Top SEO Checklist ::: John Mueller – Sam Marsden


Top SEO Checklist ::: Google ::: John Mueller – Sam Marsden

search engine optimization ( SEO )

Mobile-First

  1. Sites Still Waiting to Be Switched over to Mobile-First Indexing Aren’t Necessarily Not Ready
  2. After a Site Has Been Switched to Mobile-First Indexing, Content Parity Won’t Be an Issue Because the Desktop Version Won’t Be Used for Indexing
  3. Make Sure Mobile Versions Aren’t Oversimplified & Include Relevant Content That Helps Google Understand the Page

Content

  1. There Are No Differences in How Content in the HTML Is Treated Dependent on Whether It Is Visible or Not by Default
  2. Use Rel=Canonical over Noindex for Duplicated Content
  3. Google Can Index Duplicate Pages But Only Shows the Most Relevant One

Crawling

  1. Ensure That Scripts in the Page Header Don’t Close It Prematurely
  2. Googlebot Doesn’t Use Cookies When It Returns to Crawl a Site
  3. Crawl Budget Is Only an Issue for Large Sites

Indexing

  1. Serving a 410 Response Can Remove Pages from Google’s Index Quicker Than a 404
  2. Linked Pages Blocked by Robots.txt Can Still be Indexed
  3. Indexing Can Be Delayed If Canonical Tag Points to Redirect Instead of the Preferred Version

JavaScript

  1. Serving Critical JavaScript in the Head Can Block Rendering
  2. Show Fully Rendered Pages to Googlebot Using Dynamic Rendering
  3. There Will Be a Delay Between Initial Indexing & Rendering for the Foreseeable Future

Linking

  1. PageRank Is Still Passed for Links That Aren’t Visible by Default
  2. Bad Internal Linking on Mobile Can Affect How Pages Are Indexed & Ranked
  3. Google Ignores Links Both Manually & Algorithmically
Top SEO Checklist ::: John Mueller - Sam Marsden 1

Internationalization

  1. Multiple Options Available to Serve Different Country Versions of Product Pages
  2. Ensure Each Country Version of a Page Has a Clear Canonical & Hreflang Is Implemented Between Equivalent Canonical Versions
  3. Hreflang is a Minor Canonicalization Signal

Structured Data

  1. Structured Data Is Only Used by Google If a Site Is Considered High Quality & Trustworthy
  2. Date Published & Modified Structured Data Recommended for Articles
  3. Make Sure Ratings Markup Reflects Actual User Feedback & the Primary Page Topic

Site Architecture

  1. Page Importance Is Determined More by Click Depth Than URL Structure
  2. Using Subdirectories over Subdomains Is Recommended Unless Pages Are Markedly Different from Rest of Site
  3. New Content Should Be Linked High up in the Site Architecture

Speed

  1. Google Uses User Experience Metrics to Determine Page Speed
  2. Google Uses a Scale to Assess Page Speed
  3. Improve Page Speed by Loading Scripts After Rendering
    Load time can be improved by embedding scripts so that they load after the page has rendered.

Relevance & Quality

  1. Focus on Improving the Relevance of Sites That Suffered After August 1 Update
  2. Consider Noindexing Low-Quality, User-Generated Content
  3. Google Only Takes Indexed Pages Into Consideration When Assessing Site Quality
  4. Lazy-Loading Images Should Use the Noscript Tag or Markup
  5. Don’t Forget to Redirect Old Image URLs When Migrating to a New CDN
  6. Image Tags Need to Have an ‘A’ Tag & ‘Href’ Element to Be Seen as Links

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/top-seo-insights-google-john-mueller/278829/

Top SEO Checklist ::: John Mueller - Sam Marsden 2