John Mueller

★★★ How long could a 503 code jeopardize your indexing?

An HTTP 503 response can be temporarily used for technical issues, but Google will eventually remove the pages after several days if the error persists. It's advisable to handle any site migration con...

Oct 05, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How does Google really decide on the canonical version when your signals contradict each other?

To determine canonical content, Google uses various signals including the rel=canonical tag, internal links, and URLs in sitemaps. In case of conflicting signals, Google can make its own choice....

Oct 05, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can alt tags prevent your images from being indexed in mobile-first?

Alt tags are crucial for Google's image indexing, especially in mobile-first indexing where mobile versions of a site may omit these tags....

Oct 05, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does robots.txt really prevent your pages from being indexed?

John Mueller explains that the robots.txt file and the noindex tag serve different functions: robots.txt prevents crawling, but not indexing, while the noindex tag allows you to prevent the indexing o...

Oct 05, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How Does Google Actually Decide Between Manual Penalties and Algorithmic Spam Filters?

John Mueller explained during a hangout that Google has always tended to favor algorithmic filters to fight spam, rather than manual actions. A manual action will only be imposed (as part of a group p...

Oct 01, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Really Avoid Multilingualism in Title Tags at All Costs?

John Mueller indicated on Reddit that it was largely preferable, in the vast majority of cases, to use only one language in a Title tag for a given page....

Oct 01, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is There Really a Limit to How Many Meta Tags You Can Use on a Webpage?

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that to his knowledge, there was no limit to the number of meta tags (of any kind) that Google can crawl on a webpage....

Oct 01, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does Googlebot really crawl your site only from the United States?

Having Googlebot crawl from every country could overload web servers by multiplying traffic load. Currently, crawling is mainly done from the United States for practical reasons....

Sep 26, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you always place sponsored articles as noindex?

For sponsored articles, the most important thing is to ensure that all included links do not pass PageRank. Using the nofollow tag on these links is crucial, while the noindex tag on the article itsel...

Sep 26, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Is there a maximum threshold for ads to avoid a Google penalty?

Google has no specific guidelines regarding the proportion of ads by site type, but user preferences can indirectly influence rankings. The design of the site must stem from its audience and objective...

Sep 26, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How can you manage canonical and hreflang during content syndication without causing conflicts between markets?

When syndicating content, it is essential to use rel canonical tags to indicate the primary version for each market and hreflang tags to signal the appropriate local versions without overlapping canon...

Sep 26, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Do KML sitemaps still affect local SEO rankings?

Google no longer considers KML sitemaps in local ranking, as this feature was deprecated several years ago....

Sep 26, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why has Google's cached page disappeared for your mobile-first site?

The absence of a cached page in Google does not necessarily indicate an indexing problem. For sites that have switched to mobile-first indexing, the cached page is often unavailable, which is normal f...

Sep 26, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why are your image URLs marked as soft 404s without affecting your visual indexing?

When Google identifies URLs serving an image but not suitable for a web search landing page, they may be marked as soft 404s in the index coverage reports. This does not affect direct image indexing b...

Sep 26, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you use nofollow on internal links to legal pages?

It is possible to use the nofollow tag on internal links to standard sections such as transparency, but it may not have a significant impact. Generally, it’s better to leave these links as normal to a...

Sep 26, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does Google favor your homepage more often for crawling?

A website's homepage is often prioritized for crawling not due to an artificial signal but because it typically receives more internal and external links. Google does not artificially assign greater i...

Sep 26, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why doesn’t Google immediately reassess your site after a Core Update?

After a core algorithm update, Google does not immediately evaluate sites as 'bad' or 'in need of correction', but continuously analyzes whether a site's content is relevant to queries. Changes made t...

Sep 26, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does anti-scraping JavaScript count as cloaking in Google's eyes?

It is acceptable to use JavaScript to prevent content from being displayed on unwanted external domains by serving it with a noindex nofollow. As long as the content is accessible with the correct URL...

Sep 26, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Rel canonical and nofollow: Which tag should you use to manage your page variants?

Google recommends using the rel canonical tag to indicate the main version of a page when multiple variants exist. Using internal links can also be effective. If you need a single page, rel canonical ...

Sep 26, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does lazy loading kill the indexing of your images in Google?

To ensure that lazily loaded images are indexed by Google, it is recommended to use noscript tags containing standard img tags, especially if the images are significant for image search traffic....

Sep 26, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available