John Mueller

★★ Does Domain Registration Length Really Impact SEO Rankings?

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that purchasing (or renewing) a domain name for a longer or shorter period is not considered a relevance criterion by Google. The rumor suggests that the longer you r...

Nov 14, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Do Rich Snippets Really Mean Google Considers Your Site High Quality?

John Mueller indicated that the fact that "rich snippets" (stars, reviews, in particular) are displayed for a site does not necessarily mean that all Google algorithms consider that site to be of good...

Nov 07, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Still Disavow Links That Have Gone Nofollow or Disappeared?

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that if a link has disappeared or has switched to nofollow, it is no longer necessary to include it in a disavow file. This indeed seems logical....

Nov 07, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Request Frequent Recrawls of Your Site to Improve Your SEO Rankings?

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that if you request (for example via Search Console) that Googlebot recrawl a site, it will not negatively impact a site. And if the search engine's robots crawl a si...

Nov 07, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★ Should You Really Worry About Google's Announced Algorithm Changes Coming This Year?

John Mueller recently hinted during a hangout that Google could launch numerous new features on the search engine and its algorithm before the end of the year. But without any specifics. So, saying th...

Nov 07, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How Does Google's Page Layout Algorithm Actually Penalize Ad-Heavy Websites?

John Mueller indicated in a hangout that the Page Layout algorithm, which penalizes pages offering too many ads relative to editorial content, was being updated in an automated fashion and not launche...

Nov 07, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why Does Google Prefer JSON-LD for Structured Data?

John Mueller indicated that the JSON-LD format was Google's favorite for implementing structured data markup. While it certainly accepts all other formats, he recommends JSON-LD....

Oct 24, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do You Really Need a Dedicated XML Sitemap for Your AMP Pages?

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that using the AMP standard on your site does not require creating a specific XML Sitemap for this format. A "classic" Sitemap is sufficient and Google will find the ...

Oct 24, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google Really Penalize Sitewide Links and Blogrolls?

John Mueller indicated that "sitewide" backlinks (for example, links placed in the footers of all pages of a website, identically) or in blogrolls (to the right or left of the editorial area, in the f...

Oct 24, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★ Does Google Really Use a Global Authority Score to Rank Websites?

John Mueller also explained during a hangout that Google doesn't use a relevance criterion resembling a "global authority score for a website". Google may use global scores associated with a website, ...

Oct 24, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How Long Should You Really Keep a 301 Redirect Active?

John Mueller said it last year: a 301 redirect should be kept in place for at least a year, if not longer. In fact, the idea is primarily to measure traffic to the old URL. As soon as it becomes zero ...

Oct 24, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Do International Links Really Have Less SEO Value for Google?

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that the quality analysis of a link does not take into account whether the linking site is located in another country or offered in a different language than the dest...

Oct 17, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★ Does Penguin 4.0 Really Use Machine Learning?

Gary Illyes indicated on Twitter that the Penguin 4.0 filter did not use machine learning algorithms. John Mueller, also on Twitter, stated that it did. Paul Haar, Google's ranking manager, concluded ...

Oct 17, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available