pages, using the Page Speed Insights API or third-party tools. Laboratory tests allow for the rapid detection of regressions, even if...

Mar 05, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why does Google refuse to provide Voice Search data in Search Console?

Currently, there is no information in Search Console that shows how speakable markup is used or when it is displayed in voice search. Testing oneself is necessary to assess its utility....

Mar 05, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really use a 410 code instead of a 404 to remove a page from Google's index?

Google makes a slight distinction between 404 (page temporarily unavailable) and 410 (page permanently removed). The 410 slightly speeds up removal from the index, but the difference is not significan...

Mar 05, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why does it take 28 days for your Core Web Vitals to update in Search Console?

The Core Web Vitals data displayed in Search Console is based on the Chrome User Experience Report, aggregated over 28 days. This delay is due to the method of data collection and aggregation, not a s...

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

★★★ 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 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

★★ 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

★★★ 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

★★ 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

★★★ 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

★★ Should you really double hreflang with JavaScript for geolocation?

Beyond hreflang, implement JavaScript detection to show a banner to American users on the European site, offering them the US version. This compensates for cases where hreflang does not work perfectly...

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

★★★ 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

★★★ Do mailto: and tel: links actually affect your site's internal PageRank?

John Mueller explained on Twitter that Google does not read or follow links of type "mailto:" or "tel:" (email addresses and phone numbers)....

Mar 01, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does URL Structure Really Impact Google Rankings?

John Mueller provided two examples on Twitter of websites where URL page structure can be important: on one hand, international sites with a directory (example: /fr/, /de/, etc.) on a generic extensio...

Mar 01, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why does hreflang in Latin America require each country code individually?

For targeting Latin America in Spanish with hreflang, you must add tags for all targeted countries individually (es-MX, es-AR, etc.), even if they all point to the same page. Without these specific co...

Feb 26, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can you really target different countries on the same domain without using subdomains?

For generic domains (gTLDs), you can apply different country targeting for the homepage and for subdirectories in Search Console. The most specific parameter will be used. This does not work with coun...

Feb 26, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available