John Mueller

★★★ Do out of stock pages really hurt your Google rankings?

Pages of products marked 'out of stock' or 'not available' tend to be ranked as soft 404s. When they slip into a soft 404 state, the page and its images disappear from search results....

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why does Google keep crawling your old 404 URLs?

Google continues to occasionally crawl old URLs that return 404, particularly if they had backlinks or were significant. This crawl is done at very low priority and does not block the crawl of new pag...

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is alt text truly crucial for your visibility in Google Images?

The alt text (alt tag) is primarily used for Google Image search. It should describe what is visible in the image rather than simply copy the product description. It's an important factor for SEO if i...

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why does Google sometimes show your old meta descriptions in the SERPs?

Even after updating the meta description, Google can temporarily show the old text in snippets if that content was previously on the page and considered relevant to the query. This typically normalize...

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does Google instantly change the canonical URL after removing a redirect?

When a redirect is set up and then removed, the canonicalization algorithms do not perceive the site as deceptive. They look at the current state. Google tends to be persistent with the canonical URL ...

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really use cross-domain canonicals to consolidate multiple thematic sites?

Using canonical tags across multiple domains (e.g., 25 thematic stores pointing to a main store) is technically correct. It avoids duplicate content but may redistribute SEO strength among the domains...

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Are Core Web Vitals really the only speed criterion that counts for ranking?

For 'page experience' ranking, Google will rely solely on Core Web Vitals as the speed factor. Other performance metrics may be important for user experience but are not direct ranking factors....

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why does keeping your old sites live kill your new domain?

Maintaining two old sites active with links to a new central site prevents the new site from gaining visibility as the value is not transferred. Without redirects, the new site struggles to rank and w...

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really block cookie banners for Googlebot?

Blocking cookie banners for Googlebot is not considered cloaking and will not result in a manual penalty. In most cases, these banners are implemented in JavaScript or HTML, and Google can index the m...

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really avoid setting all your outbound links to nofollow?

Setting all outbound links of a site to nofollow can have a slight negative impact. Google uses links to understand how a site fits into the web. If all links are nofollow, it may give the impression ...

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really show cookie banners to Googlebot?

Googlebot should ideally see what a normal user would see from the same location. Since Googlebot mainly crawls from the USA, if American users do not see a cookie banner, Googlebot does not need to s...

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do PageSpeed tests really mislead you about your Core Web Vitals?

Google uses real-world data from the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) to evaluate Core Web Vitals, not lab tests. What actual users see matters more than synthetic tests....

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How can you confirm if Google is truly indexing your lazy-loaded content?

To check if content is indexed, search for an exact phrase in quotes on Google. This is the ultimate proof that the content is indexed. The Inspect URL tool also allows you to view the fully rendered ...

Oct 29, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Do outbound links that are 404 really harm the perceived quality of a page?

Having a few outbound links returning 404 on a page does not lead Google to consider the page as low quality or outdated. Google adds these links to the scheduler, and if some are 404, it’s not a prob...

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

★★★ Are 307 HSTS redirections really invisible to SEO?

The 307 redirections you see in Chrome with HSTS aren't actually present on the server. Chrome displays a 307 result code to clearly indicate that an HSTS redirection has occurred, but this is just a ...

Oct 28, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does Googlebot really follow HTTP redirects to HTTPS like a regular browser?

When Googlebot accesses an HTTP URL that redirects to HTTPS (which is typically the case for a site with both HTTP and HTTPS), it will follow this actual server-side redirect normally....

Oct 28, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Googlebot actually ignore your forced HTTPS redirects?

Googlebot attempts to crawl URLs with a clean slate and doesn’t retain any HSTS list. It accesses HTTP URLs directly without applying the browser's HSTS rules....

Oct 28, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Googlebot really ignore HSTS 307 redirects, or is there a catch?

Googlebot does not interact with 307 redirects generated by HSTS. These 307 redirects are not real server-side redirects but rather redirects generated by the Chrome browser to indicate that it is app...

Oct 28, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available