SEO statements by John Mueller | SEO Declarations

John Mueller is one of Google's most active spokespeople on search engine optimization topics. As a Search Advocate, he regularly answers the SEO community's questions during Google Search Central sessions and on social media. His statements are a prime source of information for understanding how Google Search works and the best practices to follow.

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★★★ Do blog backlinks to product pages really convey authority?

Creating internal links from a blog (that naturally attracts backlinks) to the product or category pages of an e-commerce site is a recommended practice. The backlinks obtained by the blog help streng...

Sep 14, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really implement both Merchant Center feeds and product structured data?

It is recommended to use both the Merchant Center feed and the product structured data on the pages. The feed powers organic shopping results, while the structured data generates rich results in regul...

Sep 14, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do core updates really recalculate your scores continuously between deployments?

Unlike the old Panda or Penguin updates where scores were frozen until the next refresh, modern core updates see their scores regularly refreshed between two major deployments. Google can recalculate ...

Sep 14, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Can switching your WordPress theme really sabotage your SEO?

Changing a site's theme can have an SEO impact not through speed, but through the alteration of internal linking and the presentation of content. For example, a central image changing to a thumbnail c...

Sep 14, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why does Google show spam in brand search results beyond the first page?

If phishing or spam sites are massively appearing on deep pages (top 10 pages) of brand results, it’s often because Google lacks quality content to show beyond the first page. Patterns of spam should ...

Sep 14, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do internal links really play a role in Google ranking?

Creating internal links from old pages to new or relevant pages improves SEO. This helps Google crawl the site, understand which pages are important (the most linked), and better distribute internal a...

Sep 14, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Is it true that Google now allows natural keyword repetition in product listings?

When products in a category naturally share the same brand prefix (e.g., 'Intel' for all Intel processors), this repetition is not regarded as keyword stuffing. Google understands that this is the nor...

Sep 14, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really worry about product duplication with infinite scrolling?

For an e-commerce site, if page 2 loads products from page 1 (infinite scroll), it is not an SEO problem. Google is looking for links to product pages, and finding them duplicated across multiple pagi...

Sep 14, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Are <p> tags truly important for SEO, or does Google completely ignore them?

Google does not specifically treat the <p> tag as a strict semantic marker. During HTML rendering and text extraction, Google identifies coherent content blocks (paragraphs) by their visual and struct...

Sep 14, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Could your meta tags be hiding from Google without you even knowing?

Some third-party scripts inject tags (e.g. iframe) at the top of the <head>, which can lead Google to believe that the <head> is prematurely closed. Result: robots metatag, canonical, hreflang may be ...

Sep 14, 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

★★ Is footer content really treated as standard content by Google?

Content placed in the footer is treated like normal content located at the bottom of the page, provided that it is legible and not hidden. Google performs a viewport expansion during rendering and det...

Sep 14, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Is it true that Google really ignores your tracking scripts during rendering?

Google ignores certain scripts during rendering if they are not necessary for displaying the page. Google Analytics and other common analytics scripts are automatically detected and skipped to speed u...

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

★★★ Does page speed really have such a minimal impact on Google rankings?

Page speed is considered for ranking only on mobile and is a relatively gentle factor. Even a significant score change (e.g., dropping from 100 to 20/100) generally won’t cause a notable drop in searc...

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

★★ Why is Google planning to remove the 'crawl anomaly' category from Search Console?

Google is working on removing the generic 'crawl anomaly' category in Search Console. Instead of grouping various issues, the data will be reclassified into more specific and useful categories. This c...

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

★★ Is third-party JavaScript slowing down your site: Does Google really hold you accountable for ranking?

If a third-party JavaScript (e.g., advertising) significantly slows down a page, Google will measure this slowdown when evaluating speed for ranking, without making a distinction between site code or ...

Sep 14, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

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