SEO statements by Martin Splitt

★★ Does JavaScript really consume more crawl budget than classic HTML?

JavaScript sites may consume slightly more crawl budget if JS makes extra network requests, but Google caches common resources (JS, CSS, identical images) between pages. The real impact on crawl budge...

Jun 17, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Is it true that blocking a site without JavaScript risks an SEO penalty?

Completely blocking a site without JavaScript and displaying a 'please enable JavaScript' message does not result in a direct SEO penalty, but it poses user experience issues if JavaScript fails or is...

Jun 17, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Why don't your Lighthouse scores truly reflect your site's real performance?

Lab data (Lighthouse) comes from powerful machines with good connections, while Field data (CrUX) reflects the actual experience of users (varied devices, slow connections, diverse geolocation). Field...

Jun 17, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does Google’s render tree really matter for your SEO strategy?

Google uses the render tree instead of final pixels to analyze content, but this should not concern SEOs except in extreme cases where the layout is completely broken. Checking the rendered HTML and a...

Jun 17, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should you really be worried about unloaded resources in Search Console?

The message 'X resources out of Y could not be loaded' in Search Console does not necessarily indicate a problem. Google does not load certain resources that are unnecessary for rendering (e.g., Googl...

Jun 17, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why doesn’t Google need to download your images to index them?

Images are often not downloaded by Search Console testing tools for performance reasons, but this does not affect indexing. For the main web crawl, Google only needs the image URL, alt text, and conte...

Jun 17, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really limit the number of HTTP resources per page for SEO?

Google does not impose a strict limit on the number of HTTP resources per page. Fewer resources are generally better to reduce the risks of loading failures, but you must be reasonable: putting everyt...

Jun 11, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really hide user comments from Google?

User comments visible in the rendered HTML do not need to be hidden from Google. Google is capable of identifying user-generated content, and it neither benefits nor harms SEO. Trying to hide them may...

Jun 11, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is a low crawl rate really a problem for your SEO?

A low crawl rate is neither a negative signal nor a cause of traffic loss. Google adjusts the crawl frequency based on detected changes and server availability. If content changes little, the crawl na...

Jun 11, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ How can you unlock a blank page in Google using the bissection method?

To identify the cause of an empty page in the HTML render, use the bissection method: compare versions of the code between a working version and a broken version, gradually narrowing down the interval...

Jun 11, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does a noindex header on an API really stop Googlebot from rendering the page?

A robots noindex header on an API endpoint should not prevent Googlebot from calling it to obtain the data necessary for rendering. The noindex header differs from robots.txt blocking and only pertain...

Jun 11, 2020 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is the first wave / second wave model of JavaScript rendering still relevant?

The concept of 'first wave' and 'second wave' was a simplification to explain the crawling and rendering process. Google no longer uses it because it is misleading. The median time between crawling an...