John Mueller

★★★ 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

★★★ Is it true that robots.txt doesn't guarantee your URLs won't be indexed?

Blocking crawling with robots.txt is not an ideal approach, as search engines can still index the website’s address without accessing the content. It's rare, but it can happen....

Nov 24, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can you really rely on the robots.txt file to stop search engines from crawling your site?

Crawling is blocked using the robots.txt file. Random users on the web can still access the website while well-behaved search engines will know not to access it....

Nov 24, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is using a password the most effective way to safeguard private content?

To keep a site private, locking it with a password is often the best approach. Neither search engines nor random web users will be able to see the content, making it highly secure....

Nov 24, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How can you conceal your site from Google search results while keeping it accessible?

There are three ways to hide a website from search results while allowing users to access it: using a password, blocking crawl, or preventing indexing....

Nov 24, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does bold text really improve organic search rankings?

John Mueller reminded during a webmaster hangout that putting certain words in bold in a text helps for SEO. But it should be done in moderation, because if too many words or phrases are bolded, it no...

Nov 22, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you use language-specific canonical tags to boost your multilingual SEO?

For a multilingual site, each language version must have its own canonical tag pointing to itself. The canonical tag should not point from one language to another, but remain within each language vers...

Nov 20, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Avoid Creating Product Location Pages for SEO?

Creating 'buy product X in city Y' pages for all cities in a country without a physical presence constitutes doorway pages. This generates a bulk of low-quality content that may trigger manual or algo...

Nov 20, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ How does Googlebot handle spider traps in modern SEO?

Googlebot detects spider traps (infinite calendars, endless pagination) by gradually crawling. After finding similar content across long chains, the systems slow down and then stop crawling that secti...

Nov 20, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is It Still Worth Investing in Expired Domains for SEO?

<p>An unused domain for 4 years loses its authority. Google considers the site as new and it has to relearn its content. Buying expired domains in hopes of an SEO bonus makes no sense.</p>...

Nov 20, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why should you remove the sitemap from the old domain after a migration?

After a site migration, it's essential to remove the sitemap from the old domain 1-2 months later. Keeping the old site's sitemap creates a conflict as it signals to Google that the old URLs are still...

Nov 20, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How can you optimize internal linking to enhance your site's indexing?

Internal linking helps guide Google on which important pages to index. Linking from the homepage to priority pages (new products, new job offers) signals to Google to focus on these contents....

Nov 20, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why doesn’t Google index all your pages?

Google never indexes 100% of a website's pages. On average, between 30% and 60% of a site's pages are indexed. Losing 100 indexed URLs per month on a site with 5000 pages is normal if new content is a...

Nov 20, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Is the indexing request tool still effective for SEO?

The indexing request tool in Search Console does not guarantee automatic indexing. Over time, the systems have become more cautious in response to abuse, which can slow down the processing of manual s...

Nov 20, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ How can you deal with a spammy 301 redirect without disavowing every single link?

To disavow a domain that has a 301 redirect with many spam links, it is possible to disavow only the redirect instead of all individual links. Google is attempting to identify the source and destinati...

Nov 20, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really create unique pages for every location in SEO?

For pages targeting different locations, it is essential to provide unique, valuable content on each page (physical addresses, hours, different teachers). Otherwise, it's advisable to canonicalize to ...

Nov 20, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does Google really factor AMP pages into your crawl budget?

Google takes into account all crawling done by Googlebot, including AMP pages and the updates of AMP cache. A site's crawl budget encompasses both regular and AMP pages hosted on the same server....

Nov 20, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why should you verify your site multiple times in Search Console?

A site can be verified multiple times in Search Console (at both domain and subdomain levels). Adding a DNS verification at the domain level does not invalidate existing verifications and does not res...

Nov 20, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is it true that Google prohibits using review markup for copied testimonials?

Reviews that are copied from other sources (such as Google My Business) should not utilize schema review markup. Only reviews left directly on the page can use this structured markup....

Nov 20, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you keep your Google Ads pages separate from your SEO pages?

It is acceptable to have separate pages for Google Ads (with noindex) and pages for organic SEO. The pages can be blocked from organic search while still serving as advertising landing pages....

Nov 20, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available