John Mueller

★★★ Why should keeping 301 redirects in place for many months be at the top of your SEO checklist?

Redirects should be kept in place for at least one year after a site migration. This duration allows Google's systems to repeatedly detect and register the URL change....

Dec 02, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why are 301 redirects essential for your site migrations?

Google recommends using permanent 301 redirects during a site migration. These redirects inform Google's systems that a URL has changed permanently....

Dec 02, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ How does Google decide which pages to crawl first?

Google attempts to reprocess all pages at least every few months. Most pages are checked much more frequently, but crawling capacity is limited and Google has to prioritize which pages to explore....

Dec 02, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Buy an Expired Domain to Boost Your SEO?

John Mueller reminded webmasters during a hangout that using an expired domain that has been inactive for a long time (on which no content has been put online after having had a first life and then be...

Nov 29, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really convert your images from JPEG to WebP for better SEO?

Changing image URLs (for example, from JPEG to WebP) can affect rankings in Google Images, as it takes time for the changes to be reflected. Some users employ the same file extension to serve WebP, wh...

Nov 26, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How Does Google Handle the Geographic Visibility of Pages?

It is impossible to restrict a page's appearance to just one or two specific countries. If a page is in English, it can appear to any user searching in English, regardless of their geographic location...

Nov 26, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ What happens to out-of-stock product pages according to Google?

Google tries to determine whether a page is still relevant based on its content. Out-of-stock product pages can be seen as soft 404 errors and may be completely removed from the index. If the page rem...

Nov 26, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why aren't featured snippets always location-specific?

Featured snippets are standard search results with a more extensive excerpt. Google attempts to recognize when a user is searching for something local and uses geotargeting information, but cannot gua...

Nov 26, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is it a good idea to canonicalize paginated pages to the first page for SEO?

When all paginated pages (page 2, 3, 4) are canonicalized to page 1, the content from the other pages will not be indexed. This approach works if the site has sufficient cross-links, but if pages 2-3-...

Nov 26, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why doesn't Googlebot interact with e-commerce pages?

Googlebot renders pages to check for missing content, but it does not interact with the pages (no clicks, no adding to cart). It would take too long to crawl the entire web. However, Google Product Se...

Nov 26, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Is it detrimental to SEO to disable JavaScript specifically for Googlebot?

Disabling JavaScript only for Googlebot is not advisable. It can create a divergence between what Googlebot sees and what users experience, making it very challenging to diagnose issues. If JavaScript...

Nov 26, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ What causes your Core Web Vitals to disappear from Search Console?

Search Console displays Core Web Vitals data only when there is sufficient user data for a group of pages. If the number of good pages decreases without an increase in bad pages, it simply means a tem...

Nov 26, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you merge identical content in UK and US English?

If the content is strictly identical between the UK and US English versions (without differences in currency, address, or content), it is better to create a single English version rather than two dist...

Nov 26, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How does Google handle website technical issues?

For technical issues (site downtime, crawl errors), Google has virtually no memory. As soon as the site becomes accessible again, indexing and display resume almost instantly, as Google must cope with...

Nov 26, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ How does Google determine indexing timelines for different domains?

Indexing time varies significantly from one domain to another. Google attempts to understand the overall context of a domain to determine where to allocate its crawling resources. A new, lesser-known ...

Nov 26, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you be concerned about the Page Experience update's impact?

The Page Experience update is generally subtle and should not cause massive drops or spikes in traffic. A 50% decrease in traffic cannot be solely attributed to speed or the Core Web Vitals, and likel...

Nov 26, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why does it take so long for Google to recognize SEO improvements?

Changes related to the overall quality of a site take significantly longer to be reevaluated by Google. It usually takes several months, even six months or more, for Google to recognize significant qu...

Nov 26, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you worry about the impact of lazy loading on image alt attributes?

When Google renders a page, it loads the page in a very high viewport which typically triggers lazy loading and allows the alt attribute associated with the right images to be captured. Having the alt...

Nov 26, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really use structured review data on your own e-commerce site?

For an e-commerce site, using structured review data for your own business is not recommended as it lacks objectivity. Google prefers reviews for individual products (self-assessment or user aggregati...

Nov 26, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How does the noindex tag influence your SEO indexing strategy?

<p>Blocking indexing is done by adding a 'noindex' meta robots tag to the pages. This tells search engines not to index this page after crawling it. Users do not see the meta tag and can still access ...

Nov 24, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available