John Mueller

★★★ How can you effectively manage thousands of subdomains in Search Console?

Search Console limits each account to 1000 verified properties. For sites with thousands of subdomains, this requires creating multiple Search Console accounts, making management more complex (for exa...

Jun 26, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Is it true that your thousands of subdomains slow down Google’s crawling?

When a site uses thousands of subdomains, Google's crawling systems may take time to adapt because they are optimized by hostname. Initially, Google must determine whether all these subdomains share t...

Jun 26, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How can you effectively organize sitemaps when managing thousands of subdomains?

To submit sitemaps covering thousands of subdomains, several options are available: via robots.txt (free location, including on dedicated external domains), via Search Console (the sitemap must then r...

Jun 26, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why does Google sometimes show both HTML and AMP versions of the same page simultaneously in the SERPs?

Normally, if Google detects a valid AMP page for a URL and the user's browser supports it, the AMP version should be displayed in both the News carousel and mobile organic results. If both versions (H...

Jun 26, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ How does Google really refresh the AMP cache of your pages?

Google regularly updates the AMP cache, particularly during user visits to pages. There is also an API that allows for forced updates of the AMP cache for specific articles. When a user accesses a pag...

Jun 26, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you still use the Disavow Tool to manage spam links?

Google generally manages spam links well automatically without the need for intervention. However, if a webmaster detects a massive influx of spam links (for instance, hundreds of spammy domains), the...

Jun 26, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Googlebot really ignore cookie consent banners during indexing?

Google is capable of recognizing and ignoring legal banners such as cookie consents during indexing. If the banner is a CSS/JavaScript overlay on existing HTML content, Google can exclude it and index...

Jun 26, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why do link aggregators struggle to rank effectively?

Sites that primarily function as collections of links to other providers (for example, app or sports betting aggregators) may encounter ranking difficulties because Google’s algorithms may prefer to i...

Jun 26, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does the Search Console sample size depend on your site's perceived quality?

The sample size used in aggregated Search Console reports can be influenced by the perceived quality of the site. Sites that Google deems high quality and very visible in search results may benefit fr...

Jun 26, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do Search Console reports really reflect your indexing status?

Search Console aggregate reports (mobile-friendly, structured data, Core Web Vitals) only show a sample of the indexed pages, not the entirety. In extreme cases, this sample may be limited to a single...

Jun 26, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you completely block an e-commerce site during a temporary closure?

Completely blocking a site (for instance, displaying only 'closed due to COVID') leads to the rapid deindexing of all pages. In contrast, keeping the site active with only the cart deactivated allows ...

Jun 26, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does temporarily disabling your e-commerce cart really hurt your SEO ranking?

Temporarily disabling an e-commerce site's shopping cart (for instance, due to health closures) for several weeks or months typically does not negatively impact ranking, provided the site and products...

Jun 26, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Do flat URLs really hinder Google's understanding?

A very flat URL structure (with no clear folders or parameters) makes it harder for Google to understand which parts of the URL are relevant. Parameters (e.g., city=paris) allow Google to test by remo...

Jun 23, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is Google really confusing your local pages with duplicates because of URL patterns?

Google can make mistakes with canonicalization if the systems determine that a part of the URL (e.g., city name) is irrelevant, especially if random names do not generate a 404. This leads to incorrec...

Jun 23, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why does your massive no-index take 6 months to a year to be processed by Google?

Adding no-index to millions of old pages takes time (6 months to 1 year) to be fully processed. Google prioritizes crawling new important pages, even though, in absolute volume, it still crawls many o...

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

★★★ 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

★★ 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

★★ 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

★★★ 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