What does Google say about SEO? /
John Mueller is one of Google's most active spokespeople on search engine optimization topics. As a Search Advocate, he regularly answers the SEO community's questions during Google Search Central sessions and on social media. His statements are a prime source of information for understanding how Google Search works and the best practices to follow.
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🕒 ~1 min 🎯 5 questions
★★★ Should You Rethink Your Geographic Content Strategy Due to Doorway Pages?
Doorway pages become problematic when created in large quantities. Creating pages city by city for all products on a global scale is clearly doorway. However, having 2-3 local pages for a business tar...
Jul 23, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available
★★ Do Dashes in Domain Names Really Affect SEO?
Having one or more dashes in a domain name does not impact SEO. No Google algorithm specifically targets dashes. Adding keywords in the domain is overrated - the overall quality of the site matters mu...
Jul 23, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available
★★★ Is it true that Core Updates are actually independent of Core Web Vitals?
Google's Core Update is not related to Core Web Vitals despite the similarity in name. The Core Update focuses on the relevance and quality of content, while Core Web Vitals solely concerns speed and ...
Jul 23, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available
★★★ How does Google My Business enhance your local SEO efforts?
For local services or businesses, having a strong and complete Google My Business profile is crucial. It facilitates visibility in local results and 'near me' queries, often more effectively than trad...
Jul 23, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available
★★★ Should you really worry about negative SEO?
<p>In 99% of cases, no action is needed when facing negative SEO. Google's systems are accustomed to this kind of behavior and automatically ignore bad backlinks. The disavow file is only useful if it...
Jul 23, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available
★★★ How does Google manage sites on shared servers?
Google assesses each website based on its own merits, rather than its virtual neighbors on the same server. The presence of other sites on the same server does not influence a site's ranking....
Jul 20, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available
★★★ Should you really worry about 'bad neighborhoods' in SEO?
The presence of other low-quality sites hosted on the same server (referred to as 'bad neighborhood' by some SEOs) is not a concern for Google. Hosting providers typically monitor these situations....
Jul 20, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available
Why is it so challenging to pinpoint a website's actual hosting?
It is often impossible to determine from the outside how a website is actually hosted: a single server, a cluster of servers, a single data center, or multiple data centers....
Jul 20, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available
★★ Is it true that an overloaded server can hinder your SEO performance?
<p>When too many websites are hosted on a system with limited capacity, the server can become overloaded and very slow. This leaves users unhappy and can make it more challenging for Google to crawl t...
Jul 20, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available
★★★ Does Shared Hosting Really Affect Your SEO?
Using shared hosting is perfectly acceptable for Google Search and does not negatively impact a site's SEO. There is no need to switch to dedicated hosting or a dedicated IP address for SEO reasons....
Jul 20, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available
★★ Does the type of hosting truly impact your website's speed and SEO performance?
A dedicated server isn’t always fast, and a shared server isn’t automatically slow. Performance depends on the server’s capacity, not whether it’s shared or dedicated....
Jul 20, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available
★★ Could using nofollow on internal links actually enhance your SEO strategy?
Using nofollow on internal links to pages with high link density or noindex pages can be tested to optimize the crawl budget. Google will not penalize this practice....
Jul 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available
★★★ Why are breadcrumb structured data essential for SEO?
Breadcrumb structured data is very useful because Google is displaying fewer raw URLs and favoring navigation links. Specifying these links via structured data ensures a better display....
Jul 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available
★★ Why is meaningful content essential for preventing soft 404s?
To prevent soft 404s, make sure that pages contain substantial content and use a clear URL structure that does not suggest error pages or empty search results....
Jul 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available
★★★ How should you handle canonicals for international versions?
Different country versions of a site should not use a canonical pointing to a single country version. Each version should be able to rank separately with its own canonical....
Jul 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available
★★★ Can the noscript tag truly replace JavaScript for Google?
Adding noscript tags containing links to content similar to what is present in JavaScript is not considered cloaking by Google. It is an acceptable solution to make links crawlable....
Jul 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available
★★ Why does Google recommend using a JavaScript banner instead of geographic redirections?
To let users know that a local version exists, Google recommends using a JavaScript banner instead of a redirection, as redirections complicate crawling from a single location....
Jul 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available
★★ Why does Google simplify the canonicalization of queries in Search Console?
Queries in Google Search Console are slightly canonicalized (converted to lowercase, punctuation removed) but Google does not interpret or simplify the search intent....
Jul 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available
★★ Does Google rewrite your meta descriptions to better match search queries?
Google does not guarantee that it will use the provided meta description, even if it is well-crafted. Google may adjust the displayed description based on the user's search query....
Jul 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available
★★★ Could empty content pages actually be hurting your SEO rankings?
Pages that contain text like 'no results found' may be classified as soft 404s by Google, especially if this text appears before JavaScript loads the real content....
Jul 19, 2021 ⚡ Analysis available
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