John Mueller

★★★ Does an SSL Certificate Really Boost Your SEO Rankings?

John Mueller debunked the theory that an SSL certificate would boost a website's SEO. He responded to a Mastodon member who was promoting this argument to encourage people to buy an SSL certificate - ...

May 23, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Drop FAQ Snippets After Google's Search Display Changes?

Could Google be looking to give less prominence to FAQ snippets in its rich result pages, on both desktop and mobile, as many SEO professionals have observed in recent weeks? According to John Mueller...

May 16, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Can High-Quality, Information-Rich Content Actually Be Worthless to Google?

On Twitter, a user asked John Mueller whether Google preferred short content with varied and quality backlinks or rather high-quality content with lots of information but few quality backlinks. The an...

May 16, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Really Disavow Links Flagged as Toxic by SEO Tools?

John Mueller is not a big fan of link disavowal. On Twitter, he stated that it was a "terrible idea" to disavow links based on metrics from a third-party tool. He also added "Plus, none of these metri...

May 09, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why Are Your WebP Images Showing Up in Search Console's 'Crawled - Not Indexed' Report?

A Reddit user noticed they had many WebP images appearing in the "Crawled - currently not indexed" report in Search Console. John Mueller responded that WebP images are not indexed as HTML pages, sinc...

May 09, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Use "Coming Soon" Pages During a Site Migration?

According to John Mueller, it's best to avoid "coming back soon" pages as much as possible during a redesign. On Twitter, he indicates that he would simply use a 503 status code if the site migration ...

May 09, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should You Really Avoid Using Noindex and Canonical Together on the Same Page?

Google has always said that you shouldn't use noindex and a canonical tag at the same time. But John Mueller recently played his "it depends" card on Twitter. "For identical pages you don't care much ...

May 09, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really worry about the difference between 301 and 302 redirects anymore?

Google recognizes long-lasting 302 temporary redirects as permanent. While it's theoretically correct to use 301s, it's not critical because Google adapts as long as there is a redirect in place....

May 04, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Are your Search Console metrics really showing what's actually happening to your site in Google search results?

Performance data in Search Console is collected when your site is actually displayed to users for specific queries. This data is not theoretical but based on what was actually shown to users....

May 04, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do keywords in URLs really matter for SEO rankings?

Words in URLs have minimal SEO impact. Google primarily recommends consistency to prevent linking to the same page in different ways. Changing a site's URLs purely for SEO purposes is not recommended....

May 04, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How many products per page should you display to optimize your e-commerce SEO?

On Mastodon, a user asked John Mueller what the ideal number of products per page was. The Google employee did not directly answer his interlocutor, suggesting instead that they conduct user tests to ...

May 02, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Block Your Site's Internal Search Result Pages?

On Reddit, John Mueller wrote "If you can't selectively choose which internal search result pages should be indexable, you should block them all. Use the disallow directive in the robots.txt file or n...

Apr 25, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Is Google's product review system expanding globally? Here's what's changing for your website and why it matters

Google's product review ranking system now covers a broader set of new languages....

Apr 18, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why is Google publishing a specific guide on links for web designers?

Google has published a set of recommendations for links. If you're working with a web designer and want to ensure that the links on your site work well for search, this document is essential to share ...

Apr 18, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★ Why did Google just release an official gallery of search visual elements?

Google has added a gallery of the most common visual elements displayed in search results. It's useful for identifying and naming a specific part of search results....

Apr 18, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does Google's Updated rel=canonical Documentation Change How You Should Handle Duplicate Content?

Google has recently updated documentation regarding rel=canonical link annotations. These annotations provide search engines with a hint about which page version should be preferred for indexing....

Apr 18, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why is Google making Experience a core ranking factor alongside Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness?

Google has added an E for Experience to the EAT criteria (Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness) in its quality rater guidelines. The criteria now become EEAT: Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Tr...

Apr 18, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Is Google's Status Dashboard Really a Game-Changer for SEO Professionals?

Google has launched a dashboard for transparency regarding changes and incidents in search. It displays widespread issues concerning crawling, indexing, or search result display. The dashboard also tr...

Apr 18, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does Google really expect you to justify who, how, and why for every piece of content you create?

Google recommends thinking about the who, how, and why of your content when creating it....

Apr 18, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google really treat AI-generated content the same as human-written content in rankings?

Evaluating your content according to Google's guidelines, whether you use AI-generated content or not, will help you stay aligned with what Google's systems seek to reward and what users love discover...

Apr 18, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available