John Mueller

★★★ Does Google really choose page titles independently of what users actually search for?

Page titles displayed in search results are now chosen based on the page itself, rather than on the user's search query. You can use a 'site:' search to see the currently indexed title and resubmit th...

Mar 22, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can a 500 Error on Your robots.txt Really Block Your Entire Site Crawl?

Still in this hangout, John Mueller indicated that if, when the bot attempts to read a site's robots.txt file, it received a server error (5xx type) via a CDN or not, this resulted in a loss of displa...

Mar 21, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★ Do Links in Editorial Content Actually Carry More SEO Weight Than Footer or Sidebar Links?

John Mueller explained during this same webmaster hangout that the search engine takes into account all outbound links from a page, whether they are in the editorial content or around it (header, foot...

Mar 21, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do User Engagement Signals Really Influence Google Rankings?

John Mueller explained during a webmaster hangout that Google does not take into account "engagement" (i.e., interactions: time spent on page, bounce rate, number of pages viewed on the site, traffic,...

Mar 21, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really remove the meta keywords tag from all your websites?

Googlebot pays no attention whatsoever to the content of the meta keywords tag, regardless of what values it contains. This tag is completely ignored by Google's indexing process....

Mar 15, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Which meta tags does Google actually use for SEO rankings?

Google offers official documentation listing all the meta tags that the search engine uses and understands. It is recommended to consult this resource to know which elements can influence search resul...

Mar 15, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Which meta tags actually impact your Google rankings?

The meta tags that truly have an effect on Google search results are primarily the meta description tag and the meta robots tag. The title element, although technically not a meta tag, is also treated...

Mar 15, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does the meta keywords tag actually harm your Google rankings?

The presence of the meta keywords tag poses no problem for Google Search. It is generally small enough not to change the overall page size, so there is no strong reason to remove it if it is already p...

Mar 15, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you remove the meta keywords tag from your pages?

Google Search does not use the content of the meta keywords tag for search engine optimization. This position has been consistent since at least 2009 and remains unchanged today....

Mar 15, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Your Robots.txt Really Need to Return 404 or 200 to Keep Googlebot Happy?

The robots.txt file must return the correct response code. If it doesn't exist, the server must return 404. If a server error is returned, Google treats it as a problem and won't crawl the site. This ...

Mar 14, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is mobile-first indexing really impacting your Google rankings?

The shift to mobile-first indexing changes nothing about ranking. It's purely a matter of indexation and selecting which content to use. You shouldn't try to force this change. Google switches sites w...

Mar 14, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do footer links carry the same SEO weight as links in your main content?

Google does not differentiate links based on their position (header, footer, sidebar, main content). All are considered normal links for understanding site structure. It's different for text where Goo...

Mar 14, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does your FAQ schema markup really need to be on the ranking page to generate rich snippets?

FAQ markup can be displayed in search results for the page where it is found. If the markup is on a separate page that doesn't appear in the results, Google won't be able to display this rich snippet....

Mar 14, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does Google really distinguish between 'edit video' and 'video editor' as different user intentions?

Google tries to understand synonyms but looks at the complete context of the query. Terms like 'edit video' and 'video editor' may seem synonymous but user expectations are different, so the results c...

Mar 14, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why do Search Console positions fail to reflect your actual search rankings?

The positions displayed in Search Console are based on what users have actually seen. If few people see the site in position 1 and no one scrolls to position 200, only position 1 will be reported even...

Mar 14, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google really ignore your URL structure for SEO rankings?

Google does not base its assessment on URL structure (number of slashes) to determine page hierarchy. It's the internal linking structure that counts: how many clicks from the homepage to reach a give...

Mar 14, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does your homepage distance really impact how fast Google indexes your pages?

Pages closer to the homepage are generally indexed faster. For most sites, the homepage is the central point, but for some, this can be a specific major category or product....

Mar 14, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why does your internal linking tree structure really matter to Google?

It is recommended to use external crawlers to generate a graph of your internal linking structure. The structure should resemble a tree with a central point and progressive branches. If it's just a co...

Mar 14, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ How many internal links should you actually place on each page to boost your SEO?

There is no optimal number of internal links per page. What matters is being able to recognize the site structure during crawling: homepage, first-level categories, second level, and so on. The struct...

Mar 14, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does Google really segment websites by template type when evaluating Page Experience?

Google can divide a website into sections according to similar page types if sufficient data is available. For example, if all product pages are fast but another page type is slow, only that type will...

Mar 14, 2022 ⚡ Analysis available