John Mueller

★★ Do ARIA attributes really influence Google rankings?

ARIA labels for accessibility are not explicitly used by Google in page ranking but may indirectly contribute to a better understanding of the content by users and machines....

Sep 26, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Are your ranking fluctuations really caused by your site?

Ranking changes are often the result of shifts in the overall search ecosystem rather than specific issues on one site, and they can particularly affect news sites....

Sep 26, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why does Google sometimes rank aggregators above original news sources?

Sometimes articles that replicate original news content rank better than the original content. Google is interested in specific examples of this issue to try to improve its systems....

Sep 26, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why does Googlebot struggle with rendering your JavaScript on Chrome 41?

Googlebot uses Chrome 41 to render JavaScript pages, which can cause problems with modern JavaScript features such as ES6. Providing a pre-rendered HTML version can bypass these limitations....

Sep 26, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is Dynamic Rendering the Ultimate Solution for Indexing Your React Apps?

Dynamic rendering, where pages are pre-rendered on the server and served to Googlebot, is a best practice to ensure that Google can index single page applications (SPAs) built with frameworks like Rea...

Sep 26, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can hidden text for accessibility harm your SEO?

There is no penalty for hiding text meant for screen reader use for accessibility, as long as it is not intended to deceive search engines. This is in line with Google's guidelines....

Sep 26, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really keep your URLs during a site migration?

During a site migration, it is advisable to keep the existing URL structure before proceeding with other changes to allow for a faster transfer of signals and reduce fluctuations....

Sep 26, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why doesn't Google switch all sites to mobile-first indexing at the same time?

Mobile-first indexing is activated progressively based on a site's readiness. Google wants to ensure that the mobile version is equivalent to the desktop version before proceeding with the switch....

Sep 26, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does mobile-first indexing really cause temporary ranking drops?

Mobile-first indexing can lead to temporary ranking fluctuations because Google quickly crawls sites using a mobile crawler to update its index. This is generally limited to a few days and a small num...

Sep 26, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why does Google launch its search features in the U.S. first?

Google's search features are primarily deployed in regions or languages where the team can easily test them, often starting with the United States. The rollout in other languages or regions depends on...

Sep 26, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why Will the Mobile First Index Transition Take Several More Years to Complete?

John Mueller explained during a hangout that even though many webmasters have received messages in recent days indicating that their site has been validated in the Mobile First Index (MFI), the migrat...

Sep 24, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should You Prioritize Technical Simplicity Over Complexity to Avoid Algorithmic Penalties?

John Mueller indicated on Reddit that it's better to implement a website for which you're certain about how search engines will process the pages. Rather than designing a site that's very uncertain at...

Sep 24, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should You Really Aim for 100ms Download Times to Optimize Google's Crawl?

John Mueller explained on Twitter that an interesting metric, in terms of page load times, could be to look at the Search Console, in the "Crawl > Crawl Stats" section, and then try to have the "Time ...

Sep 17, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How Does Google Choose Between Publication Date and Last Updated Date in Search Results?

John Mueller provided an interesting insight during a hangout about the date displayed in Google's SERPs (particularly to the left of the snippet, which usually takes the meta "description" tag): it c...

Sep 17, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Structure Your XML Sitemaps Differently Based on How You Submit Them to Google?

John Mueller explained during a hangout that if an XML Sitemap file was submitted via an anonymous ping, the URLs it contained had to be present in the directory (and subdirectories) of the Sitemap fi...

Sep 17, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Really Add Your Brand Name to Every Title Tag?

John Mueller indicated, also on Twitter, that adding the site name (company or brand name) at the end of each Title tag on a website's pages poses absolutely no problem whatsoever....

Sep 17, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can Cookie Banners Actually Prevent Google from Crawling Your Most Important Pages?

John Mueller reminded us on Twitter that Google cannot crawl a page if displaying it requires the user to accept cookies....

Sep 17, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you still disavow old toxic backlinks?

John Mueller explains that if you previously participated in dishonest link schemes, it might be useful to use the disavow tool to ensure those efforts do not affect your future rankings, even though ...

Sep 13, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really leave thousands of hacked URLs resulting in 404 errors after an attack?

In case of a hack leading to the creation of many fake URLs, it is normal to see 404 errors in Search Console. It is recommended to ensure that the unwanted URLs return a 404 status so that Google pro...

Sep 13, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

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

If content is displayed only via JavaScript and takes time to load, it can delay its indexing. For sites with dynamic content, this means that new items may not be indexed immediately, which could be ...

Sep 13, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available