John Mueller

★★★ Does Google Use Physical Store Traffic to Rank Websites?

John Mueller responded on Twitter to a question about whether Google might use IRL (In Real Life) data as relevance criteria. For example, whether there would be more people at a given time in a store...

Oct 15, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Avoid Quotation Marks and Citations to Optimize Your SEO?

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that quoting someone or putting quotation marks around a word or phrase did not change the treatment that Google used in its analysis....

Oct 15, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Delete Low-Traffic Pages to Improve Your SEO?

John Mueller responded to a question about "content cannibalization" (low-traffic pages on a site receiving no SEO traffic). One approach proposed by an internet user was to delete this content, consi...

Oct 08, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How Does Google Detect Links Created Solely for SEO Purposes?

John Mueller reminded forum users that Google considers a link to be low quality and in violation of its webmaster guidelines from the moment it was created solely for SEO purposes, even if the link m...

Oct 08, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really migrate your site in sections to avoid duplication problems?

When migrating a site, it is advisable to gradually transfer while keeping distinct parts of the site to minimize the SEO impact....

Oct 05, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does the noindex page ratio really influence your site's rankings?

Having a large number of noindex pages does not affect the ranking of indexed pages. Only the pages intended for indexing should be decisive....

Oct 05, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do 404 and soft 404 errors really harm your website's SEO?

According to Google, 404 and soft 404 errors do not affect a website's quality. They are considered a normal part of the web....

Oct 05, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do internal link anchors really boost SEO or sabotage your ranking?

Internal link anchors are important, but excessive keywords can harm page quality and thus its ranking....

Oct 05, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does duplicate content from third parties really hurt your Google ranking?

Copied pages generally do not harm your ranking if your pages are well-ranked. This depends on the context and the relevance of the pages....

Oct 05, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How long does it really take for Google to assess the quality of a new page?

Algorithms do not have a defined timeframe for assessing the quality of a page. This depends on the expertise of the content creator and fast indexing....

Oct 05, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does duplicate content really harm your SEO?

Duplicate content generally does not affect ranking if your content is well indexed. Google will usually prioritize the most relevant source....

Oct 05, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can mobile-first indexing happen without a responsive mobile site?

The transition to mobile-first indexing does not depend on the mobile compatibility of pages. Non-mobile-friendly pages can still be indexed as long as they are accessible....

Oct 05, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Are Google's algorithm updates really just 'normal'?

Updates from September's algorithms and others are standard updates that aim to enhance the relevance of search results over time....

Oct 05, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google tailor its algorithms to fit your industry?

Google's algorithms do not vary specifically by industry or search volume, but automatically adapt to changes in the search environment....

Oct 05, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is it really smart to rely on average position in Search Console to gauge your visibility?

The average position displayed in Search Console is the highest average position of your site in search results for tracked queries....

Oct 05, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How does Google really recrawl soft 404 pages after they're fixed?

Google recrawls and reindexes pages flagged as soft 404 after the content is available again, and using a sitemap with a realistic last modified date can accelerate this recovery....

Oct 05, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Can a site rollback harm your Google ranking?

If Google crawls an older version of a page after a rollback, it does not send negative signals. Google updates its index based on the newly served version without prejudice....

Oct 05, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you remove noindex tags from hreflang pages to make it work?

When pages in a hreflang set are noindex, Google simply focuses on those that are indexable. The hreflang links between indexed pages remain functional....

Oct 05, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does shared hosting really harm your website's SEO?

John Mueller states that sharing a hosting or platform, like WordPress or Blogger, does not negatively impact SEO. It does not result in any manual or algorithmic penalties from Google....

Oct 05, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does JavaScript really block the indexing of your content?

John Mueller recommends evaluating whether the crucial content of a page heavily relies on JavaScript to decide on using dynamic rendering. If the main content is loaded via JavaScript, this may requi...

Oct 05, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available