John Mueller

★★★ Do 301 redirects really help you maintain your rankings after a migration?

When migrating a website to a new CMS, it is crucial to set up 301 redirects from old URLs to new ones to preserve ranking....

Jan 12, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does the location of your server really influence your SEO ranking?

Hosting a site outside the United States does not directly affect rankings because it is the perceived speed to the user that is considered, including CDNs....

Jan 12, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really configure the AMP page as the mobile URL with a reverse canonical?

It is recommended to consider your AMP page as the mobile URL and link the AMP as the mobile version with a rel="canonical" link pointing to the desktop page....

Jan 12, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Do you really need category pages for a small product catalog?

The site structuring with category and product pages relies more on user preferences than on SEO requirements, particularly for limited catalogs....

Jan 12, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is it true that text hidden in tabs is indexed by Google Mobile-First?

With mobile indexing, text hidden behind tabs will be viewed as an integral part of the page and considered normally....

Jan 12, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why aren't your CSS images showing up in Google Images?

To ensure images are indexed in image search, it is advisable to use the HTML image tag with the source attribute. CSS images are not accounted for indexing....

Jan 12, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can Googlebot Really Ignore Your robots.txt?

Googlebot does not intentionally bypass the rules set in the robots.txt file. If you observe this happening, check your robots.txt configuration and ensure it is set up correctly....

Jan 12, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do links in press releases still hold weight in SEO?

Links from press releases are generally not given as much weight as other natural links because this type of link is often guided by the webmaster....

Jan 12, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do 404 errors really harm your site's SEO?

404 errors do not affect the ranking of other pages on your site. If some of your pages generate 404 errors and should not be indexed, it is not a problem....

Jan 12, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is Your UGC Really Sabotaging Your Google SEO?

Low-quality content on a user-generated content platform must be measured and addressed by the site to maintain overall quality and prevent indexing of unwanted content....

Jan 09, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really avoid the address change tool when merging multiple ccTLDs?

To merge sites with multiple ccTLDs into a single subdirectory, it is advisable to use redirects rather than the address change tool, as the tool requires a strict one-to-one mapping....

Jan 09, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really optimize the lastmod tag of sitemaps to enhance crawling?

Sitemaps help Google understand which parts of a website need to be re-crawled, particularly using the last modified date....

Jan 09, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really nofollow all your external links to protect your SEO?

Google allows sites to decide how to manage their external links. Sites can apply nofollow to all links to protect themselves from dubious SEO practices, and this will not affect their ranking accordi...

Jan 09, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does Google really treat all hreflang implementation methods equally?

Google sees on-page methods, HTTP headers, and sitemaps for hreflang as equivalent. However, it is crucial not to provide conflicting information among them....

Jan 09, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can structured data really enhance your visibility in voice search?

To optimize content for voice search, Google recommends using structured data and writing content in natural language that could be read aloud....

Jan 09, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really include final URLs in your sitemaps to boost your indexing?

Google advises using the final URL in sitemap files to avoid conflicting information, improve the reporting in Search Console, and help search engines choose the canonical URL....

Jan 09, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Your Mobile Site Need the Same Structure as Desktop for SEO?

John Mueller clarified on Twitter that a site's architecture in its mobile version doesn't necessarily have to be the same as the desktop site, but this architecture must be crawlable by robots....

Jan 08, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why Does a Noindex,Follow Page Eventually Become Noindex,Nofollow?

John Mueller indicated in a hangout that a "noindex,follow" directive in the meta "robots" tag will eventually be considered as "noindex,nofollow" because the links on the page will no longer be follo...

Jan 08, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★ Should You Use Google Tag Manager for SEO Testing?

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that he does not recommend using the Google Tag Manager tool to perform SEO tests on a number of tags, as a recently published article suggested. But he didn't explai...

Jan 08, 2018 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google Consider Hiding Structured Data from Users as Cloaking?

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that showing structured data tags to Googlebot only and not to the average user was considered by Google as cloaking and that this type of technique was therefore rep...

Dec 27, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available