John Mueller

★★★ Is HTTPS Really Mandatory to Rank Well on Google in 2024?

John Mueller reminded on Twitter that having a website in HTTPS is absolutely not a requirement to be (well) ranked in Google's search results. Many HTTP sites are well indexed and rank in the top res...

Aug 22, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do Dwell Time and Pogosticking Really Influence SEO Rankings in Google?

John Mueller reminded us on Twitter for the 4,765th time 🙂 that clicking on your link (or another one) in the SERPs will have no influence on the future ranking of that page in the SERP, neither posit...

Aug 16, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How Do You Count the 50,000 URL Limit in XML Sitemaps Without Making Mistakes?

John Mueller explained on Twitter that the 50,000 URL limit in XML Sitemaps applies only to the number of URLs submitted through the "loc" tag. If there are other URLs in the file, such as with the "a...

Aug 16, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can an iframe with noindex block the indexing of the main page?

John Mueller explained on Twitter that if a parent page containing a meta robots "index" tag displayed an HTML file (child) containing a meta robots "noindex" tag in an iframe, the parent page would b...

Aug 08, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Can you really force Google to refresh a snippet without owning the website?

The tool for removing snippets and cache is particularly useful for people who don't own the site. It allows you to request a quick refresh when information on a page has changed, without needing Sear...

Aug 04, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Really Focus on Backlink Numbers to Improve Your SEO?

John Mueller indicated on Twitter that there is no objective and exhaustive way to count the links pointing to a web page (backlinks): "Don't focus on the number of links a particular tool indicates, ...

Aug 01, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★ Do Core Web Vitals really still matter for Google's ranking algorithm?

Core Web Vitals are a topic that regularly comes up in external discussions concerning SEO and Google Search, confirming their continued importance....

Jul 26, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do You Really Need Dedicated Hosting and a Unique IP Address to Boost Your SEO?

John Mueller has explained once again (as he has repeated many times in the past) that using a unique IP address for your website and a dedicated server provides no specific advantage in terms of SEO....

Jul 25, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Linking to HTTP Pages Really Hurt Your SEO?

John Mueller explained in a webmaster hangout that there is no problem linking to a page whose URL is HTTP rather than HTTPS. This does not impact the SEO of the linking site, either positively or neg...

Jul 18, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Are CMSs really SEO-ready straight out of the box?

For the average user, CMSs work well for search right out of the installation or can be easily optimized with just a few parameters or plugins....

Jul 13, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google judge your pages based on how they were built or only on their final quality?

Google's systems do not focus on how a page was created, but on the final result. A manually created page can perform just as well as a page generated by a CMS....

Jul 13, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Is SEO really as accessible and testable as Google claims it to be?

SEO is not magic. It is well documented and there are many testing tools available, allowing all CMS providers to include SEO elements if they choose to....

Jul 13, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does your CMS really impact your site's SEO performance?

All mainstream content management systems can create pages that perform well in search results. There is no CMS favored by Google....

Jul 13, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Your CMS Choice Really Impact Your Google Rankings?

Google's search systems do not look for a particular content management system to treat it differently. A CMS is just one way to create web pages among many others....

Jul 13, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can You Use AggregateRating Markup to Display Trustpilot or Verified Reviews?

John Mueller reminded on Twitter that it is not permitted - according to Google's official recommendations - to tag with structured data markup (such as AggregateRating type) reviews that would be pro...

Jul 11, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Really Monitor Your Follow/Nofollow Link Ratio for SEO?

John Mueller explained on Reddit that Google's algorithm absolutely does not take into account any ratio of "follow" and "nofollow" links and that this is a myth. Google's algorithm does not work that...

Jul 11, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Really Delete Your Link Disavow File in 2024?

John Mueller stated in a webmaster hangout that there's probably no risk in completely deleting your link disavow file if you haven't had any manual actions before and/or if you don't have a history o...

Jul 11, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does a descriptive domain name really guarantee your ranking for that search query?

If your site name is a generic term (like 'BestComputerMouse.com'), that doesn't guarantee your site will appear at the top of results when someone types that term. Google can interpret the query as a...

Jul 04, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does Google really reject the idea of a unified SEO score for ranking?

Google has no concept of an 'SEO score.' There is no global score that evaluates a website as a whole....

Jul 04, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does blocking crawl with robots.txt actually prevent deindexation?

Robots.txt blocks crawling (Google cannot see the page, but the URL can still appear without content). The meta robots noindex tag allows Google to see the page and remove it completely from search re...

Jul 04, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available