John Mueller

★★★ Does the white space above the fold really hurt organic search rankings?

White space at the top of the page is not a problem for SEO. The issue arises if all the content above the fold consists of ads, as this can disrupt the user experience by hiding the sought-after cont...

Sep 13, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Do White Spaces on Web Pages Really Hurt Your SEO Rankings?

John Mueller explained during a hangout that white spaces (empty areas) on a web page, which may push textual content further down, do not pose specific SEO problems. Only ads that hinder content read...

Sep 10, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ What really happens when a Google manual action expires without any fixes?

John Mueller reminded us on Twitter that manual actions do indeed expire at some point. However, if nothing has been done to fix the problem in the meantime, it could be picked up by a new part of the...

Sep 10, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can JavaScript Actually Prevent Your Site from Being Indexed in Mobile First?

John Mueller explained during a hangout that sites using a lot of JavaScript might not be transitioned to the Mobile First index....

Sep 10, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why Is the ALT Attribute Crucial for Your Google Images SEO Rankings?

John Mueller reminded us on Twitter of the critical importance of the ALT attribute for images in Google's dedicated search engine for this format....

Sep 10, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google Really Ignore Links from .edu Domains?

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that, "because of the misconception that .edu sites are better taken into account by Google," the search engine was ignoring tons of links coming from pages on this t...

Sep 10, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Link from Your Homepage to Every Page on Your Site?

John Mueller discussed during a hangout the technique of implementing links from the homepage to all pages of a site, or to as many of these pages as possible. While this practice is quite logical for...

Sep 03, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How Does Google Really Evaluate the Quality of a Backlink?

John Mueller explained on Twitter that the overall quality of the site linking to you is not the only source of information Google uses to qualify the quality of the link itself. Other criteria come i...

Sep 03, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How Does Google Really Index PDF Files and Why Should This Change Your SEO Strategy?

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that when indexing PDF documents or others (certainly Word, Excel, PowerPoint or others), it first goes through a conversion phase from PDF to HTML. And it's this doc...

Sep 03, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Really Redirect All Old URLs to the Homepage During a Migration?

John Mueller had already said this in the past. He reiterated it once again in a hangout: redirecting all the old URLs of a site to the homepage (particularly during a migration with massive changes t...

Sep 03, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Really Exclude All Redirected URLs from Your XML Sitemap?

John Mueller has said it repeatedly in the past: when you create your XML Sitemap files, don't include any redirected URLs (301 or otherwise). He reiterated this on Twitter recently. Google uses this ...

Sep 03, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do You Really Need Third-Party Tools to Identify Toxic Links for Disavowing?

During a hangout, John Mueller indicated that, as part of a link disavow process, Search Console data (the "Links to your site" section) was most of the time sufficient to verify that no toxic links w...

Sep 03, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does Author Reputation Really Impact Google Rankings?

John Mueller indicated during a hangout that the search engine does not take an author's reputation into account in its analyses. The question arose because this point is sometimes mentioned in the Qu...

Aug 27, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Which HTTP Redirect Should You Use During HTTPS Migration to Preserve Your SEO?

John Mueller indicated during a hangout that "Google strongly recommends 301 redirects during an HTTPS migration", and therefore to move URLs from HTTP to HTTPS, when he was asked about 302 or 303 red...

Aug 27, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★ Does Google Really Favor Fresh and Recent Content in Its Rankings?

When asked on Twitter: "Does Google favor 'fresh' content?", John Mueller answered "No". According to John, the search engine would not favor "fresh" content....

Aug 27, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can You Use the Same Image Multiple Times on Your Site Without an SEO Penalty?

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that an image could appear identically (under the same filename or not) on the same site, or across several different sites, this posed no problem for Google, and tha...

Aug 27, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is it true that using a 410 code instead of a 404 really speeds up deindexing?

Using a 410 response instead of a 404 for deleted URLs can, in some cases, expedite their removal from Google's index....

Aug 24, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why does redirecting all your pages to the homepage during migration ruin your SEO?

During migrations, avoid directing all pages to the homepage. 301 redirects must be page-specific to preserve SEO equity....

Aug 24, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do structured dates really influence the SEO of your articles?

Using structured dates in the structured data of an article helps Google accurately identify the publication date of news articles....

Aug 24, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does lazy loading of images really harm your Google indexing?

Google recommends that images be easily accessible, even with lazy loading, through the <noscript> tag or structured data to ensure their correct indexing....

Aug 24, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available