John Mueller

★★★ Can Artificial SERP Clicks Actually Boost Your Google Rankings?

John Mueller has once again reminded us that creating a "click machine" that would type queries into the search engine and then automatically click on your site's link without returning to the SERP af...

Nov 30, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Can Plagiarism of Your Content Actually Hurt Your Google Rankings?

John Mueller also reminded on Twitter that the fact that other sites copy your content will not cause your content to rank lower in the search engine's results....

Nov 30, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can You Force Googlebot to Crawl Your Site Using HTTP/2?

John Mueller reminded on Twitter that it was not possible to force Googlebot to crawl a site using HTTP/2, following his announcement on this subject last September. Google chooses the protocol used b...

Nov 30, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really delete your disavow file or risk a manual action?

If you delete your disavow file, all those links will once again be treated as normal links. The Web Spam team could then review the site and take manual action if the links are problematic and there ...

Nov 27, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does a revoked manual action truly wipe out all traces of a penalty?

When a manual action is revoked, everything associated with that manual action is completely disabled. There may be a technical delay for reindexing, but there is no extended period of mistrust after ...

Nov 27, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ How can you effectively manage multiple versions of technical documentation without jeopardizing your SEO?

For programming language documentation with multiple versions, keep a stable URL for the current version and move older versions to specific archive URLs. This allows Google to understand which is the...

Nov 27, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does the cached page truly reflect what Google indexes?

The cached page is a technical copy of the fetched HTML, not a representation of what is actually indexed. To check indexing, use the URL Inspection Tool. JavaScript may not execute on cached pages as...

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

★★ Are iFrames really crawled by Google, or should you avoid them for SEO?

When it comes to content loaded via iFrame, Google can sometimes read it and sometimes not. If you want the content to be associated with your site, implement it directly on the page or via JavaScript...

Nov 27, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Do old customer reviews harm the ranking of your product listings?

On product pages of e-commerce sites, having old user or professional reviews is perfectly acceptable. Google does not penalize pages for having old reviews, as they can be very helpful for users....

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 Google really keep your content in its original language instead of translating it?

Google mainly indexes the content of pages as it finds them, without normalizing everything to English. If you have a site in a language where Google Translate is not very effective, Google will still...

Nov 27, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does the search volume for your brand really boost your SEO?

A brand's search volume is not useful as a ranking factor because when someone searches for that brand, Google would already try to show the brand's pages since they are likely very relevant to those ...

Nov 27, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Can Google really ignore your links without giving you any warning?

It is very likely that Google is already automatically ignoring certain specific types of links, as these are links that are very easy for Google's systems to identify and neutralize....

Nov 27, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do keyword-rich anchor texts serve as a negative signal for Google?

Regarding footer links, Google examines the specific anchor text. If the anchor is heavily stuffed with keywords to promote the site, it's more problematic. If it's just the URL or the company name, i...

Nov 27, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google really re-evaluate pages that improve over time?

Pages can either improve or degrade over time. If Google has collected signals about a page in the past and you significantly improve it, Google's systems may re-evaluate that page and recognize that ...

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

★★ 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

★★ Are links between sites of the same network really treated as normal links by Google?

Google can generally identify that a network of sites belongs to the same company and treats the links between them as normal links. This is only problematic if it is a very large network used solely ...

Nov 27, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you use rel=canonical between multiple sites in the same network to prevent signal dilution?

If a publisher has multiple sites and publishes the same content across their network, they should use rel=canonical to indicate the preferred version. This allows value to concentrate on one version ...

Nov 27, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available