Insights from Google’s John Mueller: Key Lessons for SEOs
At this point, you’ve probably already reached out to other well-known SEO experts to figure out how to handle various website optimization issues. You’ve also likely come across John Mueller’s quotes along the way. Being one of Google’s top voices, Mueller is talented at cooling people’s doubts while also keeping Google’s secrets safe and sound. John has been a guiding hand for people struggling to align with Google’s guidelines. He is also an advocate for creating unique, non-generic websites and quality content. He supports the concept of “Making the web you want to find”.
If you work in the SEO industry, you need to keep John’s statements close to the chest. In this article, we will talk about John Mueller and his role at Google. We’ll also go over any of Mueller’s SEO insights that you may have missed.
Who is Google’s John Mueller?
John Mueller is Google’s Senior Webmaster Trends Analyst and Search Relations team lead. You might also know him as the Google Search Advocate.
Instead of diving head first into John’s SEO insights and recommendations, let’s begin with his background and career history, both before and during his experience at Google.
Before Google
John Mueller was born in Germany, but was raised in both the US and Switzerland. He received his higher education in Mechanical Engineering at ETH Zurich, a Swiss university. Before joining Google in 2007, he owned a software company in Switzerland for more than 12 years.
Career at Google
John Mueller joined Google in September 2007.
Being a Google Search Advocate, he focuses on helping webmasters and site owners understand how Google search works and how to improve their sites. He also connects the Google-internal world of search engineering to those who create and optimize public websites.
He’s also known for his regular Google SEO Office Hours, where he holds live Q&As with webmasters and SEOs. John regularly joins webmaster-related forums and speaks at industry conferences. Mueller is also active on Twitter and LinkedIn, and is generally available to answer users’ questions.
SEO insights from John Mueller
Now, let’s move on to the most exciting part: Mueller’s insights. Coming from someone who knows Google’s inner workings and is genuinely eager to help, expect quality insights. John’s statements are grouped by category to help you find info within your topic of interest.
What SEOs are doing wrong
The primary goal of optimizing a website is to help Google find (and understand) your content. But some people make the mistake of thinking SEO is about manipulating search results to get higher rankings. Manipulating results actually diminishes SERP quality. When lower-quality content somehow reaches the top, this makes users’ lives more difficult and motivates Google to work even harder to fix its algorithms.
Mueller has his own opinion on this.
SEO tricks like these go against Google’s guidelines. You might get temporary results, but they’ll almost always lead to long-term failure.
That means you want to play fair and play the SEO long game. Remember that SEO involves many processes, has an accumulative effect in some aspects, and requires constant effort. This can take the form of tasks like maintaining your site’s overall relevance, responding to Google’s constantly evolving algorithms, keeping an eye on competitors, and much more.
John Mueller supports genuine SEO. He often stresses how important it is to create search results that users value.
According to Mueller, there’s no magical formula for propelling your website to the top spot in Google.
“Unfortunately there’s more to online success than just adding more pages. On the one hand, it’s important that things which you add actually bring new & unique value to the web. On the other hand, it’s important that your site overall is unique, compelling, of high quality, and also brings value to the web in ways that users recognize. None of this is trivial, it can take a lot of hard work to figure out what to focus on, where to expand, and where to simplify. And sometimes, it is possible to commit no mistakes and still not win. In short: there is no simple secret to online success.”
There is also no perfect SEO.
“The internet, search engines and how user’s search is always changing. So SEO will evolve over time as well. This includes both technical elements, like structure data, as well as considerations around quality.”
Don’t continually search for universal SEO tips and apply them to your site. Instead, Mueller advises investing time in creating valuable and unique content that is engaging and brings something new to the table. Be sincere to your audience and honest with Google.
Good search results take a team effort. As Google works on improving search, website owners must improve the quality of their pages.
Content
The quotes below follow the theme of content optimization, a key area in SEO. John talks about this concept a lot.
- Keyword stuffing is not as dangerous as it seems.
It’s common for SEOs to worry about having too many repeated keywords on their pages. The consensus is that Google may interpret this behavior as an attempt to manipulate a website’s ranking. But having a high number of keyword entries is okay as long as the content is useful to the reader. So whether it’s appropriate to include 10 or 100 keywords depends entirely on the content. This suggests that you should focus on quality over quantity.
- Short content can still rank high.
Sometimes lengthy content is less valuable. For example, let’s say that a user is looking for a quick and precise answer to their question. A short post would perform much better in this case than a long one. Some experts still believe that content must have a specific word count (let’s say, minimum 500 or 1000 words) to rank better, but even if this was partially true in the past, it’s not true at all now. As of today, word count has no direct impact on your ranking whatsoever.
- Your website will not be penalized if it’s missing an H1 tag or has multiple on your page.
The H1 heading is an important element for structuring your content, but not having an H1 tag isn’t always a bad thing. Google’s algorithms are designed to understand webpage content, regardless if it includes an H1 tag or not. Many high-ranking websites don’t use H1 tags.
John Mueller also confirmed that Google doesn’t have any issues with pages that have multiple H1 tags.
“Our systems don’t have a problem when it comes to multiple h1 headings on a page. That’s a fairly common pattern on the web. We use headings to better understand the context of different parts of a page. Our systems aren’t too picky and we’ll try to work with the HTML as we find it, be it one H1 heading, multiple H1 headings or just styled pieces of text without semantic HTML at all.”
Using multiple H1 tags is common practice among single-page websites.
- The location of words in URLs does not impact SEO.
Many believe that word location within the URL impacts rankings, especially for e-commerce websites. The reasoning here is that they think placing /services/ before /location/ in the URL is important. But this is not the case. All it does is influence the user experience while providing no substantial benefits to search engines.
- Don’t compare your content with your site’s previous version.
John Mueller explained that recovering from the helpful content update isn’t about past improvements but about re-evaluating your site based on current online standards and user expectations. Improving content alone is not enough. You also need to assess how your site compares to others in your industry today.
Backlinks
Next up on Mueller’s list of insights is off-page SEO. This is a key part of website promotion strategies.
- Domain authority is not a ranking factor.
It’s common among SEO beginners to think that domain authority directly impacts Google rankings. But John Mueller reminds us that that’s not the case at all.
- You can ignore spammy backlinks.
Tracking all toxic backlinks is not possible. Little can be done about them anyway, which is why John advises not to be overly concerned about them. Spammers will be spammers.
- If you weren’t buying links, don’t disavow them.
Google historically has not been a fan of the disavow file. The search giant even doubled down on this recently, so avoid using it because it tends to do more harm than good.
Technical SEO
Unlike on-page and off-page SEO (which focus on content and external factors), technical SEO often deals with the backend aspect of a site. It sets the foundation for the website’s overall SEO strategy. That being said, let’s find out John’s take on technical SEO.
- Technical SEO still matters.
Mueller recently confirmed that technical SEO is still important. He has rejected claims that its significance is decreasing and believes that technical SEO is essential to ranking well in search engines. It also plays a key role in providing a good user experience, which is the most important factor.
- Google Quality Updates may affect crawling and indexing.
Changes made after updates affect more than just search positions. They also impact crawling and indexing. John Mueller reminded us of this on Mastodon:
- Good Core Web Vitals don’t guarantee good rankings.
While CWVs are used for ranking, they are not that strong of a ranking factor and won’t propel your website from page 10 to one. John recently highlighted this on LinkedIn.
He also stated recently that Cumulative Layout Shift can’t be the reason for sudden ranking drops.
That’s it, Core Web Vitals is an important thing for users, but it’s not going to change everything completely.
- HTML sitemaps aren’t necessary.
If you already have a clear navigational structure, why would you need an HTML sitemap that duplicates the same structure of your site? It probably won’t cause problems, but, according to John Mueller, there’s no incentive to make one. Focus instead on improving your site structure.
- Update the URL address in Google Search Console when performing a website migration.
It’s recommended to update the URL address in Google Search Console during (not before) the migration. Google lacks the data needed to analyze empty space, so it doesn’t make sense to change the URL address before starting your migration. It’s better to change your address mid-migration because there will already be content on the new site for the search engine to process.
- Including the wrong last modification date in your HTTP header won’t impact SEO.
It’s good to use last-modification date headers appropriately. This helps Google estimate how often pages are updated and to adjust its crawling more efficiently, but John Mueller says that neglecting this or doing it wrong won’t hurt your SEO.
- Don’t switch to canonicalizing the mobile version of your site.
Even though Google indexes the mobile instead of desktop URL, sites with m-dot URLs should not switch to the mobile version as its canonical.
It might seem logical to follow Google’s choice, but switching canonicals is complex and unreliable. Instead, if possible, consider adopting a responsive design. This simplifies things by keeping the same URL for both versions. Here’s what John Mueller thinks about it:
AI
AI has become a part of almost every facet of our lives, and SEO is no exception. Since it’s still a relatively new topic, John Mueller hasn’t shared too much about it yet. But he has said a few things. Let’s take a look at them.
- Don’t use LLMs for SEO advice.
John Mueller has noted that using LLMs in your work can be helpful. However, he advises against relying on AI tools for SEO advice, as they often learn from “all the bad SEO information” out there.
Resources to follow for Mueller’s SEO insights
Mueller has been using various channels to shed light on key optimization aspects for website owners and SEO experts. He publishes posts on both X (Twitter) and Mastodon. He participates in Google Webmaster Central and even hosts Google SEO Office Hours. In the sections below, you’ll get an in-depth look into each one of these resources. We recommend exploring and subscribing to them, or adding them to your bookmarks. We’re confident that each of these resources will be valuable to you!
Search News in Google Search Central Blog & YouTube
Google Search Central serves as the main hub for webmasters and SEO practitioners. There they have access to official guidance, best practices, and updates from Google.
In the Google Search Central Blog, you can find posts by John Mueller. These posts are generally about changes in search or updates about Google SEO Office Hours.
Google Search Central also has its own YouTube channel, where John shares regular updates. These can be found in the Google Search News section. Here’s one of his video updates:
Search Central Live
If you prefer in-person workshops, try Google Search Central Live events! Search Central Live started in 2019 under the moniker, Webmaster Conference. John Mueller has regularly participated in them since then. In April 2024, Mueller went to Search Central Live in Warsaw. Our team had the chance to visit this event and meet John in person.
Note that these events do not have video coverage or live translations. To get insights from the workshop, request an invitation and attend the event in person.
Check out this calendar of upcoming SEO events and workshops to see where John Mueller will be next.
Google SEO Office Hours
Google SEO Office Hours are video sessions conducted in Q&A format. Each is hosted by Google’s Search Quality team, with John Mueller as the team’s permanent host. During these sessions, Mueller addresses submitted questions and offers advice about optimizing websites for Google Search. Website owners and SEO professionals worldwide use sessions with Mueller to get their SEO questions answered and to receive guidance directly from Google.
See the list with all these videos here. All videos are published monthly. Check out the transcripts here if you prefer text content.
John Mueller also hosts another video series on the Google Search Central YouTube channel called #AskGooglebot. This format is similar to Google SEO Office Hours, but John only answers one question per video in this series.
If you’d like John to answer your question in future videos, either submit it using this Google form or post your question on X (Twitter). Don’t forget to include the hashtag #AskGoogleBot.
Search Off The Record podcast
Search Off the Record is another media channel that John Mueller participates in. This podcast features Mueller and other pros from the Search Relations team who provide background info on the decision-making behind launches, feature prioritization in Search Console, and the projects Google Search teams are working on. They also share fun stories from the many conferences they attend, plus their day-to-day work life at Google.
X (Twitter)
This is the most informal channel but one of the most engaging. On X (Twitter), John shares all sorts of SEO insights. He often provides quick answers to users’ questions, shares important announcements, Google-related news, and expert tips while adding a touch of humor with plenty of SEO (and other) memes.
Mueller’s profile is now private. If you want to see his posts, request access and wait for approval.
To receive bite-sized SEO information in an entertaining format, follow John on X (Twitter). Try asking him questions and mentioning him in your tweets. If you’re lucky, you may just get a response or a retweet 😉
Mastodon
John is also actively managing an account on Mastodon, where you can find various announcements and Google news. He also uses this medium to reply to webmasters’ questions. If you have a Mastodon profile and want to stay informed, we recommend following John. You won’t want to miss anything important about Google.
John is also pretty active on LinkedIn. He reposts interesting SEO content, and offers his own insights on various SEO topics. If you have a LinkedIn account, don’t forget to follow John Mueller.
Conclusion
John Mueller offers tons of valuable information for anyone involved in SEO. That’s why you absolutely must pay attention to what he’s doing and what he’s learned. From debunking common myths to shedding light on intricate aspects of website optimization, Mueller’s expertise and hands-on experience make his advice crucial for navigating the complexities of SEO.
Our advice for the future: keep up with Mueller’s talks and posts. Don’t miss anything important. Always follow Google’s best practices for your website. Nail these, and Google (and your users) will reward you.
