Google: URL Parameters Tool Is Not A Replacement For Robots.txt

Google's John Mueller said on Twitter that using the URL parameter tool is no replacement for using a robots.txt file for blocking content. John was asked "how reliable is it" when setting "crawl no urls" of a certain type of URL pattern. John said "it's not a replacement for the robots.txt -- if you need to be sure that something's not crawled, then block it properly."

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Google Can Use Historic Data For Ranking Your Site In Search

John Mueller of Google confirmed on Friday's webmaster hangout video that Google does and can use historic or legacy data about your web site for ranking purposes. He gave a few examples of how Google uses it; your links over time, the adult SafeSearch filter and some of Google's quality algorithms.

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Bing Won't Rule Out Meta Keywords Tag Forever

In 2011, Bing said they do use the meta keywords tag. In 2014, Bing said the meta keywords tag was "dead in terms of SEO value." Now, Bing won't say if it is being used or not being used now or in the future.

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Google Tests Blue Snippet Headers

It looks like Google is testing blue snippet headers in the mobile results. I believe this is an ongoing limited test but I figured I'd share it. Here are screen shots from Valentin Pletzer on Twitter of this in action.

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John Mueller's COVID Haircut

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