John Mueller

★★★ Is Google finally opening up URL inspection through API automation?

Google has launched a new API for the URL inspection feature in Search Console. It allows you to programmatically check the indexation status of a page, whether it has been discovered, crawled, indexe...

Mar 31, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really migrate to Google Analytics 4 to avoid losing your traffic data?

Google Analytics will stop collecting data for Universal Analytics next year. It is recommended to migrate to Google Analytics 4, which has been available for several years, to get used to the new too...

Mar 31, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google really use different ranking algorithms depending on your industry?

Google has nothing specific regarding different algorithms for different niches. A bike shop doesn't have completely different algorithms from a shoe shop. They're essentially both e-commerce stores....

Mar 28, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does the location of your XML sitemap really affect crawl efficiency?

The location of the sitemap file doesn't really matter. You can place it in a subdirectory, subdomain, or different host. If it's listed in your robots.txt file, you can put it anywhere....

Mar 28, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does partial duplicate content really hurt your search rankings?

If part of a page is considered duplicate content, it's not necessarily a bad thing. It's perfectly acceptable to have shared elements on a page discussing the same topic, like identical code snippets...

Mar 28, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do Google's testing tools really crawl in real-time or do they rely on cached data?

The mobile-friendly test and URL inspection tool do not use any cached data to display information. They really retrieve this information live directly from your server....

Mar 28, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can you really afford to wait for an unstable ranking to stabilize on its own?

If your ranking is fluctuating, waiting won't automatically improve the situation. You need to convince Google's algorithms that your site is clearly the best result, otherwise you're leaving it to ch...

Mar 28, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really avoid URLs with parameters for SEO?

There's a general assumption that URLs with parameters are bad for a site, and that's simply not the case. It's not something I would consider critical; it's more about polishing the site to make it a...

Mar 28, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google really ignore your canonical tags when it decides pages are too similar?

If we think these pages are essentially the same, we try to do you a favor by choosing just one URL to index. The best way to avoid this is to make sure these pages are significantly unique....

Mar 28, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really use the URL inspection tool to index a brand new website?

For a brand new site with no signals or background information, using the URL inspection tool to request indexation is a way to get your foot in the door, but it's not a guarantee that Google will pic...

Mar 28, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do brand mentions without backlinks actually help your SEO rankings?

If there's no link to your pages, then it's not really a link. It's not something we would see as a half-value link or anything like that. We don't treat these mentions as links....

Mar 28, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does the order of links in your HTML code really affect Google's crawl priority?

If we look at an HTML page, the order of the links is not related to the order of our overall crawl of these pages on the site. As long as these links are on the HTML page and we can follow them, we c...

Mar 28, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Are out-of-stock products hurting your e-commerce site's overall search rankings?

When something is out of stock, we'll treat it more like a soft 404 error and remove that URL from search results. However, if only a single product reference is out of stock, the ranking of the rest ...

Mar 28, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google really use just one signal to choose which URL to canonicalize among your duplicate content?

Regarding canonicalization, several factors play a role: the rel canonical tag, internal and external links, what is listed in the sitemap, redirects, and sometimes which URL appears cleaner or cleare...

Mar 28, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google Really Penalize AI-Generated Content?

John Mueller explained on Twitter that AI-generated content had not yet reached a sufficient level of quality, in his opinion. In response to a question about automated content generation, he stated: ...

Mar 28, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why does Google deprioritize crawling low-effort aggregator sites?

Google's algorithms are not invested in crawling and indexing all content from low-effort aggregator sites that merely take content feeds and publish them, because it's the same content already seen e...

Mar 28, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Is Google Search Console really collecting all the data from your massive e-commerce site?

On a very large e-commerce site, there are limits in Search Console on the amount of data collected per day. If you drill down to the URL or individual query level, you could see significant differenc...

Mar 28, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why doesn't Google Search Console's average position reflect a theoretical ranking but actual display results instead?

The average position in Search Console is based on what was actually shown to users, not on a theoretical ranking. It's really what we displayed to users and how it was ranked at that moment....

Mar 28, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why does robots.txt prevent Google from crawling your pages but still allow them to be indexed?

With robots.txt, you prevent crawling of these URLs but not their indexation. If you run a site: search for these specific URLs, you'll very likely still find them in the index, even without the conte...

Mar 28, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ How long does it really take to see your new backlinks in Google Search Console?

Most reports in Search Console are recalculated every three to four days. For the links report, you should expect to see data within approximately one week to one and a half weeks, not months or hours...

Mar 28, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available