John Mueller

★★★ Can canonical and hreflang tags actually work together on the same page?

A page can perfectly have both a canonical tag pointing to itself and alternate hreflang tags pointing to other language versions. The canonical tag confirms that this page is the preferred version, w...

Nov 12, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is it true that changing your URL could cost you valuable SEO data?

Changing URLs to force reindexing results in a complete loss of all historical information tied to the old URLs. Google no longer recognizes if there was a no-index tag, nor does it retain any data ab...

Nov 12, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How can temporary internal linking boost your reindexing speed?

To speed up the reindexing of important pages, temporarily creating internal links from very significant pages (like the homepage) signals to Google that these pages are a priority and triggers faster...

Nov 12, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google really slow down crawling on pages that are in prolonged no-index?

<p>When a page remains in no-index for an extended period, Google significantly slows down the crawling of that page. Once the page becomes indexable again, active resumption of crawling is required, ...

Nov 12, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why doesn't Google automatically hide Chrome extension pages on mobile?

Google does not have an algorithm that would automatically hide all Chrome extension pages from mobile search results, even if these extensions do not function on mobile. It's easy to verify this by s...

Nov 12, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you split your backlinks between two different URLs?

Having two distinct URLs for the same content (for example, a dedicated site and a page on the Chrome Store) effectively divides the value of backlinks between these two pages. However, the advantage ...

Nov 12, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is it true that Google prioritizes its own platforms in search rankings?

Google does not apply any automatic bias favoring pages hosted on the Chrome Web Store in search results. The team explicitly tries to prevent content from being automatically ranked higher simply bec...

Nov 12, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should You Really Fear the Link Disavow File in SEO?

John Mueller reminded during a hangout that Google's link disavow tool does not in any way lead to a penalty, and that it is in no way an indication of bad practices implemented by the site in the pas...

Nov 08, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really fix all duplicate content on your website?

John Mueller explained on Reddit that, when managing duplicate content, fixing a few pages here and there doesn't serve much purpose. However, if you can reduce the number of duplicate content by a fa...

Nov 08, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why Won't Google Display Your Rich Results Even with Perfect Markup?

John Mueller explained during a webmaster hangout that Google may decide not to display rich results (or rich snippets) in a SERP for a given website if the algorithm determines that the site is not o...

Nov 08, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ How does Google’s support for WebP images transform SEO strategies?

Google's image processing systems support images in the WebP format. The same system is utilized across all areas of Google Search, including Discover and Google News....

Nov 07, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why should site migrations be one-way?

<p>When migrating a site, it's advisable to either proceed incrementally in the right direction or make a complete change all at once. Back-and-forth migrations (moving to B and then returning to A) c...

Nov 07, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does the quality of generated content make a difference in SEO?

Google will move towards evaluating content based on its quality rather than its generation method. Low-effort automated content will continue to be treated as spam, but useful combinations of generat...

Nov 07, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is cloaking really a concern for SEOs?

Showing less content to search engines than to users doesn't pose a cloaking issue. The problem arises when you show search engines a rich page while presenting something different or minimal to users...

Nov 07, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ What should you do with your canonicals when a product is out of stock?

It is possible to change the canonical tag of a canonicalized product variation to another variation when the canonical version is out of stock. There will be latency since Google prefers to maintain ...

Nov 07, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does the number of products really influence category SEO?

The number of indexable products in a category is not a ranking factor. A category page with 10 products, where only 2 are indexable, is not considered low quality if the information is present on the...

Nov 07, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ How do dedicated landing pages boost Google Images?

For image search, having a dedicated landing page with the image prominently displayed and contextual information is very beneficial. Google recognizes these pages as effective landing pages for image...

Nov 07, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is it true that video structured data can be effective without a visible iFrame?

It is acceptable to use structured data to indicate the presence of a video even if the iFrame is not visible in the initial HTML. Google needs this data because some video embedding methods are not a...

Nov 07, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Is it true that Google ignores no-script tags for SEO?

Google generally ignores the content of no-script tags. It is not a workaround to include content meant for indexing. It's better to use other methods such as structured data....

Nov 07, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is it true that Google can index JavaScript content once it's rendered?

If a page loaded and rendered in the browser displays unique content via JavaScript, it is considered a unique page even if generated by JavaScript. Google processes JavaScript, and the URL Inspection...

Nov 07, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available