15 Simple SEO Facts You Didn't Know...Yet

Written by: Michael Lawrence

---

In a digital world with constant change, it is difficult to know and remember everything.

This creates a habitual prioritization that directs our focus to identify the most important items.

The challenge is we use important as a synonym for difficult, even though the most important things are often the most simple.

1. Title area displayed in Google search results is measured by pixels, not characters. The maximum length is 512 pixels.  

2. Google supports multiple sitemaps, including image sitemaps. The one sitemap Google does not support is a product sitemap for eCommerce. 

3. XML sitemaps can have many URLs. 500,000 URLs is the maximum. 

4. Deleted website pages still being indexed by Google? Try using the HTTP status code 410; this is the best way to permanently remove a URL from Google’s index.  

5. If a webpage, or the entire site is down for scheduled maintenance - it is best to use the HTTP status code 503. 

6. Canonical is the version of a page located on the primary URL associated with content 

7. Image alt text may be treated as anchor text by search engines.  Google indexes images to display in search results. 

8. Do not use URL parameters to signal language targeting  

9. Using Google Plus to add authorship to your site can increase the click-through-rate of your search results 

10. Google recommends using microdata or Schema.org to implement structured data

11. Google’s Panda Algorithm is updated on a monthly basis

12. og:description is not a required tag when using Open Graph tags

13. XML sitemaps have many attributes, but only <urlset>, <url> and <loc> are required

14. The rel=“canonical” link element can be used to point content to other domains 

15. A “soft” 404 error is when a page returns a 203 HTTP response code and displays a blank page