John Mueller

★★ Should you isolate your blog or news section on a separate domain?

For a news section on a product site, it is recommended to keep it on the existing domain rather than creating a new domain. This allows you to immediately benefit from the authority of the existing s...

Oct 16, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really think twice before splitting your site into multiple domains?

Dividing a site into multiple domains is even more challenging than merging sites. Google generally recommends concentrating content rather than splitting it, unless there are very good business reaso...

Oct 16, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is alternating between index and noindex really dooming your pages to Google's oblivion?

If pages alternate between index and noindex, Google will eventually treat them as 404 pages and crawl them less frequently, regardless of submissions in the sitemap. This fluctuation is counterproduc...

Oct 16, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does a 1:1 domain migration truly transfer ALL ranking signals?

During a simple domain migration (one-to-one), all ranking signals are transferred. Google has worked long to make these migrations as seamless as possible, and they generally work very well....

Oct 16, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really use data-nosnippet to control your search snippets?

It is acceptable to use the data-nosnippet attribute to exclude certain parts of a page from search snippets. Lazy-loading is also a valid option for content that is intended solely for users....

Oct 16, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why does recovery from a Page Layout penalty take months?

After fixing issues related to the Page Layout algorithm (excessive ads above the fold), recovery is not instant. Google must reprocess a large part of the site to understand that the problem is resol...

Oct 16, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Can you really use lazy loading and data-nosnippet to control what Google displays in the SERPs?

Using lazy loading or the data-nosnippet attribute to exclude certain parts of a page from search snippets is perfectly acceptable. However, unverified reviews should not be used in structured data....

Oct 16, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does content syndication really harm your organic search ranking?

If other sites are syndicating your content, it is not a signal that Google views your site as low quality. On the contrary, this can be seen as a positive sign that others want to syndicate your cont...

Oct 16, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does the Ad Experience Report really influence Google rankings?

The Ad Experience Report is not used as a ranking factor in Google Search. It's Chrome that automatically blocks ads on non-compliant sites. The SEO impact comes from other factors like above-the-fold...

Oct 16, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can the history of an expired domain hold back your rankings for months?

A domain that has served adult or problematic content can retain classifications (such as SafeSearch) that last a long time. External links with problematic anchors can also cause difficulties, someti...

Oct 16, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google really evaluate Core Web Vitals by section or does it apply to the entire domain?

Google tries to be as granular as possible with Core Web Vitals. If the site structure allows for clear identification of sections (e.g., /forum), Google can apply different scores. If not, an aggrega...

Oct 16, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why does Google ignore your canonical and hreflang tags if your HTML is poorly structured?

Elements like rel canonical, meta robots tags, and hreflang must be in the head section of the page. If body elements appear before in the head, the browser will prematurely open the body and Google w...

Oct 16, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can a polluted domain really handicap your SEO for over a year?

If you migrate to a domain that previously hosted adult content or spam, classification algorithms (like SafeSearch) may linger. External effects like links with problematic anchors can also cause dif...

Oct 16, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why does merging two websites lead to traffic loss even with perfect redirects?

Merging two sites is more challenging than a simple migration because Google needs to recalculate the internal linking structure, determine which pages are relevant, and how they connect to the rest o...

Oct 16, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why does Google ignore identical lastmod dates in your XML sitemaps?

If all URLs in a sitemap have the same last modified date (for example, automatically generated with the current date), Google considers that the sitemap does not provide useful information, except fo...

Oct 16, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why can your critical SEO tags be completely ignored by Google?

The rel canonical, robots meta, and hreflang tags must be placed within the head section of the page. If HTML elements break the head and prematurely open the body, these critical tags can be ignored ...

Oct 16, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really prioritize incremental linking for pagination instead of linking everything from page 1?

To help Google focus on the first page of a paginated series, link the pages incrementally (page 1 to 2, 2 to 3, etc.) instead of linking everything from page 1. This signals to Google that the first ...

Oct 16, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really host your news blog on the same domain as your product site?

To add a news section to a product site, it is recommended to keep it on the existing domain rather than creating a new domain. This allows for immediate benefit from the authority of the site. A clea...

Oct 16, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How does Google really index your pages: by keywords or by documents?

Google does not read a page to decide which keywords to target. It indexes the words on each page into an inverted index. When a search is made, Google finds the documents containing those words and c...

Oct 16, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why does Google ignore identical modification dates in XML sitemaps?

If a sitemap contains thousands of URLs with the same recent modification date (all updated in the last minute), Google understands that this is incorrect and will not use this information as a signal...

Oct 16, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available