John Mueller

★★★ Does Google really wipe the history of an expired domain when it's taken over?

When a new site is built on an expired domain, Google attempts to recognize this change and ignore the domain's past as much as possible. However, problems from the old site (like spam links) can pers...

Sep 25, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is server-side rendering truly free from any cloaking penalty risks?

Serving pre-rendered HTML to Googlebot and dynamic JavaScript content to users is not considered cloaking as long as the final content is identical. This is an acceptable method known as server-side r...

Sep 25, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do naked URLs as anchors really kill the SEO context of your links?

Links with the URL as anchor text (naked URLs) are recognized by Google as normal links, but without useful context. The lack of a meaningful anchor loses the main contextual element of the link....

Sep 25, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does mobile-friendliness actually impact desktop SEO?

Mobile compatibility is a factor specifically used for mobile search results, not for desktop results. If no one is searching for your site on mobile, the lack of mobile compatibility is not critical ...

Sep 25, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is guest posting for backlink acquisition truly risky?

Google does not recommend guest posting for the purpose of creating links. If done on a large scale, the webspam team may take algorithmic or manual actions as these are not natural links....

Sep 25, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can You Really Recover Your SEO Traffic After Being Penalized by Google?

John Mueller explained in a hangout that after being subject to a manual action, a website should not expect to regain its visibility from before the penalty....

Sep 21, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Do You Really Need a Keyword in Your Domain Name to Rank Well?

John Mueller indicated in a video from the "Ask Google Webmasters" series that the presence of a keyword in a site's domain name is not a criterion taken into account by Google: "In short, no. You don...

Sep 21, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Focus Exclusively on Core Web Vitals to Optimize Web Performance for SEO?

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that "webperf" (Web performance, page load times, etc.) was often a complex topic, but that for SEO, Google stuck to Core Web Vitals and that the 3 criteria of these ...

Sep 21, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do keyword TLDs (.jobs, .tech, .pro) really boost your SEO?

Google does not grant any ranking bonus for having a keyword in the domain extension (TLD). A site with .jobs, .tech, or any other keyword TLD is not favored for that keyword. The fact that a site con...

Sep 15, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do keyword TLDs (.jobs, .seo, .tech) really boost your SEO?

Having a keyword in a top-level domain (TLD) name like .jobs does not give any specific ranking bonus on Google. The highest-ranked results for a given search typically do not contain the keyword in t...

Sep 15, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really sacrifice keywords in your domain name for longevity?

It's better to choose a domain name that can be used long-term rather than one that corresponds only to the current offering. Businesses evolve and migrating domains is difficult. For example, a site ...

Sep 15, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really ditch exact match domain names for better SEO?

It is recommended to choose a domain name that can be used long-term rather than one that only corresponds to current offerings. Businesses evolve over time, and changing a domain is difficult. For ex...

Sep 15, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Do Google’s core updates truly follow a predictable schedule?

Core updates do not follow a precise timeline and are not limited to a single algorithm. They can include changes in how links are treated, and Google continuously processes new links, not just during...

Sep 14, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Are Google’s manual penalties always visible in Search Console?

If a manual action has been taken by Google's Webspam team, it will almost always be visible in Search Console. There are a few rare edge cases where this would not be displayed, but for a normal site...

Sep 14, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ How does Google really deindex an expired site or one that’s globally 404?

When a site becomes 404 or expires, Google does not immediately deindex all pages. Frequently crawled pages (homepage, categories) disappear quickly, while others do so more slowly. Google attempts to...

Sep 14, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does the alt attribute still play a role in web page SEO?

The alt attribute should accurately describe the content of the image (e.g., transcribe a quote if the image is a quote). Google uses the alt to understand the image for Image Search, not for traditio...

Sep 14, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you include or exclude Googlebot from your A/B tests without risking a penalty?

It is acceptable to include Googlebot in a temporary A/B test (e.g., menu change) or to exclude it by treating it as a special category (based on geolocation, language, capabilities). If separate URLs...

Sep 14, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really wait for the next core update to reclaim your lost traffic?

A site negatively impacted by a core update does not need to wait for the next update to recover. Improvements can be detected incrementally over time. Some major changes require a full reevaluation d...

Sep 14, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Could cleaning up your artificial backlinks really cause your Google rankings to plummet?

When cleaning up after a manual action related to artificial backlinks, the site may see a drop in rankings because it was previously ranked in an artificial situation. After correction, the ranking r...

Sep 14, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Are guest posts considered a shady link scheme by Google?

Guest posts are acceptable if the author seeks to reach an audience (advertising, notoriety) and does not care about the nofollow. If the sole motivation is to obtain a dofollow link in exchange for t...

Sep 14, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available