Crawlspace

Things people say a lot

142 things on this site are widely repeated but do not come with an official source. Someone said them, and we can prove they said them - but that is not the same as the rule saying so.

This is not a list of lies. Plenty of it turns out to be true. We went and checked each one against the official rules, and each says below what we found.

We checked 59 of them one at a time. 4 are contradicted by the official rule, 31 hold up, 13 we could not find anything official for, and 11 have a real rule behind them that says something narrower.

These appear across 33 of 38 topics. Everything else on this site - 1,021 answers - comes with an official source attached. How we decide which is which.

Widely repeated, and the official rule says otherwise

The most useful part of this page. For each of these we found the rule itself saying the opposite, usually in one sentence, often on the very page the advice is explaining.

Setting sitemap changefreq and priority values carefully influences how search engines crawl a site, so they are worth tuning.

Google ignores <priority> and <changefreq> values.Google Search Central2026-07-08

Changefreq

E-E-A-T is a ranking factor: sites demonstrating strong E-E-A-T signals are rewarded with higher rankings.

Google's "Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content" documentation states that E-E-A-T itself isn't a specific ranking factor.Google Search Central2026

E-E-A-T

A meta description has a limit of about 155 characters, and anything longer gets truncated.

There's no limit on how long a meta description can be, but the snippet is truncated in Google Search results as needed, typically to fit the device width.Google Search Central2026-04-20

Meta description

A strong meta description signals relevance to search engines, i.e. it helps ranking.

Even though we sometimes use the description meta tag for the snippets we show, we still don't use the description meta tag in our ranking.Google Search Central Blog2009-09-21

Meta description

Where we read these

How many of the above we came across in each publication. This is not a ranking and not a judgement of anyone: we read some publications more than others, so they appear more often, and none of this says anything about the rest of what they publish.

  • searchenginejournal.com24
  • maximuslabs.ai8
  • reporteroutreach.com8
  • georion.app7
  • slickplan.com7
  • contentpowered.com6
  • corewebvitals.io6
  • seroundtable.com6
  • searchengineland.com5
  • yoast.com5
  • blogs.bing.com4
  • thestacc.com4
  • weblumino.com4
  • ziptie.dev4
  • amsive.com3
  • bing.com3
  • khalidseo.com3
  • neilpatel.com3
  • vercel.com3
  • clickrank.ai2
  • companionlink.com2
  • faqjsonld.com2
  • greadme.com2
  • intrepidonline.com2
  • parachutedesign.ca2
  • seobeni.com2
  • sixthcitymarketing.com2
  • srutatech.com2
  • zerokit.dev2

And 9 more publications with a single echoed claim each.

Changefreq13 of 41

What is established: The sitemaps.org protocol as of 2016-11-21 defines <changefreq> as an optional hint, lists valid values as always, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly and never, and states that crawlers may deviate from it, including periodically crawling pages marked "never". Google's documentation as of 2020-11-11 and 2026-07-08 says Google ignores <priority> and <changefreq>, and Bing's blog as of 2025-07-31 says Bing ignores changefreq and priority while lastmod remains a key recrawl signal; Google's July 2026 documentation says it uses the lastmod value if it is consistently and verifiably accurate. Yandex's documentation as of 2026-08-12 describes changefreq as frequency of page changes, but these claims do not establish whether Yandex uses it, and some third-party guides from 2025 and 2026 still advise tuning changefreq and warn that high values may trigger aggressive crawling, which conflicts with the Google and Bing statements that the tag is ignored.

#

Content Powered quotes John Mueller of Google as saying that priority and change frequency doesn't play that much of a role with Sitemaps anymore.

medium confidenceother
2 quotes from 1 source
We also have direct word on this subject from John Mueller of Google.
Priority and change frequency doesn't play that much of a role with Sitemaps anymore.
#

Content Powered's article on sitemap priority and changefreq tells readers that setting changefreq too high…

  • will confuse search engines.
  • may result in search engines searching the site too aggressively even when there are no changes.
other
1 quote from 1 source
Setting it too high will confuse search engines and may result in them searching your site too aggressively, even when there aren't any changes.
#

Setting Changefreq values too high could result in dozens of other search engines…

  • hammering the site's server.
  • slowing down the site's server.
other
1 quote from 1 source
Google isn't the only search engine that checks your sitemap, so if you have your Changefreq values set too high, you could have dozens of other search engines hammering your server and slowing it down.
#

Content Powered's article tells readers that changefreq is still something you should tune

other
1 quote from 1 source
It's still something you should tune, but it isn't going to make or break your website.
#

Slickplan's guide to sitemap priority and change frequency tells readers that setting realistic change frequencies is crucial because it avoids confusing search sites that do acknowledge the changefreq tag.

other
1 quote from 1 source
Setting realistic change frequencies is crucial as it avoids confusing search sites that do acknowledge the changefreq tag, aiding in properly communicating page update routines.
#

Slickplan's guide states that change frequency tells search engines how often a page's content updates, offering a hint for crawling prioritization.

other
1 quote from 1 source
Change frequency tells search engines how often a page’s content updates, offering a hint for crawling prioritization.
#

Slickplan's guide assigns the changefreq value 'hourly' to pages of…

  • major news publications.
  • weather services.
  • forums.
other
1 quote from 1 source
2. Hourly These pages update every hour and will also include major news publications as well as weather services and forums.
#

Slickplan's guide claims that…

  • large sites tend to have the most to gain from using the priority and changefreq tags.
  • the guidance from the priority and changefreq tags can nudge search sites to get pages crawled and indexed more effectively.
other
1 quote from 1 source
Large sites tend to have the most to gain from using these tags as the guidance can nudge and help search sites get pages crawled and indexed more effectively and in line with your intention.

FAQPage structured data9 of 27

What is established: Since August 8, 2023, Google has restricted FAQ rich results produced from FAQPage structured data to well-known, authoritative government and health websites, and for all other sites the rich result is no longer shown regularly; Google's FAQ structured data documentation stated the same limitation on September 14, 2023. Google also said that site owners could drop this structured data but did not need to remove it, that unused structured data does not cause problems for Search and has no visible effects in Google Search, and that this change was not a ranking change and would not be listed in the Search status dashboard. As of July 10, 2026, Google's guidance states FAQPage structured data is not required for generative AI search and no special schema.org markup is needed. Third-party 2026 reporting claims pages with FAQPage structured data are 3.2x more likely to appear in Google AI Overviews and 40% more likely to be cited by ChatGPT, but that effect is not established by Google's stated documentation position.

#
  • An article published at faqjsonld.com on 2026-04-25 tells readers not to remove FAQPage structured data from their pages.
  • The article published at faqjsonld.com on 2026-04-25 cites Google's 2023 deprecation post as having said that site owners do not need to remove FAQPage structured data.
other
2 quotes from 1 source
Published 2026-04-25
Should I remove FAQ schema from my pages? No. Google explicitly said in their 2023 deprecation post that you do not need to remove FAQPage structured data — it just will not produce rich snippets on most sites.
#

According to an article published at georion.app in 2026, FAQPage structured data is…

  • 3.2x more likely to appear in Google AI Overviews.
  • 40% more likely to get cited by ChatGPT.
medium confidenceother
1 quote from 1 source
Pages with FAQ schema are 3.2x more likely to appear in Google AI Overviews and 40% more likely to get cited by ChatGPT according to 2026 analysis.
#

An article published at georion.app in 2026 attributes to a Launchcodex June 2026 study of 127,000 Google AI Overview answer panels a finding that FAQPage schema was present on 58.3% of cited sources.

medium confidenceother
1 quote from 1 source
For Google AI Overviews specifically, Launchcodex's June 2026 research analyzed 127,000 AI-generated answer panels and found FAQPage schema present on 58.3% of cited sources.
#
  • FAQPage markup remains valid structured data, according to a June 2026 statement attributed to Google's Search Relations team by an article published at georion.app in 2026.
  • FAQPage markup helps Google understand page content structure, according to a June 2026 statement attributed to Google's Search Relations team by an article published at georion.app in 2026.
medium confidenceother
1 quote from 1 source
According to Google's Search Relations team statement in June 2026, "FAQPage markup remains valid structured data that helps us understand page content structure"—a clear signal that the schema still feeds Google's knowledge systems, including AI Overviews.
#
  • An article published at georion.app in 2026 attributes to SEMrush tracking of 2.4 million domains a finding about FAQPage structured data.
  • The finding about FAQPage structured data, attributed to SEMrush's tracking of 2.4 million domains, states that 67.2% of websites that previously displayed FAQ rich results saw those features disappear within 72 hours of the May 7 rollout.
medium confidenceother
1 quote from 1 source
According to SEMrush's tracking of 2.4 million domains, 67.2% of websites that previously displayed FAQ rich results saw those features disappear within 72 hours of the May 7 rollout.

Digital PR8 of 20

What is established: As of May 2025, an Ahrefs study of 75,000 brands found that brand web mentions showed the strongest correlation with AI Overview brand visibility (0.664), more strongly than backlinks did (0.218). John Mueller stated in January 2021 that digital PR is just as critical as tech SEO, probably more so in many cases, and that the simplification "link building = against Google's guidelines" needs more nuance. A self-reported Q1 2026 survey of 500 SEO professionals reported by Reporter Outreach found 34% ranked digital PR as their best-performing method, nearly double guest posting at 18%. Reporter Outreach's 2026 page also asserts, but does not independently establish, that digital PR is the lowest-risk approach and effectively immune to Google algorithm penalties because editorial decisions sit with journalists.

#

The Reporter Outreach digital PR statistics page asserts that digital PR is the lowest-risk approach because editorial decisions sit with the journalist, making campaigns effectively immune to Google algorithm penalties.

other
1 quote from 1 source
Digital PR is the lowest-risk approach because editorial decisions sit with the journalist — making campaigns effectively immune to Google algorithm penalties. Reporter Outreach
#

The Reporter Outreach digital PR statistics page…

  • asserts that 53% of Google penalties involve paid links with keyword-rich anchor text.
  • attributes the 53% figure to "Semrush".
other
1 quote from 1 source
53% of Google penalties involve paid links with keyword-rich anchor text — a risk that disappears when journalists choose their own anchors. Semrush
#

The Reporter Outreach digital PR statistics page asserts that traditional PR delivers zero measurable link equity.

other
1 quote from 1 source
Traditional PR delivers zero measurable link equity . Campaigns built for search produce backlinks, brand mentions, and traffic at once. Reporter Outreach
#

The Reporter Outreach digital PR statistics page…

  • reports that the average campaign earns links from 42 unique referring domains.
  • attributes the 42 unique referring domains figure to "Digitaloft / Reboot Online".
medium confidenceother
1 quote from 1 source
The average campaign earns links from 42 unique referring domains . Top performers earn significantly more. Digitaloft / Reboot Online
#

The Reporter Outreach digital PR statistics page…

  • restates an Ahrefs figure as "Brand mentions correlate 3x more strongly with AI search visibility (0.664) than backlinks alone (0.218)".
  • attributes the figure "Brand mentions correlate 3x more strongly with AI search visibility (0.664) than backlinks alone (0.218)" to "Ahrefs, 2025".
other
1 quote from 1 source
Brand mentions correlate 3x more strongly with AI search visibility (0.664) than backlinks alone (0.218). Campaigns produce both at once. Ahrefs, 2025

Generative engine optimization8 of 54

What is established: As of 2026-07-10, Google Search Central's AI optimization guide states that from Google Search's perspective optimizing for generative AI search is still SEO, that many suggested AEO/GEO hacks are not effective or supported by how Google Search actually works, and that machine readable files, AI text files, Markdown, special schema.org markup, and chunking are not needed; it also says llms.txt neither harms nor helps Google Search visibility or rankings, and that no third party tool has access to Google's internal ranking or AI systems. As of 2026-05-20, Google's Lighthouse 13.3 added an Agentic Browsing llms.txt audit while Chrome for Developers' Lighthouse documentation describes the file as an optional emerging convention for LLMs and AI agents, a split that can lead to conflicting instructions with Google's Search docs. Measured findings from 2026 include Ahrefs finding that 97% of llms.txt files across 137,000 domains got zero requests, with the stated caveat that every figure is a ceiling because it measured requests rather than whether bots acted on what they fetched, and SE Ranking finding no connection between having llms.txt and AI citation frequency. The 2024 paper introducing Generative Engine Optimization reports visibility gains up to 40% in generative engine responses but also reports that efficacy varies across domains.

#

A GEO vendor page asserts that…

  • in 2023, researchers from Princeton University, Georgia Tech, the Allen Institute for AI, and IIT Delhi published research titled 'GEO: Generative Engine Optimization'.
  • the research titled 'GEO: Generative Engine Optimization' introduced a GEO-BENCH dataset of 10,000 diverse queries across multiple domains.
low confidenceother
1 quote from 1 source
In 2023, researchers from Princeton University, Georgia Tech, the Allen Institute for AI, and IIT Delhi published groundbreaking research titled "GEO: Generative Engine Optimization". The study introduced the GEO-BENCH dataset, a benchmark of 10,000 diverse queries across multiple domains, and systematically tested nine distinct optimization methods to determine which techniques most effectively improved visibility in AI-generated responses.
#

A generative engine optimization vendor page asserts that the top three generative engine optimization techniques, Cite Sources, Quotation Addition and Statistics Addition, delivered 30-40% visibility improvements across all content categories.

low confidenceother
1 quote from 1 source
The results revealed dramatic performance differences. The top three techniques—Cite Sources, Quotation Addition, and Statistics Addition—delivered 30-40% visibility improvements across all content categories.
#

Search Engine Land asserts that Cyrus Shepard found in a recent study that 92% of sites that experience significant organic growth produce their own proprietary assets.

low confidencetrade press
1 quote from 1 source
Cyrus Shepard found in a recent study that 92% of sites that experience significant organic growth produce their own proprietary assets.
#

According to Search Engine Journal's report on generative engine optimization…

  • ChatGPT confirmed at length that an invented file standard called cats.txt could help its author rank.
  • the author of cats.txt stated that ChatGPT's confirmation is not evidence of anything.
low confidencetrade press
2 quotes from 1 source
I got tired of watching the industry treat “an AI bot fetched it” and “ChatGPT said it helps” as evidence that llms.txt does anything, so I invented a standard called cats.txt: a text file in which you formally declare your office cats, their jobs, their breeds, and how often they purr.
ChatGPT confirmed, at length, that cats.txt could help me rank. None of which is evidence of anything, which was rather the point.
#

Search Engine Journal states in…

  • one article that Ahrefs ran the numbers on llms.txt across 100,000 domains.
  • another article that Ahrefs analyzed logs from 137,000 domains.
low confidencetrade press
2 quotes from 2 sources
Ahrefs ran the numbers across 100,000 domains and found that the file is, in practice, largely ignored by the crawlers it is meant to court, a finding since echoed by other large studies showing no measurable citation advantage for sites that add one.
Ahrefs analyzed logs from 137,000 domains and found 97% of llms.txt files got zero requests. No bots, no humans.

Google-Extended7 of 21

What is established: Google-Extended controls whether content Google crawls from a site may be used to train future Gemini models and for grounding in Gemini Apps and Vertex AI. It does not affect the site’s inclusion or ranking in Google Search, and it does not remove content from AI Overviews; opting out of AI Overviews requires blocking Googlebot entirely, which would also eliminate the site’s organic search traffic. By July 2026, its documented scope explicitly included grounding, following earlier versions that covered only training.

#

A page on digitalapplied.com asserts that the distinction between Google-Extended and AI Overviews trips up most publishers.

low confidenceother
1 quote from 1 source
Blocking Google-Extended is therefore insufficient to remove you from AI Overviews, a distinction that trips up most publishers.
#

A guide on zerokit.dev states that for Google-Extended, opting out of AI Overviews entirely…

  • is a different and more complex conversation.
  • involves the nosnippet meta tag.
low confidenceother
1 quote from 1 source
Blocking Google-Extended may reduce how well Gemini understands your content for grounding purposes, but it won't necessarily remove you from AI Overviews. If you want to opt out of AI Overviews entirely, that's a different (and more complex) conversation involving the nosnippet meta tag.
#

A page on amicited.com asserts that many publishers mistakenly believe blocking Google-Extended will prevent their content from appearing in AI Overviews.

low confidenceother
1 quote from 1 source
Many publishers mistakenly believe that blocking Google-Extended will prevent their content from appearing in AI Overviews, but this is fundamentally incorrect.
#

A page on playwire.com asserts that some publishers report that blocking Google-Extended may affect their appearance in Google's "Grounding with Google Search" feature for Gemini.

low confidenceother
1 quote from 1 source
There's a catch here. Some publishers report that blocking Google-Extended may affect their appearance in Google's "Grounding with Google Search" feature for Gemini. This could potentially impact citations to your pages in AI-generated responses.
#

A page on intrepidonline.com states that…

  • to remove content from AI Overviews, a site owner needs to block Googlebot itself and not just Google-Extended.
  • blocking Googlebot itself and not just Google-Extended would result in the site no longer ranking.
low confidenceother
1 quote from 1 source
Answer: To put it bluntly, there is no easy way to do this without harming your site. To remove your content from AI Overviews, you need to block Googlebot itself (not just Google-Extended), which would result in your site no longer ranking and losing all of your organic traffic from Google.

Search Console generative AI report7 of 38

What is established: Google's stated methodology since August 15, 2024 is that AI Overviews are counted and logged in the overall Search Console Performance report, a documentation clarification only. On June 3, 2026, Google announced the launch of dedicated Search Console generative AI performance reports for Search and Discover, rolling them out to a subset of websites before wider availability. The Search report includes impressions, pages, countries, dates, and devices; the Discover report includes pages, countries, and dates, with one impression counted per result per session. Google says this generative AI data continues to be tracked in the overall performance report, and third-party coverage reports no click data, CTR, average position, or query-level breakdown; one article says the initial Google rollout is limited to a subset of UK site owners, while Google's announcement only specifies a subset of websites.

#

An article published at neilpatel.com states that…

  • data in the Search Console generative AI report begins from May 18, 2026.
  • there is no historical backfill for the data in the Search Console generative AI report.
low confidenceother
2 quotes from 1 source
Data begins from May 18, 2026; there is no historical backfill.
The report currently has no historical data before May 18, 2026, which means the earlier you establish your first benchmarks, the more useful comparative data you will have going forward.
#

An article published at neilpatel.com states that the Search Console generative AI report tracks impressions only, with no click data, no CTR, no average position and no query-level breakdown.

medium confidenceother
2 quotes from 1 source
The most significant limitation of the current report is that it tracks impressions only. There is no click data, no CTR, no average position, and no query-level breakdown.
Click data is not included in the current version, which is the most significant limitation.
#

An article published at weblumino.com states that the Search Console generative AI reporting…

  • includes impressions, pages, countries, devices and dates.
  • does not include click data.
medium confidenceother
1 quote from 1 source
The reporting includes impressions, pages, countries, devices, and dates, but does not include click data. Google won’t be telling us how many searchers click from AI responses in Google Search to sites.
#

An article published at weblumino.com states that…

  • Google's generative AI report is currently limited to a subset of UK site owners.
  • Bing Webmaster Tools' AI performance report is global.
low confidenceother
1 quote from 1 source
It’s also worth noting the competitive context: Bing Webmaster Tools has already released its AI performance report. Neither Google’s nor Bing’s reports have click data, but at least Bing’s report is global, while Google’s report is currently a subset of UK site owners.

Unlinked brand mentions7 of 18

What is established: As of 2021-12-21, Search Engine Journal reported that the "implied link" in Google's ranking patent concerned reference queries, not general unlinked brand mentions, that John Mueller said he did not think Google uses brand mentions for PageRank or link graph, and that there were no research papers or patents to support brand mentions; the article also said the idea took off in 2012 when a patent surfaced that seemed to confirm it. By 2026-07-10, Google Search Central's guidance listed pursuing inauthentic mentions among tactics site owners can ignore for Google Search. Similarweb's 2026-06-23 study, limited to users who had not visited the brand before or mentioned it in their prompt, found users given an AI recommendation were 2.5 times more likely to visit that brand's website within seven days, and SparkToro reported direct visits and branded search volume for recommended companies rose more than for non-mentioned brands. That AI-influenced traffic largely arrives via branded search rather than AI referrals, and the study left open whether users would have found those brands anyway.

#

Regarding unlinked brand mentions, Search Engine Land's article on the traditional link building model states that a typical link building pricing sheet today shows…

  • flat rates of $400 to $500 per backlink.
  • rigid monthly retainers starting at $5,000.
trade press
1 quote from 1 source
If you look at a typical pricing sheet today, you'll find flat rates of $400 to $500 per backlink, or rigid monthly retainers starting at $5,000.
#

Search Engine Journal's article on brand mentions reports that Google's John Mueller said he does not think Google uses brand mentions at all for things like PageRank or understanding the link graph of a website.

medium confidencetrade press
1 quote from 1 source
Mueller explained: “From my point of view, I don’t think we use those at all for things like PageRank or understanding the link graph of a website. And just a plain mention is sometimes kind of tricky to figure out anyway.”
#

Search Engine Journal's article on brand mentions states that…

  • there were no research papers or patents to support the idea of brand mentions.
  • the idea of brand mentions is an idea someone invented out of thin air.
trade press
1 quote from 1 source
The idea of “brand mentions” has bounced around for over ten years. There were no research papers or patents to support it. “Brand mentions” is literally an idea that someone invented out of thin air.
#

Search Engine Journal's article on brand mentions states that the idea of brand mentions took off in 2012 when a patent surfaced that seemed to confirm it.

medium confidencetrade press
1 quote from 1 source
However the “brand mention” idea took off in 2012 when a patent surfaced that seemed to confirm the idea of brand mentions.

Canonical tag6 of 25

What is established: As of 2026-07-10, Google's documentation states that canonical preferences are hints, not rules, and that Google may choose a different page as canonical for various reasons. It describes rel="canonical" as a strong signal and sitemap inclusion as a weak signal, and says the methods can stack to increase the chance of the preferred URL appearing, though none are required. Google uses the canonical page as the main source to evaluate content and quality, and it says the canonical page is crawled most regularly. SEO guides published in 2026 add that Google can and does ignore canonical tags when other signals contradict them, with one guide attributing a roughly 40% ignore rate to John Mueller when conflicting signals point to a different URL.

#

An SEO guide published at greadme.com…

  • states that Google ignores user-declared canonical tags roughly 40% of the time when conflicting signals point to a different URL.
  • attributes that roughly 40% figure for Google ignoring user-declared canonical tags to Google's John Mueller.
medium confidenceother
2 quotes from 1 source
Critically, Google treats canonicals as a hint, not a directive — and ignores yours about 40% of the time when other signals disagree.
It's a hint, not a rule. Google's John Mueller has stated Google ignores user-declared canonicals roughly 40% of the time when conflicting signals (sitemap, internal links, redirects) point to a different URL.
#

An SEO guide published at clickrank.ai…

  • describes canonical tags as a "strong hint" rather than a directive.
  • attributes the "strong hint" characterisation of canonical tags to Google's John Mueller.
medium confidenceother
1 quote from 1 source
Google’s John Mueller explains that canonical tags are a “strong hint” rather than a directive.
#

An SEO guide published at thestacc.com states that…

  • Google can and does ignore canonical tags when other signals contradict them.
  • if a canonical points to page A while the sitemap, internal links and redirects point to page B, Google will likely choose page B.
medium confidenceother
1 quote from 1 source
The critical detail: canonical tags are hints, not directives. Google can and does ignore canonical tags when other signals contradict them. If your canonical says "index page A" but your sitemap, internal links, and redirects all point to page B, Google will likely choose page B.

Chrome UX Report (CrUX)6 of 38

What is established: Chrome UX Report data is a 28-day rolling average of real-user metrics from Chrome users who have enabled usage statistic reporting, synced their browser history without a passphrase, and used a supported platform, and it is used by Google Search for page experience ranking. The CrUX API updates daily around 04:00 UTC with an approximate two-day lag, so a fix's impact begins to appear quickly rather than after 28 days; the reported metric values are 75th percentile, not averages. As of mid-2026, CrUX tracked 18.56 million origins with a 55.8% Core Web Vitals pass rate, but the dataset excludes Chrome on iOS, Android WebView, and other Chromium browsers, and it applies eligibility thresholds, random noise, and URL normalization that practitioners should understand when interpreting results.

#
  • A corewebvitals.io article states, regarding Chrome UX Report (CrUX), that the belief that a site must wait 28 days after deploying a fix to see whether it worked is wrong.
  • A corewebvitals.io article states that Chrome UX Report (CrUX) data is about two days old rather than 28 days old.
medium confidenceother
2 quotes from 1 source
The CrUX data is two days old, not 28. Here is what the 28-day rolling window actually means.
I hear it all the time: "We deployed the fix, now we have to wait 28 days to see if it worked." This is wrong. The data is not 28 days old. It is about two days old.
#

A corewebvitals.io article states that…

  • several popular guides, including Vercel's, incorrectly describe the CrUX figure as an average.
  • the CrUX figure is a 75th percentile.
medium confidenceother
1 quote from 1 source
One thing many people get wrong: this is a 75th percentile, not an average. Several popular guides (including Vercel's) incorrectly call it an average.
#

A corewebvitals.io article states that CrUX…

  • currently tracks 18.56 million origins.
  • has a 55.8% Core Web Vitals pass rate.
low confidenceother
1 quote from 1 source
CrUX currently tracks 18.56 million origins with a 55.8% Core Web Vitals pass rate.

E-E-A-T6 of 19

What is established: Google's documented position from December 15, 2022 onward is that E-A-T gained an E for experience, making the framework E-E-A-T. Google states that E-E-A-T itself is not a specific ranking factor and that search raters have no control over how pages rank, even though its systems aim to reward original, high-quality content that demonstrates E-E-A-T and give even more weight to strong E-E-A-T for topics involving health, financial stability, safety, or societal well-being. In Google's 2025 documentation, trust is the most important aspect and content does not necessarily have to demonstrate all E-E-A-T aspects. The question of whether E-E-A-T directly improves ranking is not settled by these claims: third-party articles from 2026 assert that E-E-A-T is the most important ranking factor or improves ranking position, which conflicts with Google's statement that E-E-A-T itself is not a specific ranking factor.

#

An article published on ziptie.dev states that in traditional SEO, E-E-A-T improves ranking position.

other
2 quotes from 1 source
In traditional SEO, E-E-A-T improves ranking position.
E-E-A-T for AI Search: How to Build Authority That Gets Cited by AI Engines - ZipTie.dev
#

An article published on ziptie.dev…

  • states that 96% of AI Overview citations come from sources with strong E-E-A-T signals.
  • attributes the 96% figure for AI Overview citations from sources with strong E-E-A-T signals to Wellows' analysis of 2,400 citations.
medium confidenceother
2 quotes from 1 source
96% of AI Overview citations come from sources with strong E-E-A-T signals, based on Wellows' analysis of 2,400 citations.
E-E-A-T for AI Search: How to Build Authority That Gets Cited by AI Engines - ZipTie.dev
#

An article published on ziptie.dev states that pages ranking #6-#10 with strong E-E-A-T are cited 2.3x more frequently than #1-ranked pages with weak E-E-A-T.

medium confidenceother
2 quotes from 1 source
The implication is stark: pages ranking #6-#10 with strong E-E-A-T are cited 2.3x more frequently than #1-ranked pages with weak E-E-A-T.
E-E-A-T for AI Search: How to Build Authority That Gets Cited by AI Engines - ZipTie.dev
#

An article published on srutatech.com is headlined "Why E-E-A-T is Still the Most Important Ranking Factor in 2026".

other
1 quote from 1 source
Why E-E-A-T is Still the Most Important Ranking Factor in 2026
#

An article published on srutatech.com states that businesses which demonstrate strong E-E-A-T signals are rewarded with higher search rankings.

other
1 quote from 1 source
Therefore, businesses that demonstrate strong E-E-A-T signals are rewarded with higher search rankings.

Meta description6 of 35

What is established: Google does not use meta descriptions as a ranking signal, and it rewrites them into the displayed snippet roughly two-thirds of the time regardless of length. A compelling, unique description can still improve click-through and traffic when it appears, and it matters for Googlebot. There is no technical character limit, but visible snippets are truncated to fit the device, typically displaying around 155 characters on desktop and under 120 on mobile.

#

Yoast's guide to creating a good meta description states that…

  • the limit to what can be seen in Google's search results is around 155 characters.
  • anything longer will get truncated.
vendor
1 quote from 1 source
Google says you can make your meta descriptions as long as you want, but there is a limit to what we can see in the SERPs — and that's around 155 characters; anything longer will get truncated.
#

A meta description gives you roughly 155 characters to describe what your page is about.

vendor
1 quote from 1 source
The meta description is an HTML tag you can set for a post or page of your website. In it, you can use roughly 155 characters to describe what your page is about.
#

Yoast's guide to creating a good meta description asserts that a strong meta description…

  • boosts click-through rate.
  • signals relevance to search engines.
vendor
1 quote from 1 source
A strong meta description boosts CTR and signals relevance to search engines.
#

Search Engine Journal's ranking-factors article on meta descriptions states that Google has not used the meta description as a search ranking signal since sometime between 1999 and 2003-04.

medium confidencetrade press
1 quote from 1 source
Google does not use the meta description as a search ranking signal and hasn't since sometime between 1999 and 2003-04.

AI Overviews5 of 31

What is established: Measured studies from March 2025 onward found that Google AI Overviews were associated with lower clickthrough to traditional results: Ahrefs measured a 34.5% lower average clickthrough rate for the top-ranking page in April 2025 and reported a 58% reduction for position one content by December 2025, while Pew Research Center observed clicks on a traditional result on 8% of visits with an AI summary versus 15% without. Google's AI features documentation as of December 10, 2025 stated that a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet to appear as a supporting link in AI Overviews, that there are no additional technical requirements or special optimizations, that AI Overviews often do not trigger, and that clicks from pages with AI Overviews are higher quality. The apparent conflict between Google's higher-quality-click assertion and the measured clickthrough declines is not resolved, and the vendor claim that 60% of searches now result in zero clicks is echoed rather than independently measured.

#

A vendor page asserts in the present tense…

  • that AI Overviews now reduce clicks to websites by 34.5%.
  • that, with AI Overviews, 60% of searches result in zero clicks.
low confidenceother
1 quote from 1 source
The data paints a stark picture: AI Overviews now reduce clicks to websites by 34.5%, with 60% of searches resulting in zero clicks.
#

According to a vendor page, Google's AI…

  • Overviews had over 1.5 billion users per month in Q1 2025.
  • Overviews' user count in Q1 2025 represented 26.6% of all internet users globally.
low confidenceother
1 quote from 1 source
More critically, Google's AI Overviews had over 1.5 billion users per month in Q1 2025, representing 26.6% of all internet users globally.
#

A vendor page asserts that 70% of sources cited in AI Overviews come from Google's top 10 organic results.

low confidenceother
1 quote from 1 source
Meanwhile, 70% of sources cited in AI Overviews come from Google's top 10 organic results, highlighting the symbiotic yet fundamentally different relationship between traditional and AI search.

Site reputation abuse5 of 46

What is established: As of May 15, 2026, Google defines site reputation abuse as publishing third-party content on a host site mainly because of that host's already-established ranking signals, and third-party content alone is not a violation. Google introduced the policy on March 5, 2024 with a first-party oversight condition, then removed that condition on November 19, 2024; since then, third-party content used to exploit a site's ranking signals violates the policy regardless of first-party involvement or oversight. As of December 2024, enforcement relied on manual actions, major publishers including CNN, USA Today, and LA Times had received manual penalties primarily for third-party coupons and promotional content, and Google said noindexing affected content does not automatically remove a manual action and moving it to a subdirectory or subdomain may be viewed as circumvention. As of November 13, 2025, the European Commission opened DMA proceedings, saying the policy appears to directly affect a common and legitimate publisher monetization practice and its monitoring indicated Google demotes news media and other publishers' content when it includes commercial partner content; Google states the policy aims to tackle practices allegedly meant to manipulate rankings.

#

khalidseo.com states that a website can lose 50 to 100 percent of its traffic in just one day if it is caught breaking Google's site reputation abuse rule.

low confidenceother
1 quote from 1 source
50 to 100 percent: The amount of traffic (visitors) a website can lose in just one day if they get caught. Some sites saw their daily visitors drop to almost zero!
#

khalidseo.com states that May 6, 2024 is the exact date Google started punishing websites for the site reputation abuse rule.

low confidenceother
1 quote from 1 source
May 6, 2024: The exact date Google started punishing websites for this rule.
#

khalidseo.com states that even white-label partnerships require strict, hands-on editorial review to stay within Google's site reputation abuse policy.

low confidenceother
1 quote from 1 source
The Google Search Quality Team no longer accepts excuses. Even white-label partnerships require strict, hands-on editorial review.
#
  • Google has indicated plans for algorithmic updates to automate the detection and demotion of site reputation abuse in the future.
  • Enforcement of site reputation abuse currently relies on manual actions.
medium confidencetrade press
1 quote from 1 source
While enforcement currently relies on manual actions, Google has indicated plans for algorithmic updates to automate the detection and demotion of site reputation abuse in the future.

Backlinks4 of 28

What is established: In 2016 Google's Andrey Lipattsev described backlinks as one of the top three Google Search ranking factors, but by September 2023 Google's Gary Illyes said backlinks are important, people overestimate their importance, and they have not been in the top three for some time; a 2024 Search Engine Roundtable report quoted Illyes as saying Google needs very few links to rank pages and has made links less important over the years. Google's current documentation positions backlinks as one quality factor among many: the How Search Works page says whether other prominent websites link or refer to content is a quality factor, the SEO Starter Guide says PageRank is just one of many ranking signals, and the ranking systems guide says PageRank continues to be part of Google's core ranking systems. Google's Webmaster Guidelines introduced a Link spam section as of 2022-10-13, and its spam policies state that buying and selling backlinks is not a violation as long as the links are qualified with rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored"; however, a pattern of unnatural, artificial, deceptive, or manipulative backlinks can result in a manual action, the disavow tool is an advanced feature that should be used with caution and can harm performance if used incorrectly, and most sites will not need it because in most cases Google can assess which links to trust and works very hard to ensure third-party-site actions do not negatively affect a website. A 2025 Backlinko analysis of 11.8 million Google results found the #1 result has on average 3.8 times more backlinks than positions #2 through #10; a 2025 Ahrefs study of 75,000 brands found a backlink correlation of 0.218 with AI Overview brand visibility, compared with 0.664 for web mentions, and states all factors it studied revealed moderate to very weak correlations; a 2026 Search Engine Land article reports typical link building pricing sheets show flat rates of $400 to $500 per backlink or rigid monthly retainers starting at $5,000, based on the author's audits of vendor proposals.

#

A Search Engine Land article on link building states that typical link building pricing sheets show flat rates of $400 to $500 per backlink or rigid monthly retainers starting at $5,000, based on the author's own audits of vendor proposals rather than a stated sample.

medium confidencetrade press
1 quote from 1 source
Over the years, I’ve personally tested dozens of link building services and audited countless vendor proposals. If you look at a typical pricing sheet today, you’ll find flat rates of $400 to $500 per backlink, or rigid monthly retainers starting at $5,000.
#

Search Engine Roundtable's report…

  • contains the backlinks quote "We need very few links to rank pages... Over the years we've made links less important".
  • states that the backlinks quote was Barry Schwartz quoting Patrick Stox.
  • states that the backlinks quote was Patrick Stox quoting what Stox heard Gary Illyes say on stage.
trade press
1 quote from 1 source
Gary reportedly said, "We need very few links to rank pages... Over the years we've made links less important." I am quoting Patrick Stox who is quoting what he heard Gary say on stage at the event.

Bing Webmaster Tools4 of 26

What is established: On January 10, 2019, Bing Webmaster Tools released Adaptive URL submission, allowing up to 10,000 URLs per day with no monthly quotas, up from 10 URLs per day and 50 per month; the daily quota per site is determined based on site verified age, site impressions, and other signals available to Bing. Its Search Performance reporting tracks impressions, clicks, and average position across pages and keywords, uses up to 16 months of data, and a March 2025 post states the feature was expanded from 6 to 16 months back in October. Bing fetches submitted sitemaps immediately, revisits them typically at least once per day, processes sitemaps at least once every 24 hours, ignores optional changefreq and priority tags, and can import verified ownership directly from Google Search Console. As of February 10, 2026, AI Performance shows how publisher content appears across Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing, and select partner integrations; page-level citation counts reflect how often pages are cited, not importance, ranking, or placement, and duplicate and near-duplicate URLs do not harm a site by themselves but can blur the information search engines use to understand content and evaluate relevance.

#

The Bing Webmaster blog's March 2025 post on Search Performance builds its worked example around an explicitly fictional eco-friendly e-commerce business.

first-party
1 quote from 1 source
Imagine an eco-friendly e-commerce business selling reusable bags, biodegradable cleaning supplies, and sustainable home goods is facing a significant challenge. Like many companies , this fictional business is focused on growing their online store and several local outlets and needs to increase market reach and attract more environmentally conscious customers.
#

The Bing Webmaster blog's March 2025 post states that an Earth Day promotion…

  • increased clicks by 25%.
  • increased impressions by 20%.
  • led to a 30% rise in brand mentions.
medium confidencefirst-party
1 quote from 1 source
For instance, their Earth Day promotion not only increased clicks by 25% and impressions by 20%, but also significantly boosted customer engagement on social media, leading to a 30% rise in brand mentions.

Core update4 of 31

What is established: Google Search makes significant, broad core updates several times a year, plus smaller unannounced core updates, and these updates do not target specific sites or pages. For the March 2024 core update, Google said on March 5, 2024 that it was more complex and that there was no longer one signal or system for showing helpful results; on April 26, 2024 it reported the rollout completed April 19 and searchers would see 45% less low-quality, unoriginal content versus the 40% improvement it had expected. Google's current core-update documentation as of 2025-12-10 states that there is no guarantee site changes will have noticeable impact, recommends waiting at least a full week after a core update completes before analyzing Search Console, and treats deleting content as a last resort only if content cannot be salvaged. Status dashboards record the December 2025 core update as beginning 2025-12-11 and ending 2025-12-29, with a rollout of up to 3 weeks, and the May 2026 core update as beginning 2026-05-21 and ending 2026-06-02, with a rollout of up to 2 weeks; a third-party SISTRIX-based analysis of the March 2026 update found Google appearing to reduce visibility for aggregators, hosts, and syndicators while elevating original creators, but that data measures keyword-level visibility not raw organic traffic.

#

Amsive's published winners-and-losers analysis of Google's March 2026 core update was produced by analysing SISTRIX Visibility Index data.

other
2 quotes from 1 source
By analyzing SISTRIX Visibility Index data, we can see the immediate absolute and percentage changes in organic visibility across the largest movers of the update.
Google March 2026 Core Update: Winners, Losers & Analysis | Amsive
#

Amsive's winners-and-losers analysis of Google's March 2026 core update states as a caveat that SISTRIX measures keyword-level visibility, not raw organic traffic.

other
2 quotes from 1 source
A few caveats up front: SISTRIX measures keyword-level visibility, not raw organic traffic.
Google March 2026 Core Update: Winners, Losers & Analysis | Amsive
#

Amsive's analysis of Google's March 2026 core update states that Google appears to be dialing back the visibility of platforms that aggregate, host, or syndicate other people's content while elevating the sites that originally created it.

medium confidenceother
2 quotes from 1 source
with the March 2026 Core Update, Google appears to be dialing back the visibility of platforms that aggregate, host, or syndicate other people's content , while elevating the sites that originally created it
Google March 2026 Core Update: Winners, Losers & Analysis | Amsive
#

Search Engine Journal published an article about the March 2024 core update headlined "Google March 2024 Core Update: Reducing 'Unhelpful' Content By 40%".

medium confidencetrade press
2 quotes from 1 source
Google March 2024 Core Update: Reducing "Unhelpful" Content By 40%
The update aims to reduce low-quality, unoriginal content in search results by 40%.

AI-generated content3 of 34

What is established: Google's published guidance as of 2023-02-08 and 2025-12-10 states that appropriate use of AI is not against its guidelines, but using AI primarily to manipulate rankings violates spam policy, scaled generation without added user value may violate scaled content abuse policy, and AI content gets no special ranking gains. Ahrefs' April 2025 study of 900,000 new pages found 74.2% contained AI-generated content, and its July 2025 study of 600,000 ranking URLs found a near-zero correlation of 0.011 between AI content percentage and ranking position. The empirical picture is not fully consistent: another Ahrefs claim states higher AI use is correlated with lower ranking positions, and Ahrefs' June 2026 findings associate higher AI use with lower indexation and lower rankings while also showing no hard cutoff and some fully AI pages in top rankings. The direct effect of AI content on rankings is therefore not settled.

#
  • The thestacc.com article "AI Content Statistics 2026: 74% of New Pages Use AI (50+ Stats)" restates the Ahrefs 74.2% figure about AI-generated content as a 2026 statistic.
  • The Ahrefs 74.2% figure about AI-generated content is from April 2025 data.
medium confidenceother
2 quotes from 1 source
AI Content Statistics 2026: 74% of New Pages Use AI (50+ Stats)
74.2% of newly created web pages now contain AI-generated content. That number comes from an Ahrefs study of 900,000 pages published in April 2025. Only 2.5% are pure AI. The rest are human-AI blends.
#

The Europol report line says AI-generated content may account for as much as 90 percent of online content by 2026.

other
3 quotes from 1 source
Experts: 90% of Online Content Will Be AI-Generated by 2026
“Don’t believe everything you see on the Internet” has been pretty standard advice for quite some time now. And according to a new report from European law enforcement group Europol, we have all the reason in the world to step up that vigilance.
“Experts estimate that as much as 90 percent of online content may be synthetically generated by 2026,” the report warned, adding that synthetic media “refers to media generated or manipulated using artificial intelligence.”

IndexNow3 of 28

What is established: IndexNow is a free, open-source protocol for notifying participating search engines when content is added, updated, or removed, and search engines adopting it agree that submitted URLs are automatically shared with all other participating search engines. As of June 2025, Microsoft recommends IndexNow over the still-supported Bing URL Submission API, which Bing describes as a legacy option; Google said in November 2021 that it would test the protocol's potential benefits, but no later Google position is given, and a May 2025 Bing Webmaster blog post said Amazon planned to begin adopting it in mid-June. The protocol's documented rules allow up to 10,000 URLs per POST, require host ownership proof, and treat an HTTP 200 response only as receipt; use does not guarantee crawling or indexing, and every crawl counts toward the site's crawl quota. Bing Webmaster Tools asserts that timely updates or removals can drive more relevant traffic, improve rankings, and lower crawl costs, and as of August 2022 Bing reported more than 16 million sites publishing over 1.2 billion URLs per day, with IndexNow attributed to 7% of all new URLs clicked in web search results.

#

Bing Webmaster Tools' "Why IndexNow" page asserts that syncing content through timely updates or removals from search engine listings can help…

  • drive more relevant traffic to your site.
  • improve search engine rankings.
  • lower crawl costs.
medium confidencefirst-party
1 quote from 1 source
Syncing your content through timely updates or removals from search engine listings can help drive more relevant traffic to your site, improve search engine rankings, and lower crawl costs.

JavaScript rendering3 of 42

What is established: nothing written for this subject survived the grounding check, so the claims are all there is.

#
  • Vercel's blog post on how Google handles JavaScript lists 'Google can't render client-side JavaScript' as one of a number of old beliefs.
  • The old beliefs listed in Vercel's blog post on how Google handles JavaScript have stuck around.
  • The old beliefs listed in Vercel's blog post on how Google handles JavaScript have kept the community unsure about best practices for application SEO.
medium confidencevendor
2 quotes from 1 source
We've noticed that a number of old beliefs have stuck around and kept the community unsure about best practices for application SEO:
"Google can't render client-side JavaScript."

Largest Contentful Paint3 of 55

What is established: Largest Contentful Paint reports the render time of the largest image, text block, or video visible in the viewport relative to when the user first navigated to the page. As documented by web.dev and Google Search Central, a good LCP is 2.5 seconds or less and a poor threshold is 4 seconds, measured at the 75th percentile of page loads segmented across mobile and desktop; LCP includes unload time, connection setup, redirect, and other Time To First Byte delays, which can create field and lab differences. In Chrome, measurement stops at the first tap, scroll, or keypress; the metric became stable in Chrome 79, and later releases changed it: Chrome 83 fixed subframe inputs and scrolls, Chrome 88 excluded full viewport images and stopped recording after input in out-of-process iframes, Chrome 96 used the full page viewport when ignoring images, Chrome 112 began ignoring images below 0.05 bits of image data per displayed pixel, Chrome 116 made videos and animated images eligible in UKM and CrUX reporting but not PerformanceObserver observations in JavaScript, and Chrome 130 made transparent text with no visible decorations ineligible. A slightly coarsened render time has been available from Chrome 133 without Timing-Allow-Origin.

#

Parachute Design's guide to Largest Contentful Paint asserts that a strong LCP score…

  • reduces bounce on landing pages.
  • supports higher conversion rates.
other
1 quote from 1 source
A strong LCP score reduces bounce on landing pages and supports higher conversion rates.
#

NitroPack's guide to fixing Largest Contentful Paint asserts that three years after the introduction of Core Web Vitals, 33.3% of websites globally still struggle to pass LCP.

other
1 quote from 1 source
Three years after the introduction of Core Web Vitals, a staggering 33.3% of websites globally still struggle to pass the notoriously challenging metric – Largest Contentful Paint (LCP).

Llms.txt3 of 41

What is established: Google added a note to its AI optimization guide on June 15, 2026 clarifying Google Search's usage of llms.txt files, and as of July 10, 2026, Google Search Central states that Google Search ignores llms.txt files and that creating or maintaining them neither harms nor helps visibility or rankings in Google Search, while Chrome for Developers Lighthouse documentation instructs site owners to create an llms.txt file in the site root and describes the file as an optional emerging convention. Ahrefs log analysis reported on June 16, 2026 across 137,000 domains found 97% of llms.txt files received zero requests, only about 1,100 of roughly 38,000 valid files received any traffic, and SE Ranking's analysis of 300,000 domains showed no connection between having an llms.txt file and AI citation frequency. On August 7, 2026, Search Engine Journal published a statement attributed to Google's John Mueller saying no AI system currently uses llms.txt and that server logs make this obvious. As of August 10, 2026, llmstxt.org states llms.txt is used most heavily for software documentation, where coding agents follow the files to find API references and tutorials, and the version 2 proposal removed the special mechanical meaning of the Optional section and allows replacing the file extension.

#

Search Engine Journal asserts that large studies show no measurable citation advantage for sites that add an llms.txt file.

medium confidencetrade press
1 quote from 1 source
a finding since echoed by other large studies showing no measurable citation advantage for sites that add one
#

Search Engine Journal's account reported that cats.txt passed all four proofs commonly cited for llms.txt.

trade press
1 quote from 1 source
Then, I checked it against the exact four "proofs" people cite for llms.txt. It passed all four.
#

Search Engine Journal published the argument that a crawler fetching llms.txt tells you nothing about whether the contents of llms.txt are read, weighted, trusted or acted upon.

trade press
1 quote from 1 source
A crawler fetching a file tells you nothing about whether the contents are read, weighted, trusted, or acted upon. Fetching things is the entire job description of a crawler.

Robots.txt3 of 28

What is established: Robots.txt is a crawl directive, not an enforcement or hiding mechanism: Google states that crawlers may choose whether to obey the instructions, that a robots.txt block prevents Google from crawling a URL but the URL can still be indexed and appear without a description if linked from elsewhere, and that robots.txt should not be used for canonicalization. In September 2022, RFC 9309 made the Robots Exclusion Protocol an IETF Standards Track document, extending the method originally defined by Martijn Koster in 1994, and in September 2023 Google added the Google-Extended robots.txt control for Bard and Vertex AI generative APIs. As of July 1, 2025, Cloudflare changed its default to block AI crawlers unless they pay creators; by August 2026, Search Engine Journal reported that BuzzStream measured 75% of top U.S. and UK publishers blocking training crawlers, and roughly 95% of the 492,000 robots.txt mentions of CCBot existed to block it.

#

Search Engine Journal reports that BuzzStream measured the practice of blocking training crawlers using robots.txt at 75% of the top U.S. and UK publishers.

low confidencetrade press
1 quote from 1 source
The BBC robots.txt blocks 13 of the 14 AI crawlers the checker tracks, and other top news sites have been blocking training crawlers on purpose since 2023. BuzzStream measured it at 75% of the top U.S. and UK publishers.

Alt text2 of 27

What is established: As of Google's March 2026 image SEO documentation, alt text is the most important attribute for providing image metadata, Google uses it with computer vision algorithms and page content to understand image subject matter, and keyword stuffing in alt attributes may cause a site to be seen as spam; Google Search Essentials as of December 2025 also lists alt text among descriptive locations where site owners should place words people would use to look for content. A 2020 Google statement reported by Search Engine Journal in 2023 said that if you did not care about Image Search you would not really need to worry about alt text from a Search point of view, and its ranking factors entry states that alt text is a confirmed ranking factor for image search only and not a Google Search ranking factor. In WebAIM's February 2026 analysis of the top 1,000,000 home pages, 16.2% of home page images had missing alternative text, an average of 10.8 per page, and 10.8% of images with alternative text had questionable or repetitive alternative text.

#

Search Engine Journal's ranking factors entry states that alt text is…

  • a confirmed ranking factor for image search only.
  • definitely not a ranking factor in Google Search.
trade press
2 quotes from 1 source
Alt text is a confirmed ranking factor for image search only. You should craft descriptive, non-spammy alt text to help your images appear in Google Image Search results.
Alt text is definitely not a ranking factor in Google Search. Google has clarified that alt text acts like normal page text in overall search.

Common Crawl2 of 35

What is established: CCBot checks robots.txt first, honors nofollow and Crawl-delay, supports sitemaps, fetches via HTTP GET, and does not use cookies; sites can block it by naming the CCBot user-agent in robots.txt. Common Crawl documents itself as of 2026 as a 501(c)(3) non-profit providing a free sample of the web, not the entire or a representative web. Its July 2026 crawl was crawled July 7 to July 25 and contained 2.14 billion pages from 40.5 million hosts or 33.2 million registered domains, with 603 million URLs not visited in any prior Common Crawl crawl. GPT-3 used Common Crawl from 41 monthly shards covering 2016 to 2019, 570GB after filtering, at a 60% training-mix weight; a February 2024 review found at least 64% of 47 text-generation LLMs published 2019 to October 2023 used at least one filtered Common Crawl version for pre-training. Common Crawl's June 1, 2026 AI Visibility Audit asserts that if you are not in the crawl, you are not in the model and puts the latest crawl's English share at roughly 41 percent; an August 10, 2026 Search Engine Journal article counted roughly 492,000 sites naming CCBot in robots.txt, about 95 percent of them to block it.

#

A Search Engine Journal article dated August 10, 2026 states that…

  • roughly 492,000 sites name Common Crawl's CCBot in robots.txt.
  • about 95% of the mentions of Common Crawl's CCBot in robots.txt exist to block it.
medium confidencetrade press
2 quotes from 1 source
August 10, 2026
Chris Green posted HTTP Archive numbers on LinkedIn recently. Roughly 492,000 sites name CCBot in robots.txt, and about 95% of those mentions exist to block it.

Crawl budget2 of 46

What is established: Google's current crawling infrastructure documentation defines crawl budget as the set of URLs Google can and wants to crawl, treats each unique hostname as a separate site, and starts every site with the same default conservative crawl capacity limit that Google adjusts when demand exists and the site remains healthy. Crawling is not a ranking signal, and the crawl budget guidance is aimed at large sites with 1 million or more unique pages changing about once a week; its page-count thresholds are rough estimates, not exact thresholds. The documentation states that any URL Googlebot crawls generally counts toward crawl budget, 4xx status codes except 429 do not waste it, compressed sitemaps do not increase it, the crawl-delay robots.txt rule is not processed, and noindex is not a good way to control it though it can indirectly free up budget in the long run. A 2017 Google blog post defined crawl budget as the number of URLs Googlebot can and wants to crawl and said URLs disallowed through robots.txt do not affect crawl budget; that post later carries a notice that some information may be outdated, and current documentation says crawl budget freed by robots.txt blocking is not reallocated unless Google is already hitting the site's crawl capacity limit.

#

Backlinko defines crawl budget as the number of pages Googlebot crawls and indexes on a website within a given timeframe.

medium confidencevendor
1 quote from 1 source
Crawl Budget is the number of pages Googlebot crawls and indexes on a website within a given timeframe.
#

TwoSquares states that crawl budget is not a limiting factor for the majority of websites.

medium confidenceother
3 quotes from 1 source
The uncomfortable truth: most sites do not have a crawl budget problem
under ~50,000 URLs
Crawl budget is not a limiting factor.

Expired domain abuse2 of 16

What is established: Google announced expired domain abuse as a new spam policy on March 5, 2024, defining it as purchasing and repurposing an expired domain primarily to manipulate search rankings by hosting content that provides little to no value. Google states the practice is not accidental, is employed by people who hope to rank well in Search with low-value content using a domain's past reputation, and that sites violating its spam policies may rank lower or not appear at all; using an old domain for a new, original site designed to serve people first is fine. In December 2022, John Mueller said many expired, repurposed domains are "SEO-flotsam, index-cruft" and advised not to assume old SEO-juice from an old domain; a July 17, 2026 CompanionLink post instead claims aged and expired domains are a reliable head-start, conflicting with Google's stated policy.

#

Regarding expired domain abuse, a CompanionLink blog post dated July 17, 2026 asserts that…

  • aged and expired domains remain one of the most reliable head-starts in SEO.
  • a name with genuine history can hand a new project the authority that would otherwise take a year to build.
other
2 quotes from 1 source
Posted on July 17, 2026 by Colleen Borator
Aged and expired domains remain one of the most reliable head-starts in SEO: a name with genuine history — real backlinks, years of standing, a clean record — can hand a new project the authority that would otherwise take a year to build.

Interaction to Next Paint (INP)2 of 23

What is established: Interaction to Next Paint became a stable Core Web Vital on March 12, 2024, replacing First Input Delay; Chrome deprecated support for First Input Delay and gave developers until September 9, 2024 to transition. As of September 2, 2025, web.dev states that an INP at or below 200 milliseconds means good responsiveness, above 500 milliseconds means poor responsiveness, and above 200 milliseconds and at or below 500 milliseconds means needs improvement, measured at the 75th percentile of field page loads segmented across mobile and desktop. INP calculation ignores one highest interaction for every 50 interactions, and the final value is the longest interaction observed after ignoring outliers; hovering, zooming, and scrolling are not observed, and a page can return no INP value. A seobeni.com article dated June 4, 2026 asserts that Core Web Vitals act as a tiebreaker between pages otherwise equal in relevance and authority, not a multiplier that overrides content quality.

#

The seobeni.com article asserts, regarding Interaction to Next Paint (INP), that Core Web Vitals…

  • act as a tiebreaker between pages that are otherwise equal in relevance and authority.
  • are not a multiplier that overrides content quality.
low confidenceother
1 quote from 1 source
Core Web Vitals are a confirmed Google ranking signal that measure three dimensions of page experience: loading speed (LCP), interactivity (INP), and visual stability (CLS). They act as a tiebreaker between pages that are otherwise equal in relevance and authority — not a multiplier that overrides content quality.

Noindex2 of 26

What is established: For Google, noindex is not a supported robots.txt rule; Google announced on July 2, 2019 that it would retire handling of unsupported robots.txt noindex on September 1, 2019, and its documentation as of December 10, 2025 states that specifying noindex in robots.txt is not supported. The supported noindex mechanisms for Google are a meta tag or an HTTP response header, including X-Robots-Tag for non-HTML resources such as PDFs, video files, and image files; for the rule to be effective, the page must not be blocked by robots.txt and must be otherwise accessible. When Googlebot sees the noindex tag or header, Google drops the page entirely from Google Search results regardless of other links, but the page may continue to appear until Googlebot revisits it, and revisiting may take months depending on page importance. noindex does not prevent Google from requesting the page, wastes crawling time, and Google advises against using noindex to manage crawl budget; Google also states that a noindex, follow directive is essentially the same as noindex, nofollow in the long run, and that using JavaScript to change or remove the noindex meta tag may not work as expected, while other search engines may interpret noindex differently.

#

Search Engine Roundtable reports that with a noindex and follow directive Google…

  • initially keeps the page in its index.
  • follows the links on the page.
medium confidencetrade press
1 quote from 1 source
So it's kind of tricky with noindex. Which which I think is something somewhat of a misconception in general with a the SEO community. In that with a noindex and follow it's still the case that we see the noindex. Snd in the first step we say okay you don't want this page shown in the search results. We'll still keep it in our index, we just won't show it and then we can follow those links.

Schema.org structured data2 of 31

What is established: Google uses schema.org structured data to understand page content and show rich results, accepts JSON-LD, Microdata, and RDFa equally if valid and properly implemented, says not to mark up information that is not visible to the user, and states that no special schema.org markup is required for generative AI features; Google Search Central documentation, not schema.org, is definitive for Google Search behavior. Documented examples report higher click-through rates for structured data or rich results, including a 25% higher CTR from Rotten Tomatoes, an 82% higher CTR for rich results from Nestlé, and 1.5x more time on page from Rakuten, while one seoClarity test saw a CTR increase without rendering a rich result. The feature set has changed: How-to documentation was removed on September 14, 2023; FAQ rich results were limited on that date to well-known authoritative government and health websites and stopped appearing in Google Search results starting May 7, 2026, with documentation removed on June 15, 2026; on June 12, 2025 Google said it was phasing out support for book actions, course info, estimated salary, ClaimReview, learning video, special announcement, and vehicle listing.

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Sixth City Marketing's page of schema markup statistics states that schema.org structured data produces rich results that users click 58% of the time, compared to 41% for non-rich results.

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Users click on rich results 58% of the time compared to 41% for non-rich results
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Sixth City Marketing's page of schema markup statistics states that pages with schema.org structured data received a 40% higher click-through rate than pages without schema.org structured data.

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Pages with schema received a 40% higher click-through rate than pages without

Sitemap lastmod2 of 20

What is established: Google uses the sitemap <lastmod> element as a signal for scheduling crawls to previously discovered URLs, and its documentation as of 2026-07-08 says Google uses the value if it is consistently and verifiably accurate. The signal is treated as binary, so incorrect lastmod dates risk being ignored completely; on 16 July 2026 Gary Illyes said a site is better off not using lastmod dates if those dates are wrong. The value should reflect the last significant update, not trivial changes such as sidebar, footer, or copyright date updates, and it is fine to omit lastmod for pages whose last modification date cannot be easily determined.

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Search Engine Roundtable reported on 16 July 2026 that Gary Illyes of Google said on Bluesky that a site is better off not using a lastmod date in its XML sitemap if those dates are wrong.

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Gary Illyes from Google said that you are better off not using a lastmod date in your XML Sitemap if those dates are wrong. He said on Bluesky , "probably better off without the lastmods. at least you save a few bytes."
Jul 16, 2026
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Search Engine Journal reported that Google treats the sitemap lastmod signal as binary, meaning the signal is either trusted or not.

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Google treats lastmod as binary - trusted or not.
Incorrect lastmod dates risk the signal being ignored completely.
June 11, 2024

Core Web Vitals1 of 27

What is established: On March 12 2024, Interaction to Next Paint became a stable Core Web Vital metric, replaced First Input Delay, and Chrome stated it was officially deprecating FID support; Chrome tools would no longer guarantee FID availability, and developers were told they had until September 9 2024 to transition. The current set focuses on loading, interactivity, and visual stability, with documented thresholds of LCP 2.5 seconds or less, CLS 0.1 or less and poor above 0.25, and INP 200 ms or less and poor above 500 ms; a page passes if it meets all three recommended targets at the 75th percentile, using the same thresholds for mobile and desktop. As of December 10 2025, Google states that Core Web Vitals are used by its ranking systems, but good results in Search Console or third-party tools do not guarantee top rankings, and trying for a perfect score solely for SEO may not be the best use of time.

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The websitespeedy.com article "Why 53% of Mobile Users Abandon Sites That Take Over 3 Seconds to Load" states that recent research by Google revealed that 53% of mobile users abandon sites that take over 3 seconds to load.

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The recent research by Google revealed that 53% Of Mobile Users Abandon Sites That Take Over 3 Seconds To Load.
TL;DR: A research by Google reveals that 53% of mobile users leave sites that take more than 3 seconds to load. This increases the bounce rate of a site and harms user experience. You can focus and boost your Core Web Vitals and optimize your site for mobile devices, as more traffic is coming from mobile devices nowadays.

Hreflang1 of 26

What is established: Google continues to support and use hreflang tags, but as of August 24, 2022 it deprecated the Search Console International Targeting report and no longer supports Search Console country targeting. As of December 22, 2025, Google documentation states that hreflang and the HTML lang attribute are not used to detect page language, the three hreflang implementation methods are equivalent, and hreflang tags are ignored unless two pages point to each other; as of July 10, 2026, Google documentation states that for canonicalization it prefers URLs that are part of hreflang clusters. A 2017 Semrush analysis found 58% of multilingual websites had hreflang conflicts within page source code, and a 2023 Ahrefs analysis found 67% of domains using hreflang tags had at least one issue, including 56.3% with pages missing x-default; that Ahrefs analysis also states setting x-default is not required but recommended as a fallback. As of August 10, 2026, Google's Gary Illyes said hreflang alternates are not indexed in the proper sense but are mapped to the indexed canonical page.

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An SEO 101 page published by gracker.ai states that a study by Ahrefs revealed that 67% of websites have issues with their hreflang implementation.

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Did you know that a study by Ahrefs revealed that 67% of websites have issues with their hreflang implementation?

Nosnippet1 of 26

What is established: Bing introduced support for the data-nosnippet HTML attribute on October 15 2025, and its nosnippet directive blocks all text and preview thumbnails from appearing in snippets. Bing says data-nosnippet content is still indexed normally and available for ranking but excluded from snippets and AI summaries; its guidance on scope conflicts, naming span, div, and section elements in one place and any HTML element in another. Google documents nosnippet as blocking text snippets and video previews, preventing direct input for AI Overviews and AI Mode, and being equivalent to max-snippet:0, while a static image thumbnail may still appear if it improves user experience. Google treats data-nosnippet as a boolean attribute on span, div, and section elements, so any value like "false" is ignored, and structured data inside it remains usable; as of August 1 2026, nosnippet in practice removes content from AI Overviews and also removes traditional snippets.

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nosnippet echoes Search Engine Journal's report of a NewzDash figure that nearly 1 in 6 U.S. trending news queries place Top Stories inside AI Overviews.

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John Shehata, CEO and founder of NewzDash and GDdash, put a number on it : “Nearly 1 in 6 U.S. trending news queries now place Top Stories inside AI Overviews.” The 15.5% rate applies to tracked results where Google displayed Top Stories, not to all queries NewzDash tracked. The UK figure is 17.46%.
NewzDash hasn't published sample sizes or collection dates alongside the figures.