John Mueller

★★★ Does Google Really Use Web Page Traffic as a Quality Indicator for Content?

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that traffic on a web page is not necessarily representative of the quality of its content. A page can have low traffic and still be very relevant: "Traffic is not a ...

Jan 23, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can Two Websites Share the Same Brand Name Without SEO Penalties?

John Mueller explained on Mastodon that the fact that two sites have the same name, the same "brand" (but of course not the same domain name...) does not pose a problem for Google in technical terms (...

Jan 23, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why Do Some Google Updates Take Longer Than 2 Weeks to Roll Out?

John Mueller and Danny Sullivan explained on Mastodon that when an algorithm update takes longer than the "classic" 2 weeks (this was the case with the recent Link Spam Update and Helpful Content Upda...

Jan 16, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do YouTube Backlinks Really Impact Your SEO Rankings?

John Mueller explained on Twitter that backlinks from YouTube to a website do not help with better rankings and do not allow for faster indexing......

Jan 09, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do You Really Need to Optimize Core Web Vitals to Appear in Google Discover?

John Mueller indicated on Mastodon that to be present on Discover, it is not necessary to have good Core Web Vitals scores. Google's cherished "Page Experience" is not a relevance criterion for Discov...

Jan 09, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Nofollow Links to Your Social Media Profiles?

John Mueller indicated on Reddit that there's no point in adding "nofollow" to outbound links on a site pointing to various social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram...). He also explains th...

Jan 04, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★ How Does Google Actually Detect and Handle Hidden Text on Your Website?

John Mueller explained on Twitter that Google was "pretty good" at detecting and then ignoring hidden text on a page......

Jan 04, 2023 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can you really have millions of 301 redirects without hurting your SEO?

You can have as many pages in redirect as you want. Millions of redirects are acceptable if that's what you need. It is not necessary to redirect every 404 error....

Dec 29, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Do you really need to publish content every day to rank well on Google?

There is no absolute answer to how often you should publish content. You can decide how you want to engage your users, whether that's one article per day or multiple per week....

Dec 29, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Do multiple hyphens in your domain name actually hurt your SEO rankings?

There is no negative effect on rankings from having multiple hyphens in a domain name....

Dec 29, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really ignore 404 errors in Google Search Console?

Having 404 errors listed in Search Console isn't a problem if you know those pages are supposed to return a 404. It's normal to let 404 pages disappear naturally from search results....

Dec 29, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can blocking a redirect page with robots.txt really stop PageRank from passing through?

If the goal is to prevent signals from passing through a link, it is acceptable to use a redirect page blocked by robots.txt to prevent PageRank flow....

Dec 29, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really stop using text in images for SEO?

Although it is theoretically possible to analyze images to extract text from them, you should not rely on it for web search. If you want your page to be recognized for specific text, place it as text ...

Dec 29, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is WordPress Really Better for SEO Than Other CMS Platforms?

John Mueller explained on Reddit that using the WordPress CMS to create your website does not provide any substantial or specific SEO advantage......

Dec 27, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ How is Google now displaying website names in search results?

Google has launched a new way to display website names in search results. Website names facilitate the identification of websites and are now much more visible, while also giving slightly more space t...

Dec 21, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Is your favicon costing you clicks? Here's why Google wants you to check it now

With the change in website name display, your site's favicon can be more visible. For this reason, it is also recommended that you verify your favicon....

Dec 21, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ How can you optimize your site name display on mobile using structured data?

The site name feature is currently available on mobile in a specific set of languages. Websites can use appropriate structured data for this feature....

Dec 21, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Time Spent on a Page Really Influence Google Rankings?

John Mueller reiterated once again on Twitter that the time a user spends reading a web page is not a relevance criterion for the search engine and is not taken into account by the algorithm, just lik...

Dec 19, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Block Crawling in Robots.txt to Quickly Deindex a Site?

John Mueller indicated on Reddit that simply blocking crawling of a site via robots.txt (Disallow: / directive) is not the fastest solution for deindexing a site: "Even if you block all crawling, it w...

Dec 19, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Really Abandon HTML Sitemaps for Users?

John Mueller, on Mastodon this time, explained that, in his opinion, HTML Sitemaps or site maps for users should never be necessary: "Sites, small and large, should always have a clear navigation stru...

Dec 12, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available