John Mueller

★★ Should you manually deindex old pagination URLs after changing your site's architecture?

If you disable pagination on a blog, there's no need to manually deindex old paginated URLs. Google will re-crawl them, see that they return the homepage (200) or a 404, and will naturally process the...

Aug 21, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do Core Web Vitals really measure what your users actually see?

For Core Web Vitals (a future ranking factor), Google measures the performance of the version of the page that users actually see: the AMP version if that’s what displays, the classic HTML version oth...

Aug 21, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you still invest in AMP to optimize speed and ranking?

Speed is a ranking factor, but AMP is not necessary for having fast pages. You can create very fast non-AMP pages and slow AMP pages. What matters is the actual measured performance, not the AMP forma...

Aug 21, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really implement hreflang across an entire multilingual site?

Hreflang can be used selectively: only on certain pages (homepage, key pages) without needing to implement it site-wide. It’s a page-level annotation, not a global requirement....

Aug 21, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why does Google require a canonical on ALL AMP pages, including standalone ones?

All AMP pages must have a rel=canonical, whether they are connected to a traditional HTML version or are standalone AMP pages. In the case of standalone AMP, the canonical points to the page itself....

Aug 21, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Are sitemaps really essential for Google indexing?

Google discovers new URLs through various means: internal links, RSS feeds, tweets, public mailing lists, external links. The sitemap is not the only source. Google does not guess URLs; it must find t...

Aug 21, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Are URL parameters still an obstacle for organic search?

URLs with parameters (query strings) have been perfectly acceptable to Google for a long time. The URL parameter management tool is only useful for very large sites (millions of pages) generating an e...

Aug 21, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really index all paged pages to optimize your SEO?

For pagination, all pages should be indexable if they contain important content or links. They must be connected with standard HTML links (next/previous). Google can crawl and index these pages withou...

Aug 21, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Nofollow still affect crawling without passing on PageRank?

Google can now follow nofollow links to discover new URLs and potentially index them. However, the transmission of PageRank and ranking signals through these links remains independent of the crawl dec...

Aug 21, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why does Google make it impossible to use Search Console Insights without Analytics?

Google Search Console Insights combines data from Google Analytics and Search Console to provide a simplified view. Both data sources are required for the tool to function since it integrates informat...

Aug 21, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really keep nofollow on your footer links and service pages?

There is no need to use rel=nofollow on links to privacy policy pages or other service pages to prevent them from ranking. Google inherently understands that these site-wide linked pages are not the m...

Aug 21, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do site-wide links in the menu and footer really dilute the PageRank of your strategic pages?

Having multiple site-wide links to the same page (for example, in the menu and footer) does not significantly dilute the PageRank passed to other pages. Google understands that certain pages, like the...

Aug 21, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is it really necessary to optimize the first link on a page for SEO?

Contrary to the common belief that only the first link matters, Google can take multiple links pointing to the same URL on a page into account and combine their anchor signals. There is no need to man...

Aug 21, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google really track HTML links that are hidden by JavaScript?

If an HTML link exists in the code but a JavaScript event captures the click (for example, to display a dropdown menu instead of navigating), Google can still see and follow that HTML link. The <a> el...

Aug 21, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google Really Penalize Sites Listed in Disavow Files?

John Mueller has said it again for the 345th time 🙂: the fact that a website is listed in a disavow file submitted to Google by another site has no impact on its crawl or future rankings and does not ...

Aug 17, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Is Guest Blogging Really Dead for SEO in 2024?

John Mueller indicated, again on Twitter, that obtaining links through blogs (guest blogging) does not work in SEO: "These links have no value. It's a waste of time if you're only doing it for the lin...

Aug 17, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do Licensed Images Really Rank Better in Google Images?

John Mueller explained on Twitter that whether an image has a copyright or is available under a license (regardless of the license type) does not help it rank better in Google Images results. This is ...

Aug 17, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do Hn Tags (H1-H6) Really Impact Google Rankings?

John Mueller explained in a hangout the importance of Hn tags (H1-H6) for Google's algorithm: "the headings on a page help us to better understand the content of the page. They're obviously not the on...

Aug 17, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Is Google really tolerant of hreflang errors that mismatch language and content?

If a Japanese page (e.g., /jp) declares in its hreflang x-default or hreflang that it is in English while the content is in Japanese, this creates an inconsistency. Although this needs to be corrected...

Aug 11, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Googlebot really send an accept-language header during crawling?

Googlebot almost never crawls with an accept-language header, or uses English, or sends no language at all. If a site serves content based on this header, Google will only see the English version (or ...

Aug 11, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available