John Mueller

★★★ Should You Still Disavow Spammy Links in SEO?

In general, you do not need to disavow random spammy links pointing to your site. Google's systems are very good at understanding which links are relevant and which ones to completely ignore. This is ...

Feb 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why does Google struggle to understand your hreflang tags on large international sites?

With hreflang, especially if you have many different country versions, sometimes Google gets it right, and sometimes Google struggles. Anyone who has worked on large international sites will see that ...

Feb 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really localize every product page to prevent duplicate content?

To prevent pages from being recognized as duplicates, the only option is to ensure they are truly meaningfully localized. For an e-commerce site with the same product across countries, this is likely ...

Feb 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does server response time really slow down Google's crawl more than rendering speed?

Server response time is critical for crawling. Rendering speed (user-side performance aspect) is less important for crawling, but server response time technically slows Google down during the crawl....

Feb 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why does Google struggle to understand pages overwhelmed with ads?

On many pages where there is a map in the center and essentially everything else is ads, Google's systems can struggle to understand why this page should be relevant. You need to rethink how you want ...

Feb 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does Google really prioritize geolocation for ranking syndicated content?

When Google recognizes that people are searching for text included in many articles, it tries to select the one that is most relevant for the user. If Google identifies that certain pages or sites are...

Feb 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really display a country selection banner on a multilingual website?

Google suggests assuming users might arrive on the wrong version of your site and trying to catch them with a banner at the top indicating their location and offering the correct country version....

Feb 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Are nofollow links in guest posts really mandatory for Google?

Promoting your content on other sites through guest posting is acceptable, but the links in these guest posts must be nofollow because you are placing these links on other sites. These links should no...

Feb 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does the length of an article really influence its Google ranking?

For web search, Google doesn't care about the length of articles. Don't focus so much on the length of the article, but rather on whether you want it to be indexed or not. Short articles are perfectly...

Feb 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does Google really prioritize original content over syndicated versions?

Google attempts to recognize situations where exactly the same article is republished and handle that accordingly in search by potentially showing the original. But there are many cases where Google c...

Feb 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really worry if the homepage outranks your internal pages?

This is not necessarily something to fix if your homepage outranks your internal pages. For individual queries, Google attempts to recognize which is the most relevant result from your site and to dis...

Feb 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is internal linking truly the key signal to prioritize your pages?

The best way to help Google understand which parts of your site you consider most important is through internal linking. The clearer you demonstrate content to users with visible links, the more Googl...

Feb 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why does Google display the canonical URL instead of the local URL in Search Console?

In Search Console, Google primarily reports canonical URLs. In the performance and index coverage report, Google simplifies and shows the canonical URL, even if the local URL is displayed to users thr...

Feb 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ How can you identify and fix low-quality content after a Core Update?

For a site affected by a core update, a good approach is to review the content deemed most relevant in Google via Search Console and ensure that this content is of the highest quality, addresses the n...

Feb 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really index fewer pages to prevent thin content?

Consider whether you really need all these individual pages to be indexed. Perhaps you should have something more comprehensive about the content itself as your indexed element, rather than individual...

Feb 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Is it true that passage ranking is independent of featured snippets?

Passage ranking refers to Google's capacity to dive into content and recognize that a page is relevant for something hidden at the bottom of the page. How Google displays it in the results is a comple...

Feb 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is the number of backlinks really insignificant for Google?

Google does not differentiate based on the total number of links or the number of referring domains. Google views links quite differently, trying to understand what is relevant and how to weigh each l...

Feb 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How does Google really handle canonicalization and hreflang on multilingual sites?

Google recognizes identical content across different country versions, clusters it, and chooses a canonical URL for indexing. With correct hreflang, Google displays the appropriate local URL in the re...

Feb 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Can the disavow file actually harm your site?

The disavow file is a technical tool. Google looks at it and if you don’t want those links, Google removes them. It’s not something counted against your site. Google won’t say you must be a spammer be...

Feb 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Are PBNs really detected and neutralized by Google?

PBNs (Private Blog Networks) are a technique used by spammers to create a network of seemingly natural sites that all link to something, hoping that Google thinks that many recommend this page. Google...

Feb 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available