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When SEOs Disagree With Googlers On Google Search SEO

Published

2 years ago

April 5, 2022

For decades now, many SEOs have disagreed with Googlers about how to do SEO and how to rank sites well in Google Search. Some of those who disagree feel Google is either lying to the industry, some feel those Googlers don’t know the answer and some feel they just know better.

John Mueller of Google tweeted about this the other day when he was asked to detail what is wrong with an article on Google ranking factors. He said on Twitter “When Googlers give corrections, there are often claims that it’s not true – be it from Googlers wanting to mislead, or them being incompetent.”

The funny thing, this just happened on Reddit on the topic of keyword density where John gave his advice, saying not to focus on that as a metric and someone said in response to John “don’t agree with you, have you done any SEO recently to test this? I have.”

Here was what John wrote on the topic of keyword density:

Mentioning a concept at least once on a page is one thing, but anything past that doesn’t really make sense. You’re focusing on a metric that’s irrelevant to search engines. This is pretty much one of the first things all sites did when search engines first appeared 25? years ago. Any tool that’s still recommending keyword density is stuck in that time — the world has moved on significantly. I’d recommend spending your time wiser.

The SEO’s response:

Dont agree with you, have you done any seo recently to test this? I have. Maybe there is other low hanging fruit to capture under the opportunity cost framing of tasks but take a look at the biggest organic ranked sites in google and you can see how they use it and they are testing it with millions of pounds of investment.

Here is John’s tweet about this in general:

That’s tempting, but it generally just starts arguments. When Googlers give corrections, there are often claims that it’s not true – be it from Googlers wanting to mislead, or them being incompetent. I’d rather we just focus on giving good, helpful advice.
— 🦝 John (personal) 🦝 (@JohnMu) March 29, 2022

It is always interesting to see SEOs disagree with Googlers. Sure, they are human, they can get things wrong here and there. But when you see a Googler say something over and over again, and keep seeing some say that is wrong, it makes you wonder why…

Sure – you should test everything yourself but when a Googler disagrees, maybe use that as a sign to think about how you tested it originally and come up with new testing plans?

Forum discussion at Twitter.

Related Topics:Disagree Google Googlers Search seo SEOs

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Daily Search Forum Recap: April 25, 2024

Published

4 hours ago

April 25, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

The Google March 2024 core update is still rolling out and the SEO chatter is super heated despite the tools calming. Google Ads API version 16.1 is now out. Google’s John Mueller says splitting and merging sites takes longer than normal site moves for Google to process. Google updated its favicon documentation. And a scathing report on how Google executive Prabhakar Raghavan killed Google Search.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Google March Core Update Stilling Rolling Out & Heated SEO Chatter Continue

Over the past few days, while I was offline, the SEO chatter around the Google search ranking volatility continued to be super heated. The Google tracking tools seemed to calm down a bit, but the chatter is still very heated. This is all while the Google March 2024 core update is still rolling out 51 days later.

Report: How Prabhakar Raghavan Killed Google Search

Ed Zitron wrote a piece named The Man Who Killed Google Search. It goes through in detail how Prabhakar Raghavan, Google’s former head of ads – led a coup so that he could run Google Search, and how an email chain from 2019 began a cascade of events that would lead to him running it into the ground, he said.

Google Favicon Documentation Adds Rel Attribute Value Definitions

Google has updated its favicon documentation for Google Search to add definitions for each supported rel attribute value in the Google Search favicon documentation.

Google Ads API Version 16.1 Now Available

Google released version 16.1 of the Google Ads API yesterday. The update includes query assets for Demand Gen, more location service details, more support warnings, Target ROAS bid simulation and more.

Google: Splitting & Merging Sites Takes Longer Than Normal Site Migrations

Want to scare an SEO? Just tell them they need to manage a site migration. Want to make an SEO faint? Tell them they need to manage to split a site into two or more sites while merging content on those sites. John Mueller from Google said it takes Google longer to process site splits and merges than normal site migrations.

Google Chefs In Dublin

Here is a photo I found on Instagram of a bunch of chefs at the Google office in Dublin. I am not sure if this was for some event or if Googlers were doing some sort of cooking class but it was a photo that caught my eye.

Other Great Search Threads:

Interested in AI assistants within YouTube? -> The new experimental “Ask AI” feature in YouTube is pretty cool. Just tap the button and ask any question about the video you’re watching. Note, AI can’t control the video player as of n, Glenn Gabe on X

What skeleton do you have in your closet?, WebmasterWorld

Googlebot will crawl from one location (often the US), and if you redirect it based on its location, Googlebot would only see (and index) that country version. It’s better to use something like a banner., John Mueller on X

I don’t know your sites, but even if the content’s the same, they’re essentially different sites (especially with ccTLDs), so it would be normal for a migration to affect them differently (and this seems to be quite a way back in the meantime)., John Mueller on X

Search engines recrawl URLs at different rates, sometimes it’s multiple times a day, sometimes it’s once every few months. The verified removal tool is fastest, the public removal tool takes a few days because it needs to verify the URL properly., John Mueller on X

You are now a Google Search Engineer. How do you fix organic search?, Gareth Boyd on X

Search Engine Land Stories:

Feedback:

Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick or @seroundtable, on Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky and you can follow us on Facebook and on Google News and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or just contact us the old fashion way.

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Google Won’t Change The 301 Signals For Ranking & SEO

Published

1 day ago

April 24, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Gary Illyes from Google said on stage at the SERP conference last week that there is no way that Google would change how the 301 redirect signal works for SEO or search rankings. Gary added that it’s a very reliable signal.

Nikola Minkov quoted Gary Illyes as saying, “It is a very reliable signal, and there is no way we could change that signal,” when asked if a 301 redirect not working is a myth. Honestly, I am not sure the context of this question, as it is not clear from the post on X, but here it is:

More from @methode:
– 301 redirect not working is a myth. “It is a very reliable signal, and there is no way we could change that signal”.#SERPConf2024 #SERPConf2024International
— Nikola Minkov (@n_minkov) April 19, 2024

We’ve covered 301 redirects here countless times – but I never saw a myth that Google does not use 301 redirects as a signal for canonicalization or for passing signals from an old URL to the redirected URL.

Forum discussion at X.

Note: This was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today, I am currently offline for Passover.

SEARCHENGINES

Google Again Says Ignore Link Spam Especially To 404 Pages

Published

2 days ago

April 23, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

I am not sure how many times Google has said that you do not need to disavow spammy links, that you can ignore link spam attacks and that links pointing to pages that 404/410 are links that do not count – but John Mueller from Google said it again.

In a thread on X, John Mueller from Google wrote, “if the links are going to URLs that 404 on your site, they’re already dropped.” “They do nothing,” he added, “If there’s no indexable destination URL, there’s no link.”

John then added, “I’d generally ignore link-spam, and definitely ignore link-spam to 404s.”

Asking if it would hurt to disavow, after responding with the messages above, John wrote:

It will do absolutely nothing. I would take the time to rework a holistic & forward-looking strategy for the site overall instead of working on incremental tweaks (other tweaks might do something, but you probably need real change, not tweaks).

Earlier this year we had tons of SEOs notice spammy links to 404 error pages, John said ignore them. In 2021, Google said links to 404 pages do not count, Google also said that in 2012 and many other times.

Plus, outside of links to 404 pages, Google has said to ignore spammy links, time and time again – even the toxic links – ignore them. The messaging around this changed in 2016 when Penguin 4.0 was released and Google began devaluing links over demoting them.

Here are those new posts in context:

I’d say add both. Lol
— Jeremy Rivera (@JeremyRiveraSEO) April 11, 2024

Sure. But also, save yourself the work completely :-).
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 11, 2024

Re-reading your initial post – if the links are going to URLs that 404 on your site, they’re already dropped. They do nothing. If there’s no indexable destination URL, there’s no link. I’d generally ignore link-spam, and definitely ignore link-spam to 404s.
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 11, 2024

… but still… is this a dumb idea?
— Rebekah Edwards (@rebekah_creates) April 11, 2024
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It will do absolutely nothing. I would take the time to rework a holistic & forward-looking strategy for the site overall instead of working on incremental tweaks (other tweaks might do something, but you probably need real change, not tweaks).
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 11, 2024

And in general, Google says it ignores spammy links, so you should too (not new) but this post from John Mueller is:

I would just ignore them, Google ignores them too. Sometimes they’re just more visible in tools, but that doesn’t mean they’re a problem.
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 18, 2024

And then also on Mastodon wrote about a similar situation, “Google has 2 decades of practice of ignoring spammy links. There’s no need to do anything for those links.”

Forum discussion at X.

Note: This was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today, I am currently offline for Passover.