What does Google say about SEO? /
John Mueller is one of Google's most active spokespeople on search engine optimization topics. As a Search Advocate, he regularly answers the SEO community's questions during Google Search Central sessions and on social media. His statements are a prime source of information for understanding how Google Search works and the best practices to follow.
Quick SEO Quiz

Test your SEO knowledge in 5 questions

Less than a minute. Find out how much you really know about Google search.

🕒 ~1 min 🎯 5 questions
★★★ Should you really stop using the URL Inspection Tool to get your pages indexed?
The URL Inspection Tool is fantastic for urgent situations where an error needs to be quickly resolved, but it shouldn't be used for regular updates or adding new content. Using this tool for routine ...
Nov 27, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available
★★ Do Google’s manual actions really focus on global patterns, or can they also sanction isolated cases?
Manual actions generally involve a much broader pattern than just one bad example. It may happen that some individual examples provided are debatable, but they fit into a larger problematic pattern....
Nov 27, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available
★★★ How can you verify if your cookie banners are blocking Google’s indexing?
To check if Google can crawl and index your content behind cookie banners, use the URL Inspection Tool for a live test. Look at the HTML version that Google uses for rendering and indexing, and check ...
Nov 27, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available
★★ Does the length of your anchor text really impact your SEO?
Google does not treat long or short anchor texts differently. Whether the anchor contains two words or seven words, Google simply uses it to provide additional context about the pages. A longer text m...
Nov 27, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available
★★ Does Google translate your queries to display foreign content?
In certain areas where content is scarce in the local language, Google can translate the query into another language, search for results in that language, and present them via Google Translate clearly...
Nov 27, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available
★★ Does the overall quality of a site truly influence its crawl frequency?
To ensure Google crawls your site more frequently and retrieves the latest information, focus on enhancing the overall quality of your site so that Google's systems are motivated to seek out the lates...
Nov 27, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available
★★★ Should you stop manually requesting Google to index your pages?
Even when the indexing request feature is restored, Google highly encourages the use of automatic methods (accessibility, links, sitemaps) for regular website updates since they are scalable and autom...
Nov 25, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available
★★★ Do Web Stories really follow the same SEO rules as your regular pages?
Web Stories are normal HTML pages. As a result, everything learned about SEO also applies to Web Stories. The Web Creators team has released a specific video on SEO for Web Stories....
Nov 25, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available
★★★ Does Page Experience really change how websites rank on Google?
The Page Experience ranking factor, including Core Web Vitals, will be active in Google Search starting May 2021. Although there is still time, it is recommended to act quickly as improving site speed...
Nov 25, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available
★★★ Is Google Indexing Really Under Control with a Sitemap and Internal Links?
Google strongly recommends using the usual methods to help search engines find and index content: ensuring the site is properly accessible, that it contains prominent links to new pages, and using sit...
Nov 25, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available
★★★ Is it true that Google has disabled the indexing request feature in Search Console?
The URL indexing request feature in the URL inspection tool of Search Console has been temporarily disabled. Google is working on the infrastructure to make it more robust and plans to restore it soon...
Nov 25, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available
★★ Why is Google shifting from Webmasters to Search Central?
Google has changed the name from Google Webmasters to Google Search Central to reflect the diversity of roles involved in the success of websites. All content for site owners is being migrated to a ce...
Nov 25, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available
★★ Can Web Stories really boost your visibility in Google Search and Discover?
Web Stories are now prominently featured in Google Search and also in Google Discover. An updated WordPress plugin significantly simplifies the creation of Web Stories....
Nov 25, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available
★★★ Is the crawl budget really just to protect your servers or is there more to it?
Crawl budget is a system used by Google to limit the number of requests made to a server in order to avoid causing issues during crawling....
Nov 19, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available
★★★ Does Google really adjust the crawl budget automatically based on your server's capacity?
Google’s systems automatically determine the maximum number of requests a server can handle over a given period. This parameter is automatically adjusted over time....
Nov 19, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available
★★★ Why does Google require full access to embedded resources to properly index your pages?
For rendering, Google's services must be able to access embedded content such as JavaScript files, CSS, images, videos, as well as responses from APIs used on the pages....
Nov 19, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available
★★★ Is your server slowing down? Does Google really cut your crawl budget because of that?
When Google notices that a server starts to slow down or return server errors, the available crawl budget for crawlers is reduced....
Nov 19, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available
★★★ Should you really be concerned about crawl budget for your site?
Crawl budget is not a concern for most sites, as Google has no trouble exploring enough URLs on the majority of websites....
Nov 19, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available
★★★ Is it really necessary to reduce embedded resources to improve the crawling of large sites?
For large sites, reducing the number of embedded resources necessary to display a page can aid in Google crawling....
Nov 19, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available
★★★ Is crawl budget really a non-issue for most websites?
Crawl budget is a topic that mainly affects large websites, typically those with more than a few hundred thousand URLs....
Nov 19, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available
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