Google’s John Mueller Q&A: Answers to 4 SEO Questions

Google’s John Mueller answers four quick questions about common technical SEO problems that almost everyone has encountered.

Mueller solved the problems that people raised related to the following:

• Block CSS files
• Update site map
• Re-upload the site to the web
• Googlebot’s crawl budget

These questions are answered in the latest installment of the Ask Googlebot video series on YouTube.

Traditionally, these videos focused on answering a specific question and providing as much detailed information as Google can provide.

However, not every question about SEO requires a complete video to answer. Some can be answered in one or two sentences.

Here are some quick answers to frequently asked questions by people who are new to SEO.

Will blocking the CSS file in Robots.txt affect rankings?

Yes, blocking CSS can cause problems, and Mueller says you should avoid it.

When CSS is blocked in robots.txt, Googlebot cannot render the page as the visitor sees it.

Being able to see the page completely helps Google understand it better and confirm that it is suitable for mobile devices.

All this contributes to the ranking of web pages in search results.

How should I update the sitemap of my website?

Mueller said that there is no universal and simple solution to update the sitemap that applies to all websites.

However, most website settings have their own built-in solutions.

For sitemap settings or compatible plug-ins for creating sitemap files, please refer to your site’s help guide.

Usually you only need to open the settings.

What is the correct way to reintroduce a website to Google?

It is not possible to reset the index of the site by deleting the file and uploading it again.

Google will automatically follow the latest version of the site and discard the old version over time.

By using a redirect from any old URL to a new URL, you can advance this process faster.

Will deleting the RSS feed improve Googlebot crawling?

One person wrote to Mueller, saying that 25% of Googlebot’s crawl budget is used for the RSS feed URL at the head of each page.

They asked if deleting the RSS feed would improve crawling.

Mueller said that there is no problem with RSS feeds, and Google’s system will automatically balance cross-site crawling.

Sometimes this causes Google to crawl certain pages more frequently, but only re-crawl the pages after Googlebot has seen all important pages at least once.

Featured image: taken from YouTube.com/GoogleSearchCentral