The truth about Google Sites and SEO is revealed by Google’s John Mueller. Some people might not have been expecting to hear this.
Google’s John Mueller offered advice about the use of Google Sites for SEO, downplaying the usefulness of Google Sites for SEO.
Google Sites
Google Sites is a website creation service offered at sites.google.com/new with a signed-in Google account.
The site is hosted website builder that’s free and published under a sites.google.com domain although one can opt to use an actual domain name.
Pages on Google Sites are not indexed
The person who asked the query was concerned since Google was not indexing their Google Sites webpages.
The query was as follows, which John Mueller then read aloud:
The query simply asks why my Google Sites website’s pages aren’t being properly indexed. It was submitted in French.
However, the URLs used in Google Sites are a bit hard to track since the public version can be different from the URL you see when logged in.”
The Best Google Sites For SEO
Mueller went on to minimize Google Sites’ SEO advantages in his response.
He went on:
To put it bluntly, even while it can technically be indexed, it’s not the best option for SEO and can be difficult to track in Search Console.
If SEO is your first priority, it could be wise to look into other possibilities and weigh the advantages and disadvantages before deciding.
Mueller then suggested utilizing a real domain name and outlined the benefits of doing so over the default sites.Domain name for Google.
Pages on Google Sites may be indexed by Google.
URLs on Google Sites can be indexed, according to John Mueller of Google.
Mueller replied:
“It’s wonderful to receive inquiries in other languages.
Putting Google Sites websites in the background
He explained:
“For performance tracking in Search Console, you could also use your own domain name for the Google Sites content.
Using your own domain name makes it easier to migrate, should you choose to do so, and allows you to verify ownership of the whole domain for Search Console.”
Spammers Like to Use Google Sites
Link spammers are well-known for using the Google Sites service to build links on Google subdomains, a practice known as “Google Stacking.”
Google Stacking is the practice of spammers building a page of links on Google Sheets, Google Docs, and other platforms, then linking them all together from a Google Site.
The foundation of Google Stacking is the misconception that links from legitimate Google subdomains confer “authority” and “trust” on spammer websites.
That is, of course, wishful thinking.
No such thing as “trust” or “authority” that is passed from one site to another through links is employed by Google.
In another Office Hours session, John Mueller explained what the deal is about trust:
“I don’t think we have like a trust factor that we can look at and say, oh trust is at (I don’t know) nine of out of twelve or whatever number you would have there.
…There are no metrics specifically for that.”
