John Mueller

★★ Does Googlebot Send a Referrer When Crawling Your Pages?

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that Googlebot, when crawling a page, does not return a referrer URL, as a user would when browsing on a browser. A Googlebot visit is therefore similar to direct tra...

Aug 14, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Can You Combine Noindex and Canonical Tags on the Same Page?

A user asked John Mueller the following question: "if a page contains both a 'noindex' tag and a 'canonical' tag, does the canonical transmit the indexing prohibition to the canonical page?" John Muel...

Aug 14, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does the Last-Modified Meta Tag Actually Help Your SEO Rankings?

John Mueller explained on Twitter that Google ignores the "Last Modified" meta tag (<meta http-equiv="last-modified" content="YYYY-MM-DD">) indicating a page's last modification date. Therefore, it ha...

Aug 14, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should You Really Deindex Your Internal Search Results Pages?

John Mueller explained on Twitter why Google requires internal search results pages from a website to be deindexed: they create infinite crawl spaces, are often low-quality pages, and frequently prese...

Aug 14, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Still Use Geographic Meta Tags for Local SEO?

John Mueller indicated that Google does not take into account geo-type meta tags (<meta name="geo.position" content="latitude; longitude">, <meta name="geo.placename" content="Place">, <meta name="geo...

Aug 14, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Use WWW or Non-WWW for Better SEO Performance?

A user asked on Twitter whether it was preferable in SEO to use a WWW address (www.yoursite.com) or not (yoursite.com) for a website. Another user replied that it had no impact on SEO. John Mueller ag...

Aug 14, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does CSS File Size Really Impact Your SEO Rankings?

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that the size of a stylesheet (CSS) file does not impact the search engine's algorithm. It can be several tens of MB....

Aug 14, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ What's the Maximum Page Size Google Will Actually Crawl?

John Mueller explained that Googlebot's current crawl limit for a web page is 200 MB (the last known limit in 2015 was 10 MB)....

Aug 14, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★ Are PBNs Really Detected and Penalized by Google?

John Mueller indicated in a hangout that Google's algorithms detect PBNs without too much difficulty and, for those that slip under the radar, the "webspam team" loves diving into them......

Aug 14, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is it true that Private Blog Networks (PBNs) are really detected and ineffective for SEO?

Private Blog Networks (PBNs) are indeed detected by our algorithms and the spam-fighting team, and they do not positively affect your ranking....

Aug 11, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does structured markup really affect Google rankings?

Structured markup helps Google better understand the content of a page and can lead to enhanced display in search results, but it is not a direct ranking factor....

Aug 11, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is it true that a removed manual penalty really erases your spam history?

After resolving a spam issue flagged by a manual action, your site is evaluated based on its current condition, not on a history of violations....

Aug 11, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really adjust your domain's geo-targeting from national to global?

Adjusting your domain's geo-targeting can be beneficial if you are shifting from a strong national focus to a global focus....

Aug 11, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google really index all the JavaScript content on your site?

Google can process JavaScript content displayed by default but may miss content that needs user interaction to appear, such as clicking on tabs....

Aug 11, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really mark deep paginated pages as noindex?

Using noindex on deeper paginated pages in a series may not improve crawl budget, but it is still commonly practiced....

Aug 11, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really keep 301 redirects indefinitely?

Permanent redirects should be maintained for as long as possible to ensure that they are indeed recognized by the crawler....

Aug 11, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do Exact Match Domains (EMDs) still give your Google ranking a boost?

Owning a domain with exact keywords does not automatically ensure a good ranking in search results....

Aug 11, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really disavow low-quality links if faced with a negative SEO attack?

In the case of negative SEO attacks with low-quality links, use a disavow file to instruct Google to disregard these links....

Aug 11, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do Google tools really affect your SEO ranking?

Using or not using Google Analytics, Search Console, or AdSense does not influence rankings in Google's search results....

Aug 11, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do social media really influence Google rankings?

Google does not consider signals from social media for ranking purposes because these links are generally nofollow....

Aug 11, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available