Google: Don't Build Sites Where You Need To Test To See How Search Engines React

[nir]

Google's John Mueller has said on Reddit that it is better to build a site where you know how Google and search engines will treat it then build a site where you are unsure. There isn't always a need to get fancy with your code to the point where you need to go through various tests to make sure Google will crawl, index and rank those pages.

 

John said "many people do too much fancy shtuff when they could just be doing something basic that works just as well." "Keep it so that you don't have to guess, ask, or test what search engines will do, and keep it so that search engines are clearly & consistently guided to do what you're trying to do."

 

He added that even if "it's unclear" and you decide to test it and the tests say it works fine. You should not assume it is fine. He said "then assume that search engines will change their behavior when you're in the plane headed to Timbuktu for a 3-week camel safari."

 

That is some serious advice here. Assume fancy web sites that need to be tested to see if they work with search engines, won't work.

 

He said keep it simple and of course consistent because you don't want to be on a vacation and get an alert that your web site is not working well in Google and sales are way down.

 

Source

[straycat19]

I don't trust Google search results since they can influence the results.  Instead when I need something I go to a list of 500 approved providers that I have collected from various government and professional sources.  A lot of those sources will never show up in Google searches, or if the do they are so far down you would only find them if you started at the bottom, but they are the best price and customer service companies I have found.  And not showing up on Google searches has not caused them to go out of business since most of them predate Google by years.