John Mueller

★★★ Does Google really use your Analytics data to rank your site?

Google does not use traffic data from Google Analytics or other external sources for its ranking algorithms....

Sep 05, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Can AMP pages really boost your visibility in mobile featured snippets?

Mobile featured snippets can now display AMP pages. This is a feature of organic search where AMP pages can potentially be shown....

Sep 05, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★ Can We Still Trust Google's Statements About the Panda Filter?

Gary Illyes explained on Twitter that Google had changed its approach to the Panda filter and that what was true 5 years ago wasn't necessarily true today. It's worth noting that a year ago, John Muel...

Sep 04, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does the Meta Robots Noarchive Tag Actually Hurt Your Google Rankings?

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that using the meta robots "noarchive" tag (which prevents the cached version of a page from being displayed in Google search results) has no negative impact on the r...

Sep 04, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should You Really Stop Trying to Understand Google's Algorithms to Do Better SEO?

When an internet user asked him a question about the "LSTM" algorithm (which we still haven't fully understood what it's about), John Mueller explained on Twitter that you should work on a website in ...

Sep 04, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★ Should You Build One Multi-Topic Website or Multiple Niche Sites for Better SEO?

John Mueller explained during a hangout that, in his opinion, it was better to create a single website, offering silos dedicated to specific topics, rather than numerous websites, each dealing with a ...

Sep 04, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Really Remove All Hash (#) Links to Boost Your SEO?

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that Google completely ignores links like <a href="#"> (often used, for example, to open pop-up windows) since they lead "nowhere" according to John......

Sep 04, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does Your Choice of Browser Actually Affect Your Google SEO Rankings?

John Mueller indicated during a hangout that to his knowledge, Google's relevance algorithm did not take into account the browser used by the user. Search results were supposedly the same on Chrome, F...

Aug 28, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Can You Really Contact Google for Personalized SEO Support on Your Website?

A few days after Gary Illyes indicated on Twitter that he doesn't provide SEO support for specific sites privately, John Mueller said the opposite by approving a user asking if they could send him a p...

Aug 28, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Googlebot Always Start Crawling from a Website's Homepage?

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that Googlebot generally crawls a site's homepage first, simply because it's the first page it finds. But that it's not mandatory....

Aug 28, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ What Does Google Do When Your Site Sends Conflicting Canonical Signals?

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that when contradictory and/or conflicting signals are sent to Google regarding "canonical" tags (for example: an HTTPS URL containing a "canonical" tag pointing to t...

Aug 28, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ What Does the "Expired" Status in Search Console's URL Removal Tool Really Mean?

John Mueller explained what the "Expired" status means in Search Console and the "Remove URLs" tool. This status indicates that no specific action is needed to deindex the page, as it is covered by a ...

Aug 28, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do alt and title attributes really influence the SEO of linked pages?

Google uses image alt tags and link title attributes as anchors to better understand the context of linked pages, which can be beneficial for SEO....

Aug 25, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is it really necessary to remove .html extensions from your URLs to enhance your SEO?

There is no SEO advantage to removing suffixes like .html from URLs unless it is combined with a major site redesign. Otherwise, this could lead to unnecessary reindexing....

Aug 25, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can structured data markup kill your rich snippets without affecting your rankings?

Incorrect structured data markup can lead to manual actions, which might remove the rich snippets without affecting the overall site ranking....

Aug 25, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How can you create content that is 'significantly better' than your competitors, according to Google?

To improve rankings, focus on content quality rather than individual signals. Aim to create significantly better content than that of your competitors....

Aug 25, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really avoid cramming multiple links in footers?

John Mueller recommends not to overload the footer with many links, as this may be perceived by Google's algorithms as over-optimization or keyword stuffing....

Aug 25, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do mobile interstitials really kill your organic SEO?

Google can penalize sites that use interstitials blocking the main content on mobile devices. It is advisable to avoid these practices to ensure good positioning....

Aug 25, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does organizational markup really guarantee a Knowledge Panel?

Implementing organizational markup can lead to display in the Knowledge Panel, but this depends on the accuracy and consistency of the data provided across different sources....

Aug 25, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How does Google really manage duplicate content in its index?

Google automatically processes duplicate content by attempting to select a canonical URL to index. Having distinct and unique content on each page helps avoid any ambiguity....

Aug 25, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available