A few days after Google released its first new version of the quality rater guidelines of the year, Google has pulled the file from the site. It now goes to a 404 page. Google’s blog post from 2015 about releasing the guidelines from a few years ago still links to the URL where the file […]
Google Search Quality Rater Guidelines Updated: Beneficial Purpose, Creator Reputation & More
It has been a year since we last saw Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines updated, but they released a brand new version over the weekend. Here is what has changed, with commentary about why it is important for site owners and tips they can take away from it to incorporate into their own sites. Once […]
Google Slows Crawling With 5xx Server Errors
When a website starts to serve Googlebot 5xx server errors, how does Googlebot handle the change in server status? The question came up about Google crawl errors, and John Mueller from Google had some interesting comments about 5xx type of server errors and how it impacts Googlebot. That's a very vague question, and a post […]
Google: H Tags as a Ranking Factor
How important are using <h> tags – and more specifically multiple <h> tags, such as using <h1>, <h2>, <h3> and more – on a page when considering it from an SEO point of view? What about the benefits to site visitors? The question came up specifically about the use of <h> tags and whether they […]
Using Redirects Can Impact Google AdWords Quality Score
If you have recently undergone a URL structure change, or recently changed to HTTPS, make sure that you are also fixing the destination URLs in your Google AdWords ads. It came up in a tweet specifically about HTTPS, with Jon Diorio of AdWords advising advertisers to ensure if they have switched to HTTPS, that they […]
Google: Don’t Rely on Google Tag Manager for Structured Data
One of the ways to implement structured data on a site is by using Google Tag Manager – GTM – to do so. But John Mueller from Google is warning against using this implementation of structured data. A question came up on Twitter about the Google Structured Data Testing Tool not being able to recognize […]
Google: On Page Depth, Flat Architecture, Googlebot Discovery and SEO
How important is flat architecture to a website? What about page depth, which is how many pages deep any page is from the homepage, and how it impacts pages based on that depth? And what about how a website structure impacts new content? John Mueller from Google addressed this in a recent Google webmaster office […]
Google: How Googlebot Processes JavaScript Links on a Site
Site developers are often creative when it comes to how they implement linking with various web technologies. But not all links are created equal in the eyes of Googlebot. John Mueller from Google was asked if Googlebot would ignore JavaScript links placed in a “<div href> + JavaScript format. He confirmed that Google will not […]
Google: Length of Time to Remove URLs from Search Results
Google tends to remove specific results from their search results fairly quickly when a site owner uses the page removal tool via Google Search Console, but just how fast is it? The question came up on Twitter, with Google responding that it generally takes less than a day for Google to remove URLs. This generally […]
Google Cache Being Shown or Not is Not a Ranking Factor
Some site owners get worried when the cache link for their webpages disappear in the search results, or when clicking on the cache link they get a 404 error instead of the Google cache version of the page. And it can sometimes appear and disappear in between reloads as the results are served from different […]