John Mueller

★★ Why aren't all your Disqus comments indexed in the same way?

The indexing of Disqus comments varies based on the implementation (caching in static HTML or not). Martin Splitt mentioned a possible bug. Indexing is not uniform across all sites using Disqus....

Jun 23, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is Domain Authority Really Useless for Your SEO Strategy?

Google does not use a 'Domain Authority' metric in its ranking algorithm. It's a useful third-party metric for understanding a site, but not a Google ranking factor....

Jun 23, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why is Google Discover more demanding than traditional search for showcasing your content?

Google Discover follows the Google News guidelines for eligibility. Since the content is shown to users who are not actively searching for it, the systems are more cautious. A decrease in visibility o...

Jun 23, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why do your review snippets seem to disappear and then reappear every week?

Weekly or monthly activations/deactivations of review snippets suggest a technical issue or algorithmic hesitation. This is not normal behavior. It's essential to share the URLs in the forum or with t...

Jun 23, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really use unavailable_after to manage past events on your site?

For an events site, using the unavailable_after meta tag allows you to indicate to Google when a page will become outdated. This helps Google avoid crawling these pages after expiration and focus on n...

Jun 23, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does unsupported structured data really affect ranking?

Building a network of structured data between pages with types unsupported by Google has no visible effect on ranking. Google primarily uses the types documented in its developer guide. The rest is ei...

Jun 23, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does mobile-first indexing really improve your ranking in Google?

Being migrated to mobile-first indexing brings no ranking or search advantage. It is simply the way Google indexes the site. There is no urgency to force this migration....

Jun 23, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Do you really need to optimize internal link anchors, or is it a waste of time?

For two strong pages on the same topic (e.g., e-commerce and guide), using the same natural anchor (e.g., 'cheese') for internal links is acceptable. There's no need to over-optimize anchors by adding...

Jun 23, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can you really prove the editorial quality of your content to Google with structured data tags?

There is no tag or structured data that allows you to indicate to Google that content has been reviewed by experts. You must convince users of its quality, and then Google's systems will detect it....

Jun 23, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How does Google group your URLs to prioritize crawling?

Google automatically creates groups of similar URLs (e.g., all product pages) by analyzing URL patterns. This helps prioritize crawling: if 90% of a group is no-index, Google deprioritizes new URLs in...

Jun 23, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why does your traffic really drop after a publishing break?

A traffic drop after a few months of inactivity is generally not due to the frequency of publication, but to an algorithmic reassessment of the site's relevance. The consistency of publication is not ...

Jun 23, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why do 404 redirects to the homepage destroy crawl budget?

Redirecting 404s to the homepage (even with a 5-second meta-refresh) is confusing for users and Google. Google treats this as a soft 404 and will continue to crawl more. It’s better to serve a genuine...

Jun 23, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Do technical errors on a main domain really penalize its subdomains?

Technical errors (404s, structured data issues, speed problems, grammar) on a domain generally do not affect subdomains. Exception: if the main domain appears completely offline, Google can deduce tha...

Jun 23, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Are manually posted backlinks in forums and comments really useless for SEO?

Posting links randomly in forums, blog comments, or public listings does not produce a quality signal for Google. It’s better to dedicate this time to enhancing the content. Google ignores this type o...

Jun 23, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Are YouTube Links Really Useless for Your SEO?

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that Google's search engine does not use links from YouTube in its algorithm......

Jun 22, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Really Nofollow All Guest Blogging Links?

John Mueller said (again) on Twitter that for him (and therefore for Google), all links in "guest-blogging" posts (guest posts) should be "rel=nofollow" or "rel=sponsored". Whether these links were pu...

Jun 22, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Worry About Ranking Fluctuations During Your Site's First Year?

John Mueller explained during a hangout that it was completely normal to observe fluctuations in the SEO of a new site, up to one year after its launch. According to him, there is no need to make majo...

Jun 22, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does the source of content affect the crawl budget?

There is no difference in the crawl budget based on whether the content is written by you, a team of writers, or generated by users. The important factor is to structure the site so that Google can cr...

Jun 12, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does structured data really influence rankings on Google?

Adding additional types of structured data (such as online schema) does not change page rankings. It provides more information to Google and can generate different rich results, but it does not affect...

Jun 12, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does Googlebot send an HTTP referrer when crawling your site?

Googlebot does not send an HTTP referrer when crawling, even when following redirects or links. Consequently, pop-ups or conditional messages based on the referrer will never be seen by Google and do ...

Jun 12, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available