Top SEO Checklist ::: Google ::: John Mueller – Sam Marsden
search engine optimization ( SEO )
Mobile-First
- Sites Still Waiting to Be Switched over to Mobile-First Indexing Aren’t Necessarily Not Ready
- 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
- Make Sure Mobile Versions Aren’t Oversimplified & Include Relevant Content That Helps Google Understand the Page
Content
- There Are No Differences in How Content in the HTML Is Treated Dependent on Whether It Is Visible or Not by Default
- Use Rel=Canonical over Noindex for Duplicated Content
- Google Can Index Duplicate Pages But Only Shows the Most Relevant One
Crawling
- Ensure That Scripts in the Page Header Don’t Close It Prematurely
- Googlebot Doesn’t Use Cookies When It Returns to Crawl a Site
- Crawl Budget Is Only an Issue for Large Sites
Indexing
- Serving a 410 Response Can Remove Pages from Google’s Index Quicker Than a 404
- Linked Pages Blocked by Robots.txt Can Still be Indexed
- Indexing Can Be Delayed If Canonical Tag Points to Redirect Instead of the Preferred Version
JavaScript
- Serving Critical JavaScript in the Head Can Block Rendering
- Show Fully Rendered Pages to Googlebot Using Dynamic Rendering
- There Will Be a Delay Between Initial Indexing & Rendering for the Foreseeable Future
Linking
- PageRank Is Still Passed for Links That Aren’t Visible by Default
- Bad Internal Linking on Mobile Can Affect How Pages Are Indexed & Ranked
- Google Ignores Links Both Manually & Algorithmically

Internationalization
- Multiple Options Available to Serve Different Country Versions of Product Pages
- Ensure Each Country Version of a Page Has a Clear Canonical & Hreflang Is Implemented Between Equivalent Canonical Versions
- Hreflang is a Minor Canonicalization Signal
Structured Data
- Structured Data Is Only Used by Google If a Site Is Considered High Quality & Trustworthy
- Date Published & Modified Structured Data Recommended for Articles
- Make Sure Ratings Markup Reflects Actual User Feedback & the Primary Page Topic
Site Architecture
- Page Importance Is Determined More by Click Depth Than URL Structure
- Using Subdirectories over Subdomains Is Recommended Unless Pages Are Markedly Different from Rest of Site
- New Content Should Be Linked High up in the Site Architecture
Speed
- Google Uses User Experience Metrics to Determine Page Speed
- Google Uses a Scale to Assess Page Speed
- 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
- Focus on Improving the Relevance of Sites That Suffered After August 1 Update
- Consider Noindexing Low-Quality, User-Generated Content
- Google Only Takes Indexed Pages Into Consideration When Assessing Site Quality
- Lazy-Loading Images Should Use the Noscript Tag or Markup
- Don’t Forget to Redirect Old Image URLs When Migrating to a New CDN
- 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/
