John Mueller

★★ Do 3xx Redirections Really Cause a Loss of PageRank?

3xx redirections do not reduce the SEO value passed to new URLs. This applies to redirections, whether they are old or new....

Jul 29, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really return a 404 for your expired content pages instead of redirecting to the homepage?

Expired content pages, such as real estate listings, should not be redirected to the homepage. If there is no clear replacement content, they should be treated as soft 404 errors....

Jul 29, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you submit a temporary sitemap with old and new URLs during a migration?

During a site migration or massive redirections, it is advisable to submit a temporary XML Sitemap with both old and new URLs dated recently to facilitate Google’s recrawl....

Jul 29, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do major redesigns and redirects really kill your SEO visibility?

Any significant structural change on a website, such as mass redirects or restructuring, can temporarily impact the site's visibility in search results until Google reunderstands the context....

Jul 29, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How does PageRank actually get passed through redirects?

PageRank is transmitted between the original URL and the final destination during redirects. Chain redirects are not ideal as they increase latency and complexity. Google tracks up to five consecutive...

Jul 29, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is responsive design really essential for mobile SEO?

Google accepts responsive, adaptive, and separate URL sites for mobile, but prefers responsive design to avoid complex implementation errors....

Jul 28, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why does your ranking fluctuate constantly even without a penalty?

Google makes several hundred changes to its search algorithms every year, so fluctuations in ranking are common....

Jul 28, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is responsive design really the only viable option for optimizing a mobile site for SEO?

For the creation of mobile sites, Google recommends responsive design, as it is generally simpler and less prone to errors compared to creating mobile subdomains....

Jul 28, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google really rewrite your titles at will in the SERPs?

Google sometimes adjusts the titles shown in search results for optimal rendering according to context, including on mobile where space is limited....

Jul 28, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why does Google ignore your structured data even with correct markup?

Even with correct structured data, Google will not always display it as rich snippets in search results....

Jul 28, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do crawl errors reported by Google Search Console really hurt your SEO rankings?

The errors you see in Search Console regarding crawled URLs do not always affect rankings. It is crucial to identify whether they pertain to content you wish to have indexed....

Jul 28, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really remove hreflang tags if the content varies between language versions?

For hreflang tags to function properly, the linked pages must be equivalent in terms of content. Otherwise, it's better not to use them....

Jul 28, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why can your site thrive in organic search yet remain unseen in Google News?

Rankings in Google News can differ significantly from organic search results, even if your content is often cited by major publications....

Jul 28, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really worry about a Google penalty without any notification in Search Console?

If you don't see any manual action notification in Search Console, it means there isn't one. Rank drops can be due to algorithm changes....

Jul 28, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Accordion Content Really Harm Your Ranking?

Content that is hidden, such as in accordions, is taken into account for ranking but is considered less important than content visible upon page load....

Jul 28, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do rel=next and prev really prevent pagination pages from being deindexed?

Rel=next and prev tags will not remove paginated pages from the index; they are used to understand the sequence of the pages....

Jul 28, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Are blog comment links truly useless for SEO?

Leaving links through blog comments for SEO is often a waste of time as our algorithms quickly detect and generally ignore them as unnatural links....

Jul 28, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How does Google truly index pages with duplicate structured content?

We generally index pages separately even if they share the same structured content in a block. The canonical or noindex nature influences how we prioritize them....

Jul 28, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is AMP really a challenge for e-commerce sites?

AMP pages are primarily designed for static content. For e-commerce sites, it is advisable to couple AMP with traditional mobile or responsive pages to better handle dynamic elements....

Jul 28, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why does Google favor JSON-LD for structured data?

Google recommends using the JSON-LD format for structured data because it supports most important data types for SEO....

Jul 28, 2016 ⚡ Analysis available