John Mueller

★★ How Does Google Really Interpret the Ampersand (&) in Your SEO Content?

Gary Illyes and John Mueller responded to a question on Twitter, indicating that, in most cases (and with some nuances in both responses however), Google understood the ampersand ("&") as an "and" in ...

Apr 10, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★ Why Does Google Deliberately Hide Information About Disavowed Links in Search Console?

John Mueller indicated in a hangout that if Google doesn't provide information in its Search Console about whether a link has been disavowed or not (in the "Links to your site" section), it's basicall...

Apr 10, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Can Store Locator Pop-ups Harm Your Mobile SEO Rankings?

Be careful if you use a pop-up on your mobile site that allows users to choose the nearest store upon arriving on the site (store locator). John Mueller said on Twitter that this type of pop-up could ...

Apr 03, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★ Do You Really Need Backlinks for Google to Crawl Your Pages?

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that if a page had no backlinks, Googlebot would not crawl it. This is obviously false since a URL can be identified by the search engine via the XML Sitemap or be su...

Apr 03, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do 404 Errors Really Hurt Your Website's SEO Rankings?

John Mueller once again explained on Twitter that 404 errors returned by a website are not considered a low-quality criterion by Google and that there is no penalty that could affect a source of infor...

Mar 20, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why Does Google Refuse to Build a Low-Quality Page Detection Tool in Search Console?

A user asked John Mueller whether Google was currently working on a tool that could be integrated into Search Console and would provide insights into which pages on a site might be considered low-qual...

Mar 20, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Avoid Linking to Wikipedia to Prevent Google Penalties?

John Mueller indicated - in response to a question from a user on Twitter - that linking to the Wikipedia encyclopedia does not result in a penalty from Google. One sometimes wonders where such questi...

Mar 20, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Optimizing Keywords in URLs Really Matter for SEO?

John Mueller, once again, reminded us on Twitter that the presence of keywords in URLs is a weak ranking factor for the search engine's algorithm, especially since on mobile devices, we don't even see...

Mar 13, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do Font Choices Really Impact Your Google Rankings?

The same John Mueller also explained in this hangout that Google does not take into account the type of font used in a website's pages. It is not a relevance criterion. The only limitation: if the tex...

Mar 13, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How can you properly handle 503 errors during maintenance without losing your SEO rankings?

John Mueller provided some advice on Google's Webmaster Blog if you temporarily close your site for maintenance operations: block the payment system (for example via the robots.txt file), warn visitor...

Mar 13, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Can a Brand New Page Really Rank for Highly Competitive Keywords?

John Mueller indicated in a hangout that a newly created page can, despite its young age, rank well in Google's results, even for highly competitive queries. He takes as an example a page that would p...

Mar 13, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★ Does Panda Really Analyze Your Entire Site Architecture or Just Content Quality?

John Mueller indicated in a hangout that the Panda filter takes into account not only the quality of the content offered by a website, but also the entire site and therefore its architecture, without ...

Mar 06, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should You Still Submit Your Site to Directories to Improve SEO?

John Mueller, always him, indicated on Twitter that submitting a site to directories (particularly SEO directories) "generally" doesn't help with search engine optimization and rankings. Duly noted......

Mar 06, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ How Can You Effectively Optimize Your Images for Google Images in 2024?

John Mueller also reminded us this week of the various criteria taken into account by the Google Images algorithm: image file name, Alt attribute, Title attribute of a link pointing to the image, capt...

Mar 06, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does Google Really Remove All URL Variants When You Submit a Removal Request in Search Console?

John Mueller also indicated that if you submit a URL removal request via Search Console, all versions of that address will be removed from the index: Http/Https, with and without "www". So it's worth ...

Feb 27, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should You Really Avoid Participating in SEO Contests?

John Mueller indicated in a hangout that one should be wary of SEO contests and the links they could generate because these could prove harmful and contrary to the search engine's recommendations. An ...

Feb 27, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should You Really Link to Wikipedia or Authority Sites to Improve Your SEO?

The same John Mueller indicated on Twitter that creating an external link on a page to very high authority sites like Wikipedia, Le Monde or... Google 🙂 doesn't play a role in SEO. Our experience (and...

Feb 27, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should You Really Worry About Bounce Rate for SEO Optimization?

John Mueller also indicated in this hangout that there is no point in inhibiting the browser's "Back" button when displaying a website in an attempt to manipulate the bounce rate. According to John Mu...

Feb 20, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should You Use Google's URL Inspection Tool to Speed Up Page Indexing?

John Mueller provided an interesting insight during a hangout about how Google indexes web pages on a site. In fact, there are two possibilities for this: the "classic" method (Googlebot finds a link ...

Feb 20, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Can Google's Advertising Bots Actually Discover New Pages for Indexing?

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that Google's robots used for Adwords and Adsense advertising (examples: Mediapartners-Google, Mediapartners, AdsBot-Google and AdsBot-Google-Mobile-Apps) are not use...

Feb 13, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available