John Mueller

★★ Do keywords in URLs really impact Google's ranking?

Inserting specific keywords into URLs does not significantly improve ranking in search results. Keywords in URLs are a very minor factor for Google....

Nov 11, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do intrusive interstitials really penalize your entire site?

Detected intrusive interstitials only affect the ranking of the specific page, not the entire site. The page is then considered not optimized for mobile....

Nov 11, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does hidden mobile content really carry as much weight as visible content in mobile-first indexing?

With the transition to mobile-first indexing, content hidden for mobile user interface reasons is generally taken into account. However, for desktop, content that is not visible at load is considered ...

Nov 11, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does the cross-domain canonical tag really work?

You can use the 'rel=canonical' attribute between different domains to indicate which version of the page you want to index. However, this may not always work perfectly and may still display other ver...

Nov 11, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google PageSpeed Insights really analyze Single Page Apps effectively?

Google Page Speed Insights does not make specific distinctions for single page apps or Angular. The improvement suggestions might not apply exactly to these types of applications. However, this does n...

Nov 11, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Do Rich Snippets Really Mean Google Considers Your Site High Quality?

John Mueller indicated that the fact that "rich snippets" (stars, reviews, in particular) are displayed for a site does not necessarily mean that all Google algorithms consider that site to be of good...

Nov 07, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Request Frequent Recrawls of Your Site to Improve Your SEO Rankings?

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that if you request (for example via Search Console) that Googlebot recrawl a site, it will not negatively impact a site. And if the search engine's robots crawl a si...

Nov 07, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How Does Google's Page Layout Algorithm Actually Penalize Ad-Heavy Websites?

John Mueller indicated in a hangout that the Page Layout algorithm, which penalizes pages offering too many ads relative to editorial content, was being updated in an automated fashion and not launche...

Nov 07, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Still Disavow Links That Have Gone Nofollow or Disappeared?

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that if a link has disappeared or has switched to nofollow, it is no longer necessary to include it in a disavow file. This indeed seems logical....

Nov 07, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★ Should You Really Worry About Google's Announced Algorithm Changes Coming This Year?

John Mueller recently hinted during a hangout that Google could launch numerous new features on the search engine and its algorithm before the end of the year. But without any specifics. So, saying th...

Nov 07, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ How does Google treat multilingual pages in its search results?

Google might show translation links on pages containing multiple languages, for instance, if a page is primarily in Italian but has significant portions in English or any other recognizable language....

Nov 04, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ How can blocking crawl with robots.txt harm your indexing?

Using the robots.txt file to block the crawling of parts of your site must be done carefully, as it can affect the inclusion of pages in search results, especially for systems like AdSense. Specifical...

Nov 04, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really avoid changing the URL structure during a site migration?

During a site migration, try to avoid changing the URL structure if possible, as this adds additional complexity for Google to index the site correctly....

Nov 04, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can low-quality backlinks really hurt your SEO?

Google assesses the quality and quantity of links pointing to a site. Accumulating links of varying quality does not harm as long as they remain good; having many low-quality links could pose a proble...

Nov 04, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really ignore the HTML lang tag for international SEO?

The HTML 'lang' tag is ignored for SEO by Google because it is frequently incorrect; the focus should instead be on using hreflang for linguistic versions....

Nov 04, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really noindex author archives in WordPress to avoid duplicate content?

For content management systems like WordPress, ensure that the article page is the most comprehensive and consider using noindex on pages like author archives to manage the indexing of duplicate conte...

Nov 04, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do behavioral metrics really influence Google rankings?

Metrics like short clicks and quick returns to the search page are only used to test and evaluate algorithms, not to directly adjust the rankings of specific pages or sites....

Nov 04, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does the HTML lang attribute really affect international SEO?

Google does not use the 'lang' attribute in the HTML code for SEO as it is often misimplemented; they rely on other indicators like hreflang instead....

Nov 04, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Do external links really matter less than UX in assessing a site's quality?

The algorithms primarily analyze the content of pages and how users interact with the site, while links from other sites are not directly related to the perception of the site's quality....

Nov 04, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do rich snippets really protect your site from algorithmic penalties?

Rich snippets take into account the quality of the site and the compliance of snippet configuration with best practices, but they do not guarantee that the site will be unaffected by other quality alg...

Nov 04, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available