John Mueller

★★★ Does restructuring your site really hurt SEO?

Changing the structure of a site with new URLs and a new internal linking can affect rankings. If an important page loses its internal links, it may impact its ranking. The new structure may rank bett...

Oct 30, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can lazy loading without dimensions really jeopardize your CLS score?

If you are using lazy loading and a gray rectangle appears without fixed dimensions before the image loads, causing text shifts once the image is loaded, this can be a problem for visual stability (CL...

Oct 30, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is it really necessary to merge your pages to climb in the SERPs?

Reducing the number of pages by consolidating content can enhance those pages in search and make them more visible. However, these pages will be less targeted on individual topics, which may reduce th...

Oct 30, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is the context of images really more important than their visual content for Google?

Google focuses mainly on the image file and all the context around it (alt text, titles, captions, file names, page sections) rather than just the visual content itself. A beach photo can be relevant ...

Oct 30, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do 301 redirects really pass SEO juice even when the content changes completely?

301 redirects transmit signals (link juice) even if the content of the destination page is different from the original page. This is normal in the evolution of a site. The exception would be the purch...

Oct 30, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really cancel a failed domain migration or commit to it fully?

You should avoid canceling a domain migration because it does not revert everything to the original state. You're simply moving the current situation (with its issues) back to the old domain. This res...

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why does Google still crawl your deleted old URLs?

Google occasionally continues to crawl old URLs (returning 404) for years, especially if they had backlinks or were important. It is at low priority and does not block normal site crawling....

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why does Google still display old content in your meta descriptions?

Google adapts the snippets and descriptions based on the user's query, even if the content is no longer present on the page. This adaptation can persist for a few weeks after a content change before i...

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does FAQ structured data really need to be 100% visible on the page?

The content of FAQ structured data must be visible word-for-word on the page. Algorithms check that the text is present to avoid promising something in the results that the user cannot find on the pag...

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Are Quality Raters really evaluating your site to lower its ranking?

Quality Raters do not manually rate individual sites to request their demotion. They test algorithm changes by comparing A/B results. Their evaluations serve to improve algorithms overall, not to modi...

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Core Web Vitals: Why does Google ignore other performance metrics for Page Experience?

For the upcoming Page Experience ranking factor, Google will use only the Core Web Vitals (not other performance metrics like Lighthouse). Desktop and mobile will be evaluated separately. Google will ...

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really return a 404 for products that are permanently unavailable?

For temporarily unavailable products, displaying a 200 page is acceptable. But for products that are permanently unavailable, using a 404 (or soft 404) status allows Google to crawl more efficiently b...

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do structured FAQs really help improve rankings on Google?

Structured FAQs do not improve a page's ranking; they merely allow for potential display with FAQ snippets in the results. It's not a matter of competitiveness in terms of ranking, but rather visibili...

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is it really necessary to avoid any migration following a failed domain migration?

During a problematic domain migration, the one thing you must absolutely avoid is another migration. Internal changes to the site are acceptable, especially if they don't involve modifying URLs....

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google really analyze the audio of your podcasts for SEO?

Google does not perform any textual analysis of podcast audio files to understand what is being said. If content is essential for SEO, it needs to be presented in text on the page, for example through...

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Can your website's language versions really have completely different designs?

The English and French versions of a site can have a completely different design when implementing hreflang. Audiences, content, and keywords can vary drastically from one language to another. This is...

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Is it true that Google still indexes Flash content, or should everything be migrated to pure HTML?

Google indexes pages with Flash solely based on the visible HTML content in the rendered DOM, not content within Flash files. The removal of Flash from browsers should not affect site traffic as Googl...

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Do 302 redirects really end up being treated as permanent 301s?

There is no definitive timeframe, but Google eventually treats a 302 redirect as a 301 if it remains in place for a long time. The timeframe is more about months than days, as some 302s stay temporary...

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why does blocking robots.txt prevent noindex from working?

You should not block noindex URLs in robots.txt, as this prevents Google from seeing the noindex directive, and these pages may stay indexed. Instead, use the URL Parameters Tool to reduce crawling of...

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can you really migrate multiple sites to a single domain using Google's Change of Address tool?

The Change of Address tool in Search Console only allows for migrating one domain to another, not multiple domains to a single one. You can still perform the migration with 301 redirects but cannot us...

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available