{"id":4388,"date":"2019-11-25T12:25:08","date_gmt":"2019-11-25T10:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/?p=4388"},"modified":"2019-11-29T17:38:28","modified_gmt":"2019-11-29T15:38:28","slug":"googles-john-mueller-never-blindly-follow-big-sites-seo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/googles-john-mueller-never-blindly-follow-big-sites-seo\/","title":{"rendered":"Google\u2019s John Mueller: Never Blindly Follow Big Sites\u2019 SEO"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Google\u2019s John Mueller recently advised against blindly following what big sites do when it comes to SEO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This topic was addressed<\/a> in a Reddit thread in which a person asks whether they should listen to Google\u2019s advice or follow what big sites are doing. In particular, this question referred to canonical tags for pagination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The original poster of the Reddit thread points out how Google<\/a> recommends canonical pages should point a canonical tag at themselves. While big sites, on the other hand, point their canonical tag toward the first page in a series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Mueller\u2019s Response<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Mueller begins his response by advising against following what big sites are doing with SEO<\/a> because many get it wrong. Sometimes big sites succeed in search rankings despite getting things wrong, but other sites might note fare as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the thread was published in the r\/TechSEO sub-Reddit, Mueller notes that technical SEO follows a logical process and there\u2019s often a right and wrong way to do things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201dLuckily, a lot of technical SEO is not a matter of blind trust or hope, it\u2019s not a magical black box where you have to believe, there\u2019s no \u201cPerson X said Y, therefore Y must always be true.\u201d It\u2019s something that\u2019s very deterministic, and you can logically find the answer, just as you can often test it out for your case. You can do it right, or you can do it wrong (though to be fair, search engines will try to help when you do it wrong, because lots of sites get it wrong).\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In addressing the original question, Mueller says the use of canonical tags depends on which pages you want indexed. Using a self-referencing canonical on every page helps ensure that all pages of a series get indexed on their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, if every page in a series has a canonical tag pointing to page one then Google will likely index only the first page in the series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mueller points out that there are advantages and disadvantages to using a self-referencing canonical on each page:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe advantage of a per-page canonical is that you\u2019re sure all links to all items will be found. The disadvantage is that there\u2019s potentially a lot more to crawl, and it\u2019ll be a bit harder for us to understand how to rank the paginated pages (eg, if they\u2019re \u201crunning shoes\u201d category pages, which page is the right one to show for a [running shoes] search?).\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

For what it\u2019s worth, several other users in the Reddit thread recommend using self-referencing canonical in a paginated series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: https:\/\/www.searchenginejournal.com\/googles-john-mueller-never-blindly-follow-big-sites-seo\/337181\/<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Google\u2019s John Mueller recently advised against blindly following what big sites do when it comes to SEO. This topic was addressed in a Reddit thread in which a person asks whether they should listen to Google\u2019s advice or follow what big sites are doing. In particular, this question referred to canonical tags for pagination. The original poster […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":-1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[41,8,268],"class_list":["post-4388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seo","tag-google","tag-seo","tag-webmaster"],"yoast_head":"\nDazzlepop | Google\u2019s John Mueller: Never Blindly Follow Big Sites\u2019 SEO<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Never Blindly Follow Big_Sites in what they do when it comes to SEO, how Google recommends canonical pages should point a canonical tag at themselves.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/googles-john-mueller-never-blindly-follow-big-sites-seo\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dazzlepop | Google\u2019s John Mueller: Never Blindly Follow Big Sites\u2019 SEO\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Never Blindly Follow Big_Sites in what they do when it comes to SEO, how Google recommends canonical pages should point a canonical tag at themselves.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/googles-john-mueller-never-blindly-follow-big-sites-seo\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Dazzlepop\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/dp.Dazzlepop\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-11-25T10:25:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-11-29T15:38:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/164ee308-7c8d-47b5-891d-53c2c2f789f3-5dd8c9a9792f9.webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Noura Ibrahim\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/164ee308-7c8d-47b5-891d-53c2c2f789f3-5dd8c9a9792f9.webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@dazzle_pop\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@dazzle_pop\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Noura Ibrahim\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/googles-john-mueller-never-blindly-follow-big-sites-seo\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/googles-john-mueller-never-blindly-follow-big-sites-seo\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Noura Ibrahim\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/#\/schema\/person\/53e5e5cffa9109e865719dcfdc83b6b5\"},\"headline\":\"Google\u2019s John Mueller: Never Blindly Follow Big Sites\u2019 SEO\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-11-25T10:25:08+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-11-29T15:38:28+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/googles-john-mueller-never-blindly-follow-big-sites-seo\/\"},\"wordCount\":460,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"Google\",\"SEO\",\"webmaster\"],\"articleSection\":[\"SEO\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/googles-john-mueller-never-blindly-follow-big-sites-seo\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/googles-john-mueller-never-blindly-follow-big-sites-seo\/\",\"name\":\"Dazzlepop | Google\u2019s John Mueller: Never Blindly Follow Big Sites\u2019 SEO\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-11-25T10:25:08+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-11-29T15:38:28+00:00\",\"description\":\"Never Blindly Follow Big_Sites in what they do when it comes to SEO, how Google recommends canonical pages should point a canonical tag at themselves.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/googles-john-mueller-never-blindly-follow-big-sites-seo\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/googles-john-mueller-never-blindly-follow-big-sites-seo\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/googles-john-mueller-never-blindly-follow-big-sites-seo\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Google\u2019s John Mueller: Never Blindly Follow Big Sites\u2019 SEO\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/\",\"name\":\"Dazzlepop\",\"description\":\"Digital Marketing Solutions\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Dazzlepop\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/dazzlepop-512.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/dazzlepop-512.jpg\",\"width\":512,\"height\":512,\"caption\":\"Dazzlepop\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/dp.Dazzlepop\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/dazzle_pop\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/dp.dazzlepop\/\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/dazzlepop\/\",\"https:\/\/www.pinterest.com\/Mohamed_Adel_DP\/\",\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCmtf4MMftrDRlG--YoTp9Yw\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/#\/schema\/person\/53e5e5cffa9109e865719dcfdc83b6b5\",\"name\":\"Noura Ibrahim\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4de07542ac2857d52bf2184388f6d21b2fbadf67239967f75ce4be7cc4216a04?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4de07542ac2857d52bf2184388f6d21b2fbadf67239967f75ce4be7cc4216a04?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Noura Ibrahim\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/author\/noura\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Dazzlepop | Google\u2019s John Mueller: Never Blindly Follow Big Sites\u2019 SEO","description":"Never Blindly Follow Big_Sites in what they do when it comes to SEO, how Google recommends canonical pages should point a canonical tag at themselves.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/googles-john-mueller-never-blindly-follow-big-sites-seo\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Dazzlepop | Google\u2019s John Mueller: Never Blindly Follow Big Sites\u2019 SEO","og_description":"Never Blindly Follow Big_Sites in what they do when it comes to SEO, how Google recommends canonical pages should point a canonical tag at themselves.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/googles-john-mueller-never-blindly-follow-big-sites-seo\/","og_site_name":"Dazzlepop","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/dp.Dazzlepop","article_published_time":"2019-11-25T10:25:08+00:00","article_modified_time":"2019-11-29T15:38:28+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/164ee308-7c8d-47b5-891d-53c2c2f789f3-5dd8c9a9792f9.webp","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"Noura Ibrahim","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_image":"https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/164ee308-7c8d-47b5-891d-53c2c2f789f3-5dd8c9a9792f9.webp","twitter_creator":"@dazzle_pop","twitter_site":"@dazzle_pop","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Noura Ibrahim","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/googles-john-mueller-never-blindly-follow-big-sites-seo\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/googles-john-mueller-never-blindly-follow-big-sites-seo\/"},"author":{"name":"Noura Ibrahim","@id":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/#\/schema\/person\/53e5e5cffa9109e865719dcfdc83b6b5"},"headline":"Google\u2019s John Mueller: Never Blindly Follow Big Sites\u2019 SEO","datePublished":"2019-11-25T10:25:08+00:00","dateModified":"2019-11-29T15:38:28+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/googles-john-mueller-never-blindly-follow-big-sites-seo\/"},"wordCount":460,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/#organization"},"keywords":["Google","SEO","webmaster"],"articleSection":["SEO"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/googles-john-mueller-never-blindly-follow-big-sites-seo\/","url":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/googles-john-mueller-never-blindly-follow-big-sites-seo\/","name":"Dazzlepop | Google\u2019s John Mueller: Never Blindly Follow Big Sites\u2019 SEO","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/#website"},"datePublished":"2019-11-25T10:25:08+00:00","dateModified":"2019-11-29T15:38:28+00:00","description":"Never Blindly Follow Big_Sites in what they do when it comes to SEO, how Google recommends canonical pages should point a canonical tag at themselves.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/googles-john-mueller-never-blindly-follow-big-sites-seo\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/googles-john-mueller-never-blindly-follow-big-sites-seo\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/googles-john-mueller-never-blindly-follow-big-sites-seo\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Google\u2019s John Mueller: Never Blindly Follow Big Sites\u2019 SEO"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/","name":"Dazzlepop","description":"Digital Marketing Solutions","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/#organization","name":"Dazzlepop","url":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/dazzlepop-512.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/dazzlepop-512.jpg","width":512,"height":512,"caption":"Dazzlepop"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/dp.Dazzlepop","https:\/\/x.com\/dazzle_pop","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/dp.dazzlepop\/","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/dazzlepop\/","https:\/\/www.pinterest.com\/Mohamed_Adel_DP\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCmtf4MMftrDRlG--YoTp9Yw"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/#\/schema\/person\/53e5e5cffa9109e865719dcfdc83b6b5","name":"Noura Ibrahim","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4de07542ac2857d52bf2184388f6d21b2fbadf67239967f75ce4be7cc4216a04?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4de07542ac2857d52bf2184388f6d21b2fbadf67239967f75ce4be7cc4216a04?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Noura Ibrahim"},"url":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/author\/noura\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4388"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4482,"href":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4388\/revisions\/4482"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}