Today, we’re rolling out an improvement to Yoast AI Brand Insights, part of the Yoast SEO AI+ package. You can now scan how your brand appears in answers generated by Perplexity, in addition to ChatGPT at no extra cost. This builds on our mission to help marketers, bloggers, and business owners understand how their brand is represented across major AI platforms.
AI powered answers are fast becoming a new gateway for discovery. People increasingly turn to AI tools to research, compare, and choose products or services. Those answers often mention brands as recommendations or sources. When someone asks a question in your niche, you should be able to see if your brand is part of the conversation.
This update makes that possible across more platforms.
AI Brand Insights now lets you see when and how your brand appears in AI generated answers for relevant search style queries. You can track sentiment, and compare your visibility to competitors. By adding support for Perplexity, you get a broader view of how AI systems describe your brand and which sources they rely on, helping you stay visible and confidently represented in AI driven discovery
What’s new
You can now:
Run brand visibility scans in Perplexity
Compare how ChatGPT and Perplexity talk about your brand
Track mentions, sentiment, and citations across both platforms
Monitor changes over time in your AI Visibility Index
Nothing else changes in your workflow. The next time you log in, you’ll see a visual notification guiding you to run your first Perplexity scan.
Why this matters
Understanding how AI answers present your brand helps you move beyond guesswork and see the tone, accuracy, and sources AI chooses when mentioning you. With more customers relying on AI powered explanations than ever, visibility in these answers is now an important part of brand discovery and trust building.
How to try it
Log in through MyYoast, open AI Brand Insights, and run your next scan. Your dashboard now includes results from Perplexity alongside ChatGPT. This gives you a fuller, more accurate view of your brand’s presence in AI generated answers.
If you’re already using Yoast SEO AI+, this enhancement is available to you immediately. If you’re not, upgrading gives you access to this feature along with a complete set of tools for brand visibility, AI insights, and on page SEO.
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Since its launch in June we have been rolling out our integration with Site Kit by Google. Every Yoast SEO Premium customer now has access to it. The update brings key Google Analytics and Search Console insights directly into your Yoast Dashboard, giving you a clear view of your site’s performance without switching between tools or tabs.
Previously, only users of Yoast SEO (free) and Yoast SEO Premium who already had the Site Kit plugin installed could use the integration. Access is now available to all Yoast SEO Premium customers even if Site Kit is not installed, and it will become available to remaining Yoast SEO (free) users soon.
What you can do with the new integration
Connect once to see an immediate overview of your most important metrics. View organic traffic, impressions, clicks, and bounce rates in one place. Spot opportunities faster and understand where to focus your SEO work.
Benefits
See how your site is performing without switching between tools
Quickly spot what needs attention with a clear site wide overview
Dig into categories or individual pages to understand patterns and save time
Group content by type to focus on the areas that matter most
Find new opportunities to grow traffic by combining Yoast insights with Google data
Update Yoast to the latest version (26.5), open your Yoast Dashboard, follow the steps in the Site Kit widget, and your insights will appear right away.
If you want step by step guidance on how to connect Site Kit by Google insights to Yoast SEO, please visit this help article on how to set up.
For Yoast SEO (free) users
We will continue rolling out access to the integration with Site Kit by Google for free users. Keep an eye on your Yoast Dashboard as it becomes available over time.
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SEO never stands still, and neither do we here at Yoast. In our November 2025 edition of the SEO Update by Yoast, our principal SEOs, Carolyn Shelby and Alex Moss, broke down the latest shifts in search, structured data, and AI. Whether you’re running an e-commerce store, managing a content-heavy site, or just keeping up with Google’s ever-changing rules, this edition highlights what actually matters.
Google updates
Google is refining its search results, phasing out certain structured data features, including FAQ snippets and COVID-19 updates. But that doesn’t mean you should strip structured data from your site. It still plays a role behind the scenes, especially for AI retrieval, and could make a comeback later.
For online stores, the message is clearer than ever: product schema is non-negotiable. Search Engine Journal’s Matt Southern explains that Google’s new AI shopping tools, such as agent-based checkout and side-by-side comparisons, require that your product data be complete, consistent, and easily visible. That means no hiding key details behind tabs or toggles. If it’s not easily crawlable, Google’s AI won’t use it.
Search Console updates
Search Console got a few useful upgrades this month. Query Groups now clusters search terms by topic instead of individual keywords, making it easier to spot content gaps and adjust your strategy. Brand Query Filters help distinguish between branded and non-branded searches, which is handy for tracking misspellings or seasonal trends.
Custom Annotations, previously only available in GA4, now allow you to log site changes directly in Search Console. This is great for connecting updates to performance shifts. E-commerce sites also get a small win with shipping and return details, which can now be added without a Merchant Center account. It’s still rolling out, so test it carefully to avoid missteps.
Google and AI
AI continues to reshape search, and Google’s AI Overviews play a significant role in this transformation. Search Engine Roundtable’s Barry Schwartz’s story on Robby Stein from Google emphasizes that these overviews draw from clear, structured content, such as headings, lists, and direct summaries. Word counts don’t matter as much as clarity and extractability.
The downside? According to Danny Goodwin, in Search Engine Land, AI Overviews have slashed organic click-through rates by 61% and paid CTR by 68%. The takeaway isn’t to chase clicks but to optimize for visibility in AI answers. If your content is easy to extract and cite, you’re in a better position.
Beyond Google
Beyond Google, ChatGPT’s new SDK enables developers to build apps within the platform, which could be particularly useful for larger companies seeking to streamline AI integrations. Meanwhile, Adobe’s acquisition of Semrush might push the tool toward enterprise users, so smaller teams should watch for pricing changes.
The next SEO Update by Yoast is scheduled for December 15, 2025, at 4:00 PM CET. Until then, the focus remains on structured data, clear content, and adapting to AI-driven search. For e-commerce sites, this means ensuring that product data is accurate and up-to-date. For content creators, it’s about writing for extractability. And for everyone? Keeping an eye on Search Console’s new tools to stay ahead.
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Imagine telling someone that www.mysite.com/blog/myarticle and www.mysite.com/myarticle are actually the same page. To you, they’re the same, but to Google, even a small difference in the URL makes them separate pages. That is where the canonical tag steps in. In this guide, we will walk you through what a canonical URL is, how URL canonicalization works, when to use it, and which mistakes to avoid so that search engines always understand your preferred page version.
A canonical URL is the main version of a webpage that you want search engines to index, avoiding duplicate content issues
The canonical tag, placed in the HTML head, signals which URL is the preferred version to search engines
Using canonical URLs helps consolidate link equity, improves crawl efficiency, and enhances user experience
Implement canonical tags in scenarios like duplicate content, URL versions, and syndicated content to inform search engines which URL to prioritize
Yoast SEO can automate canonical URL handling, reducing manual errors and ensuring consistency across your site
What is a canonical URL?
A canonical URL is the main, preferred, or official version of a webpage that you want search engines like Google to crawl and index. It helps search engines determine which version of a page to treat as the primary one when multiple URLs lead to similar or duplicate content. As a result, it avoids duplicate content and protects your SEO ranking signals.
All of the following URLs can show the same page, but you should set only one as the canonical URL:
https://www.mysite.com/product/shoes
https://mysite.com/product/shoes?ref=instagram
https://m.mysite.com/product/shoes
https://www.mysite.com/product/shoes?color=black
What is a canonical tag?
A canonical tag (also called a rel="canonical" tag) is a small HTML snippet placed inside the section of a webpage to tell search engines which URL is the canonical or master version. It acts like a clear label saying, “Index this page, not the others.” This prevents duplicate content issues, consolidates ranking signals, and supports proper canonicalization across your site.
Here’s an example of a canonical tag in action:
This tag should be placed on any alternate or duplicate versions that point back to the main page you want indexed.
How does URL canonicalization work?
Canonicalization is the process of selecting the representative or canonical URL of a piece of content. From a group of identical or nearly identical URLs, this is the version that search engines treat as the main page for indexing and ranking.
Once you understand that, canonicalization becomes much easier to visualize. Think of it as a three-step workflow.
How the canonicalization process works
Here’s how the canonicalization works:
Search engines detect duplicate or similar URLs
Google groups URLs that return the same (or almost the same) content. These could come from:
URL parameters
HTTP vs. HTTPS versions
Desktop vs. mobile URLs
Filtered or sorted pages
Regional versions
Accidental duplicates like staging URLs
You signal which URL is canonical
You can guide search engines using canonical signals like:
The rel="canonical" tag
301 redirects
Internal links pointing to one preferred version
Consistent hreflang usage
XML sitemaps listing the preferred URL
HTTPS over HTTP
The strongest and clearest hint is the canonical tag placed in the head of the page.
Google selects one canonical URL
Google uses your signals, along with its own evaluation, to determine the primary URL. While Google typically follows canonical tags, it may override them if it detects stronger signals such as redirects, internal linking patterns, or user behaviour.
Once Google settles on the canonical URL, search engines will:
Consolidate link equity into the canonical page
Index the canonical URL
Treat all non-canonical URLs as duplicates
Reduce crawl waste
Avoid showing similar pages in search results
Canonical tags are a hint, not a directive. Google may still distribute link equity differently if it deems the canonical tag unreliable.
Reasons why canonicalization happens
Canonicalization becomes necessary when different URLs lead to the same content. Some common reasons are:
Region variants
For example, you have one product page for the USA and one for the UK, like: https://example.com/product/shoes-us and https://example.com/product/shoes-uk.
If the content is almost identical, use one canonical link or a clear regional setup to avoid confusion.
Pro tip: For regional variants, combine canonical tags with hreflang to specify language/region targeting.
Device variants
When you serve separate URLs for mobile and desktop, such as: https://m.example.com/product/shoes and https://www.example.com/product/shoes.
Canonical tags help search engines understand which URL is the primary version.
Protocol variants
Sorting and filtering often create many URLs that show similar content, like:
https://example.com/shoes?sort=price or https://example.com/shoes?color=black&size=7
A single canonical URL, such as https://example.com/shoes, tells search engines which page should carry the main ranking signals.
Maybe a staging or demo version of the site is left crawlable, or both https://example.com/page and https://example.com/page/ return the same content
Canonical tags and proper URL canonicalization help avoid these unintentional duplicates.
Some duplicate content on a site is normal. The goal of canonicalization in SEO is not to eliminate every duplicate, but to show search engines which URL you want them to treat as the primary one.
In practical aspects
In practice, canonicalization comes down to a few key things:
Placement
The canonical tag is placed in the head of the HTML, for example:
link rel="canonical" href="https://www.example.com/preferred-page" /
Each page should have at most one canonical tag, and it should point to the clean, preferred canonical URL.
Identification
Search engines examine several signals to determine the canonical version of a page. The rel="canonical" tag is important, but they also consider 301 redirects, internal links, sitemaps, hreflang, and whether the page is served on HTTPS. When these signals are consistent, it is easier for Google to pick the right canonicalized URL.
Crawling and indexing
Once search engines understand which URL is canonical, they primarily crawl and index that version, folding duplicates into it. Link equity and other signals are consolidated to the canonical page, which improves stability in rankings and makes your canonical tag SEO setup more effective.
The main rule for canonicalization is simple: if multiple URLs display the same content, choose one, make it your canonical URL, and clearly signal that choice with a proper canonical tag.
Why do canonical tags matter for SEO?
Google’s John Mueller puts it simply: ‘I recommend doing this kind of self-referential rel=canonical because it really makes it clear for us which page you want to have indexed or what this URL should be when it’s indexed.’
And that’s exactly why canonical tags matter; they tell search engines which version of a page is the real one. This keeps your SEO signals clean and prevents your site from competing with itself.
They’re important because they:
Avoid duplicate content issues: Canonical tags inform Google which URL should be indexed, preventing similar or duplicate pages from confusing crawlers or diluting rankings
Consolidate link equity: Canonicalization works similarly to internal linking; both are techniques used to direct authority to the page that matters most. Instead of splitting ranking signals across duplicate URLs, all information is consolidated into a single canonical URL
Improve crawl efficiency: Search engines don’t waste time crawling unnecessary duplicate pages, which helps them discover your important content faster
Enhance user experience: Users land on the correct, up-to-date version of your page, not a filtered, parameterized, or accidental duplicate
When to use canonical tags?
Canonical tags are useful in various everyday SEO scenarios. Here are the most common scenarios where you’ll want to use a rel=canonical tag to signal your preferred URL.
URL versions
If your page loads under multiple URL formats, with or without “www,” HTTP vs. HTTPS, and with or without a trailing slash, search engines may index each version separately. A canonical tag helps you standardize the preferred version so Google doesn’t treat them as separate pages.
Duplicate content
Ecommerce sites, blogs with tag archives, and category-driven pages often generate duplicate or near-duplicate content by design. If the same product or article appears under multiple URLs (filters, parameters, tracking codes, etc.), canonical tags help Google understand which canonical URL is the authoritative one. This prevents cannibalization and protects your canonical SEO setup.
If your content is republished on partner sites or aggregators, always use a canonical tag that points back to your original version. This ensures your page retains the ranking signals, not the syndicated copy, and search engines know exactly where the content was originally published.
If syndication partners don’t honor your canonical tag, consider using noindex or negotiating link attribution.
Paginated pages
Long lists or multi-page articles often create a chain of URLs like /page/2/, /page/3/, and so on. These pages contribute to the same topic but shouldn’t be indexed individually. Adding canonical tags to the paginated sequence (typically pointing to page 1 or a “view-all” version) helps consolidate indexing and keeps rankings focused on the primary page.
Pro tip: For paginated content, use self-referencing canonicals (each page points to itself) unless you have a ‘view-all’ page that loads quickly and is crawlable.
When you change domains, restructure URLs, or move from HTTP to HTTPS, using consistent canonical tags helps reinforce which pages replace the old ones. It signals to search engines which canonicalized URL should inherit ranking power. During migrations, canonical tags act as a safety net to prevent duplicate versions from competing with each other.
Implementing canonical URLs and canonical tags
URL canonicalization is all about giving search engines a clear signal about which version of a page is the preferred or canonical URL. You can implement it in several simple steps.
Using the rel=”canonical” tag
The most common way (as shown multiple times in this blog post) to set a canonical URL is by adding a rel="canonical" tag in the head section of your page. It looks like this:
link rel="canonical" href="https://www.example.com/preferred-url"/
This tag tells search engines which URL should carry all ranking signals and appear in search results. Ensure that every duplicate or alternate version links to the same preferred URL, and that the canonical tag is consistent throughout the site.
You can also use rel="canonical" in HTTP headers for non-HTML content such as PDFs. This is helpful when you cannot place a tag in the page itself.
Pro tip: While supported for PDFs, Google may not always honor canonical HTTP headers. Use them in conjunction with other signals (e.g., sitemaps).
Also, ensure the canonical tag is as close to the top of the head section as possible so that search engines can see it early. Each page should have only one canonical tag, and it should always point to a clean, accessible URL. Avoid mixing signals. The canonical URL, your internal links, and your sitemap entries should all match.
Setting a preferred domain in Google Search Console
Google lets you choose whether you prefer your URLs to appear with or without www. Setting this preference helps reinforce your canonical signals and prevents search engines from treating www and non-www versions as different URLs.
To set your preferred domain, open your property in Google Search Console, go to Settings, and choose the version you want to treat as your primary domain.
Redirects (301 redirects)
A 301 redirect is one of the strongest signals you can send. It permanently informs browsers and search engines that one URL has been redirected to another and that the new URL should be considered the canonical URL.
Use 301 redirects when:
You merge duplicate URLs
You change your site structure
You migrate to HTTPS
You want to consolidate link equity from outdated pages
Of course, redirects replace the old URL, while canonical tags suggest a preference without removing the duplicate.
With Yoast SEO Premium, you can manage redirects effortlessly right inside your WordPress dashboard. The built-in redirect manager feature of the SEO plugin helps you avoid unnecessary 404s and prevents visitors from landing on dead ends, keeping your site structure clean and your user experience smooth.
A smarter analysis in Yoast SEO Premium
Yoast SEO Premium has a smart content analysis that helps you take your content to the next level!
There are a few more ways to support your canonical setup.
XML sitemaps: Always include only canonical URLs in your sitemap. This helps search engines understand which URLs you want indexed
Hreflang annotations: For multi-language or multi-region sites, hreflang tags help search engines serve the correct regional version while still respecting your canonical preference
Link HTTP headers: For files like PDFs or other non-HTML content, using a rel="canonical" HTTP header helps you specify the preferred URL server-side
Each of these methods reinforces your canonical signals. When you use them together, search engines have a much clearer understanding of your canonicalized URLs.
Implementing canonicalization in WordPress with Yoast
Manually adding a rel="canonical" tag to the head of every duplicate page can be fiddly and error prone. You need to edit templates or theme files, keep tags consistent with your sitemap and internal linking, and remember special cases, such as PDFs or paginated series. Modifying site code and HTML is risky when you have numerous pages or multiple editors working on the site.
Yoast SEO makes this easier and safer. The plugin automatically generates sensible canonical URL tags for all your pages and templates, eliminating the need for manual theme file edits or code additions. You can still override that choice on a page-by-page basis in the Yoast SEO sidebar: open the post or page, go to Advanced, and paste the full canonical URL in the Canonical URL field, then save.
Automatic coverage: Yoast automatically adds canonical tags to pages and archives by default, which helps prevent many common duplicate content issues
Manual override: For special cases, use the Yoast sidebar > Advanced > Canonical URL field to set a custom canonical. This accepts full URLs and updates when you save the post
Edge cases handled: Yoast will not output a canonical tag on pages set to noindex, and it follows best practices for paginated series and archives
Developer options: If you need custom behavior, you can filter the canonical output programmatically using the wpseo_canonical filter or use Yoast’s developer API
Cross-domain and non-HTML: Yoast supports cross-site canonicals, and you can use rel=”canonical” in HTTP headers for non-HTML files when needed
Both Yoast SEO and Yoast SEO Premium include canonical URL handling, and the Premium version adds extra automation and controls to streamline larger sites.
Canonical URLs may seem like a small technical detail, but they play a huge role in helping search engines understand your site. When Google finds multiple URLs displaying the same content, it must select one version to index. If you do not guide that choice, Google will make the decision on its own, and that choice is not always the version you intended. That can lead to split ranking signals, wasted crawl activity, and frustrating drops in visibility.
Using canonical URLs gives you back that control. It tells search engines which page is the primary version, which ones are duplicates, and where all authority signals should be directed. From filtering URLs to regional variants to accidental duplicates that slip through the cracks, canonicals keep everything tidy and predictable.
The good news is that canonicalization does not have to be complicated. A simple rel=”canonical” tag, consistent URL handling, smart redirects, and clean sitemap signals are enough to prevent most issues. And if you are working in WordPress, Yoast SEO takes care of almost all of this automatically, so you can focus on creating content instead of wrestling with code.
At the end of the day, canonical URLs are about clarity. Show search engines the version that matters, remove the noise, and keep your authority consolidated in one place. When your signals are clear, your rankings have a solid foundation to grow.
Did you know that even a one-second delay in page loading speed can cause up to 11% fewer page views? That’s right, you might have the best content strategy and a solid plan to drive traffic, but visitors won’t stay long if your site lags. Page speed is one of the biggest factors in keeping users engaged and converting.
In this guide, we’ll uncover the most common causes of slow websites and explore proven ways to boost website performance. Whether your site feels sluggish or you simply want to make it faster, these insights will help you identify what’s holding it back and how to fix it.
Key takeaways
Page speed significantly affects user experience and conversion rates, with even minor delays leading to increased bounce rates
What do we mean by ‘website performance’ and why is it important for you?
Website performance is all about how efficiently your site loads and responds when someone visits it. It’s not just about how fast a page appears; it’s about how smoothly users can interact with your content across devices, browsers, and locations. In simple terms, it’s the overall quality of your site’s experience that should feel fast, responsive, and effortless to use.
When your page loading speed is optimized, you’re not only improving the user experience but also setting the foundation for long-term website performance.
Here’s why it matters for every website owner:
Fast-loading sites have higher conversion rates and lower bounce rates
Attention spans are notoriously short. As the internet gets faster, they’re getting shorter still. Numerous studies have found a clear link between the time it takes a page to load and the percentage of visitors who become impatient while waiting.
By offering a fast site, you encourage your visitors to stay longer. Not to mention, you’re helping them complete their checkout journey more quickly. That helps improve your conversion rate and build trust and brand loyalty. Think of all the times you’ve been cursing the screen because you had to wait for a page to load or were running in circles because the user experience was atrocious. It happens so often, don’t be that site.
A fast page improves user experience
Google understands that the time it takes for a page to load is vital to the overall user experience. Waiting for content to appear, the inability to interact with a page, and even noticing delays create friction.
That friction costs time, money, and your visitor’s experience. Research shows that the level of stress from waiting for slow mobile results can be more stressful than watching a horror movie. Surely not, you say? That’s what the fine folks at Ericsson Research found a few years back.
Ericsson Mobility Report MWC Edition, February 2016
Improving your site speed across the board means making people happy. They’ll enjoy using your site, make more purchases, and return more frequently. This means that Google will view your site as a great search result because you are delivering high-quality content. Eventually, you might get a nice ranking boost.
Frustration hurts your users and hurts your rankings
It’s not just Google – research from every corner of the web on all aspects of consumer behavior shows that speed has a significant impact on outcomes.
Nearly 70% of consumers say that page speed impacts their willingness to buy (unbounce)
20% of users abandon their cart if the transaction process is too slow (radware.com)
The BBC found that they lost an additional 10% of users for every additional second their site took to load
These costs and site abandonment happen because users dislike being frustrated. Poor experiences lead them to leave, visit other websites, and switch to competitors. Google easily tracks these behaviors (through bounces back to search engine results pages, short visits, and other signals) and is a strong indicator that the page shouldn’t be ranking where it is.
Google needs fast sites
Speed isn’t only good for users – it’s good for Google, too. Slow websites are often inefficient. They may load too many large files, haven’t optimized their media, or fail to utilize modern technologies to serve their page. That means that Google has to consume more bandwidth, allocate more resources, and spend more money.
Across the whole web, every millisecond they can save, and every byte they don’t have to process, adds up quickly. And quite often, simple changes to configuration, processes, or code can make websites much faster with no drawbacks. That may be why Google is so vocal about its education on performance.
A faster web is better for users and significantly reduces Google’s operating costs. Either way, that means that they’re going to continue rewarding fast(er) sites.
Improving page speed helps to improve crawling for search engines
Modern sites are incredibly wieldy, and untangling that mess can make a big difference. The larger your site is, the greater the impact page speed optimizations will have. That not only impacts user experience and conversion rates but also affects crawl budget and crawl rate.
When a Googlebot comes around and crawls your webpage, it crawls the HTML file. Any resources referenced in the file, like images, CSS, and JavaScript, will be fetched separately. The more files you have and the heavier they are, the longer it will take for the Googlebot to go through them.
On the flip side, the more time Google spends on crawling a page and its files, the less time and resources Google has to dedicate to other pages. That means Google may miss out on other important pages and content on your site.
Optimizing your website and content for speed will provide a good user experience for your visitors and help Googlebots better crawl your site. They can come around more often and accomplish more.
Page speed is a ranking factor
Google has repeatedly said that a fast site helps you rank better. It’s no surprise, then, that Google has been measuring the speed of your site and using that information in its ranking algorithms since 2010.
In 2018, Google launched the so-called ‘Speed Update,’ making page speed a ranking factor for mobile searches. Google emphasized that it would only affect the slowest sites and that fast sites would not receive a boost; however, they are evaluating website performance across the board.
In 2021, Google announced the page experience algorithm update, demonstrating that page speed and user experience are intertwined. Core Web Vitals clearly state that speed is an essential ranking factor. The update also gave site owners metrics and standards to work with.
Of course, Google still wants to serve searchers the most relevant information, even if the page experience is somewhat lacking. Creating high-quality content remains the most effective way to achieve a high ranking. However, Google also states that page experience signals become more important when many pages with relevant content compete for visibility in the search results.
Google mobile-first index
Another significant factor in page speed for ranking is Google’s mobile-first approach to indexing content. That means Google uses the mobile version of your pages for indexing and ranking. This approach makes sense as we increasingly rely on mobile devices to access the internet. In recent research, Semrush found out that 66% of all website visits come from mobile devices.
To compete for a spot in the search results, your mobile page needs to meet Core Web Vitals standards and other page experience signals. And this is not easy at all. Pages on mobile take longer to load compared to their desktop counterparts, while attention span stays the same. People might be more patient on mobile devices, but not significantly so.
Take a look at some statistics:
The average website loading time is 2.5 seconds on desktop and 8.6 seconds on mobile, based on an analysis of the top 100 web pages worldwide (tooltester)
The average mobile web page takes 15.3 seconds to load (thinkwithgoogle)
On average, webpages on mobile take 70.9% longer to load than on desktop (tooltester)
A loading speed of 10 seconds increases the probability of a mobile site visitor bouncing by 123% compared to a one-second loading speed (thinkwithgoogle)
All the more reasons to optimize your website and content if your goal is to win a spot in the SERP.
Understanding the web page loading process
When you click a link or type a URL and press Enter, your browser initiates a series of steps to load the web page. It might seem like magic, but behind the scenes, there’s a lot happening in just a few seconds. Understanding this process can help you see what affects your page loading speed and what you can do to boost website performance.
The process of loading a page can be divided into three key stages:
Network stage
This is where the connection begins. When someone visits your site, their browser looks up your domain name and connects to your server. This process, known as DNS lookup and TCP connection, enables data to travel between your website and the visitor’s device.
You don’t have much direct control over this stage, but technologies like content delivery networks (CDNs) and smart routing can make a big difference, especially if you serve visitors from around the world. For local websites, optimizing your hosting setup can still help improve overall page loading speed.
Server response stage
Once the connection is established, the visitor’s browser sends a request to your server asking for the web page and its content. This is when your server processes that request and sends back the necessary files.
The quality of your hosting, server configuration, and even your website’s theme or plugins all influence how quickly your server responds. A slow response is one of the most common issues with slow websites, so investing in a solid hosting environment is crucial if you want to boost your website’s performance.
One popular choice is Bluehost, which offers reliable infrastructure, SSD storage, and built-in CDN support, making it a go-to hosting solution for many website owners.
Browser rendering stage
Now it’s time for the browser to put everything together. It retrieves data from your server and begins displaying it by loading images, processing CSS and JavaScript, and rendering all visible elements.
Browsers typically load content in order, starting with what’s visible at the top (above the fold) and then proceeding down the page. That’s why optimizing the content at the top helps users interact with your site sooner. Even if the entire page isn’t fully loaded yet, a quick initial render can make it feel fast and keep users engaged.
Key causes that are causing your website to slow down
While you can’t control the quality of your visitors’ internet connection, most slow website issues come from within your own setup. Let’s examine the key areas that may be hindering your site’s performance and explore how to address them to enhance your website’s performance.
Your hosting service
Your hosting plays a big role in your website’s performance because it’s where your site lives. The speed and stability of your host determine how quickly your site responds to visitors. Factors such as server configuration, uptime, and infrastructure all impact this performance.
Choosing a reliable host eliminates one major factor that affects speed optimization. Bluehost, for example, offers robust servers, reliable uptime, and built-in performance tools, making it a go-to hosting choice for anyone serious about speed and stability.
Your website theme
Themes define how your website looks and feels, but they also impact its loading speed. Some themes are designed with clean, lightweight code that’s optimized for performance, while others are heavy with animations and complex design elements. To boost website performance, opt for a theme that prioritizes simplicity, efficiency, and clean coding.
Large file size
From your HTML and CSS files to heavy JavaScript, large file sizes can slow down your website. Modern websites often rely heavily on JavaScript for dynamic effects, but overusing it can cause your pages to load slowly, especially on mobile devices. Reducing file sizes, compressing assets, and minimizing unnecessary scripts can significantly improve the perceived speed of your pages.
Badly written code
Poorly optimized code can cause a range of issues, from JavaScript errors to broken layouts. Messy or redundant code makes it harder for browsers to load your site efficiently. Cleaning up your code and ensuring it’s well-structured helps improve both performance and maintainability.
Images and videos
Unoptimized images and large video files are among the biggest causes of slow websites. Heavy media files increase your page weight, which directly impacts loading times. If your header image or hero banner is too large, it can delay the appearance of the main content. Optimizing your media files through compression, resizing, and Image SEO can dramatically improve your website’s speed.
Too many plugins and widgets
Plugins are what make WordPress so flexible, but adding too many can slow down your site. Each plugin adds extra code that your browser needs to process. Unused or outdated plugins can also conflict with your theme or other extensions, further reducing performance. Audit your plugins regularly and only keep the ones that truly add value.
Absence of a CDN
A content delivery network (CDN) helps your website load faster for users worldwide. It stores copies of your site’s static content, such as images and CSS files, across multiple servers located in different regions. This means that users access your site from the nearest available server, reducing loading time. If your audience is global, using a CDN is one of the easiest ways to boost website performance.
Redirects
Redirects are useful for managing URLs and maintaining SEO, but too many can slow down your site. Each redirect adds an extra step before reaching the final page. While a few redirects won’t hurt, long redirect chains can significantly affect performance. Whenever possible, try to link directly to the final URL to maintain consistent page loading speed.
For WordPress users, the redirect manager feature in Yoast SEO Premium makes handling URL changes effortless and performance-friendly. You can pick from redirect types such as 301, 302, 307, 410, and 451 right from the dashboard. Since server-side redirects tend to load faster than PHP-based ones, Yoast lets you choose the type your stack supports, allowing you to avoid slow website causes and boost website performance.
A smarter analysis in Yoast SEO Premium
Yoast SEO Premium has a smart content analysis that helps you take your content to the next level!
How to measure page speed and diagnose performance issues
Before you can improve your website performance, you need to know how well (or poorly) your pages are performing. Measuring your page speed helps you identify what’s slowing down your website and provides a direction for optimization.
What is page speed, really?
Page speed refers to how quickly your website’s content loads and becomes usable. But it’s not as simple as saying, ‘My website loads in 4 seconds.’ Think of it as how fast a visitor can start interacting with your site.
A page might appear to load quickly, but still feel slow if buttons, videos, or images take time to respond. That’s why website performance isn’t defined by one single metric — it’s about the overall user experience.
Did you know?
There is a difference between page speed and site speed. Page speed measures how fast a single page loads, while site speed reflects your website’s overall performance. Since every page behaves differently, measuring site speed is a more challenging task. Simply put, if most pages on your website perform well in terms of Core Web Vitals, it is considered fast.
Core metrics that define website performance
Core Web Vitals are Google’s standard for evaluating how real users experience your website. These metrics focus on the three most important aspects of page experience: loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability. Improving them helps both your search visibility and your user satisfaction.
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Measures how long it takes for the main content on your page to load. Aim for LCP within 2.5 seconds for a smooth loading experience
Interaction to Next Paint (INP): Replaces the older First Input Delay metric and measures how quickly your site responds to user interactions like taps, clicks, or key presses. An INP score under 200 milliseconds ensures your site feels responsive and intuitive
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Tracks how stable your content remains while loading. Elements shifting on screen can frustrate users, so keep CLS below 0.1 for a stable visual experience
How to interpret and improve your scores
Perfection is not the target. Progress and user comfort are what count. If you notice issues in your Core Web Vitals report, here are some practical steps:
If your LCP is slow: Compress images, serve modern formats like WebP, use lazy loading, or upgrade hosting to reduce load times
If your INP score is high: Reduce heavy JavaScript execution, minimize unused scripts, and avoid main thread blocking
If your CLS score is poor: Set defined width and height for images, videos, and ad containers so the layout does not jump around while loading
If your TTFB is high: Time to First Byte is not a Core Web Vital, but it still impacts loading speed. Improve server performance, use caching, and consider a CDN
Remember that even small improvements create a noticeable difference. Faster load times, stable layouts, and quicker interactions directly contribute to a smoother experience that users appreciate and search engines reward.
Tools to measure and analyze your website’s performance
Here are some powerful tools that help you measure, analyze, and improve your page loading speed:
Google PageSpeed Insights
Google PageSpeed Insights is a free tool from Google that provides both lab data (simulated results) and field data (real-world user experiences). It evaluates your page’s Core Web Vitals, highlights problem areas, and even offers suggestions under ‘Opportunities’ to improve load times.
Google Search Console (Page Experience Report)
The ‘Page Experience’ section gives you an overview of how your URLs perform for both mobile and desktop users. It groups URLs that fail Core Web Vitals, helping you identify whether you need to improve LCP, FID, or CLS scores.
Lighthouse (in Chrome DevTools)
Lighthouse is a built-in auditing tool in Chrome that measures page speed, accessibility, SEO, and best practices. It’s great for developers who want deeper insights into what’s affecting site performance.
WebPageTest
WebPage Test lets you test how your website performs across various networks, locations, and devices. Its ‘waterfall’ view shows exactly when each asset on your site loads, perfect for spotting slow resources or scripts that delay rendering.
Chrome Developer Tools (Network tab)
If you’re hands-on, Chrome DevTools is your real-time lab. Open your site, press F12, and monitor how each resource loads. It’s perfect for debugging and understanding what’s happening behind the scenes.
A quick checklist for diagnosing performance issues
Use this checklist whenever you’re analyzing your website performance:
Run your URL through PageSpeed Insights for Core Web Vitals data
Check your Page Experience report in Google Search Console
Use Lighthouse for a detailed technical audit
Review your WebPageTest waterfall to spot bottlenecks
Monitor your server performance (ask your host or use plugins like Query Monitor)
Re-test after every major update or plugin installation
Speed up, but with purpose
As Mahatma Gandhi once said, ‘There is more to life than increasing its speed.’ The same goes for your website. While optimizing speed is vital for better engagement, search rankings, and conversions, it is equally important to focus on creating an experience that feels effortless and meaningful to your visitors. A truly high-performing website strikes a balance between speed, usability, accessibility, and user intent.
When your pages load quickly, your content reads clearly, and your navigation feels intuitive, you create more than just a fast site; you create a space where visitors want to stay, explore, and connect.
http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png00http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-11-13 12:22:002025-11-13 12:22:00From slow to super fast: how to boost site speed the right way
If you’ve been working on your website for a couple of years, chances are that your website has become a giant collection of posts and pages. When writing a post, you might find out you’ve already written a similar article (maybe even twice), or you might get a feeling that you’ve written something related that you can’t find anymore. This can become even more complex when you’re not the only one writing for this website. Cleaning up your older content can be overwhelming; that’s why regular content maintenance is key. In this post, we’ll give you some tips to create a good content maintenance strategy!
Regular content maintenance is crucial for managing a vast collection of posts and pages on your website.
Reserve dedicated time for content audits and pruning to prevent confusion for site visitors and competition between similar articles.
Utilize data from Google Analytics and Search Console to assess content performance and decide what needs updating, merging, or deleting.
Focus on monitoring key content that drives conversions or ranks well in search engines, and enhance internal linking to improve visibility.
Employ tools like Yoast SEO Premium to streamline the content maintenance process, ensuring your website remains organized and effective.
1. Reserve time for content maintenance
It might be tempting, especially if you love writing, to keep on producing new content and never look back. But if you do this, you might be shooting yourself in the foot. Your articles that are very similar to each other can start competing with each other in the search results. Having too much content that isn’t structured can also confuse site visitors; they might not know where to go on your website. And the more content you get, the more overwhelming cleaning up your content becomes. So, don’t wait too long with the implementation of a proper content maintenance strategy.
It’s a good idea to plan regular SEO audits and reserve some time for content pruning. How often you should do that depends on a few factors, such as the amount of content you already have, how often you publish new articles, and how many people you have on your editorial team.
At Yoast, we try to plan structured sessions with our content team to improve existing content. We create lists or do an audit (more on that later) and start cleaning up. But in addition to these sessions, we also improve and update blog content in our usual publication flow. When we encounter articles that need updates, we add them to our backlog, assign them to a team member, and update or even republish them on our blog.
2. What does the data say?
When you sit down to actually go through your content and tidy up, it’s sensible to base your decisions on data. Apart from looking at the content on the page itself, you should answer the following questions:
Does the page get any traffic?
Does it have value (meaning that the visitor completed one of your goals during the same session on your site)?
How is the engagement?
How long do people stay on this page?
This kind of data can all be found in Google Analytics. If you go to Reports > Engagement > Pages and screens in the left-hand menu, you’ll get a nice overview of the traffic on your pages. You can even export this to a spreadsheet to keep track of what you did or decided to do with a page.
If you want to know how your articles perform in the search results, Google Search Console is a great help. Especially the performance tab tells you a lot about how your pages perform in Google. It tells you the average position you hold for a keyword, but also how many impressions and clicks your pages get. Check out our beginner’s guide to Google Search Console.
There are a number of tools that make this process easier by providing a list of your content and how it performs. This makes it easier to compare how certain (related) articles rank and get their traffic. One tool we like to use at Yoast is the content audit template by ahrefs. This gives you insights into which content is still of value to your site and which low-quality content is dragging you down. It will give you advice (leave as is/manually review/redirect or update/delete) per URL. Of course, we wouldn’t recommend blindly following such automated advice, but it gives you a lot of insight and is a great starting point to take a critical look at your content.
3. Always keep an eye on your most important content
While it’s not harmful if some older posts escape your attention while working on new content, there are posts and pages that you always need to keep an eye on. You’re probably already monitoring pages that convert, whether that’s in terms of sales, newsletter subscriptions, or a contact or reservation page. But you might also have pages that do (or could do) really well in the search engines. For instance, some evergreen, complete, and informative posts or pages about topics you’re really an expert on. This is the content you want to keep fresh and relevant, and regularly link to. These are the posts and pages that should end up high in the search results.
In Yoast SEO Premium, you can mark these types of guides as cornerstone content. This will trigger some specific actions in Yoast SEO. For instance, if you haven’t updated a cornerstone post in six months, it gets added to the stale cornerstone content filter. You’ll find that filter in your post overview. It helps you stay on top of your SEO game by telling you whether any important content needs an update. Ideally, your score should be zero there. If you do find some articles in this filter, it’s time to review those. Make sure all the information is still correct, add new insights, and perhaps check competitors’ posts on the same topic to see if you’re not missing anything.
The stale cornerstone content filter in Yoast SEO for WordPress
4. Improve your internal linking
A content maintenance activity that is often highly underrated is working on your internal linking. Why invest time in internal linking? Well, first and foremost, because the content you link to is of interest to your readers and helps you keep them on your site. But these links help search engines, such as Google, crawl your content and determine its importance. An article that gets a lot of links (internally or externally) is deemed important by Google. It also helps Google understand what content is related to each other. Therefore, internal linking is an important part of a cornerstone content strategy. All your pages, but especially the evergreen guides we discussed above, need attention, regular updates, and lots of links!
So it’s good to link to your other posts while writing a new one. The internal linking suggestions tool in Yoast SEO Premium makes this super easy for you. But while it’s quite common to link to existing content from our new articles, don’t forget that those new articles also need links pointing to them. At Yoast, we regularly check whether our new posts have enough links pointing to them, especially if we want them to rank!
Implementing a cornerstone strategy
But what about the cornerstone content we discussed above? How do you make sure your most valuable content gets enough links? If you want to focus on these articles, Yoast SEO Premium has just the tool for you: the Cornerstone workout. In a few steps, it lets you select your most important articles and mark them as cornerstones. Then, it shows you how many internal links there are pointing to this post. Do you feel this isn’t in line with the number of links it should have? We’ll give you suggestions on which related posts to link from. And in just a few clicks, you can add the link from the right spot in the related post:
The cornerstone workout in Yoast SEO Premium
As you probably (hopefully!) don’t change your cornerstone strategy every month, it’s not necessary to do this workout every month. If you have a vast amount of content that performs quite well, checking this, let’s say, every 3 or 6 months, you should be fine. However, if you’re starting out, publishing a lot of new content, or making big changes to your site, you should probably do this workout more often. As your site grows, your focal point might change, and this workout will help you make sure you stay focused on the content you really want to rank.
5. Clean up the attic once in a while
We mostly discussed your best and most important content until now. But on the other side of the spectrum, we have your older (and more lonely) content that you haven’t touched in a while. Announcements of events that took place years ago, new product launches from when you just started, and blog posts that simply aren’t relevant anymore. These posts keep filling up your attic, and at one point, you should clean your attic thoroughly. You don’t want people or Google to find low-quality pages or pages showing outdated or irrelevant information and get lost up there.
There are some ways to go about this. You can, of course, go to your blog post archive and clean up while going through your oldest post. Never just delete something, though! Take a closer look at the content and always check whether a post still gets traffic in Google Analytics. In doubt whether you should keep it? Read our blog on updating or deleting old content to help you with that choice. And, if you think a post is irrelevant and you want to delete it, you should either redirect it to a good equivalent URL or have it show a 410 page, indicating that it’s been deleted on purpose. You can read all about properly deleting a post here.
Cleaning up orphaned content
Yoast SEO Premium also has an SEO workout to help you maintain old and forgotten content: the Orphaned content workout. It lists all of your unlinked content for you. Because you never or hardly linked to these pages, we can assume they’re pages you’ve once created but never looked back at. Or, they don’t fit into your current content strategy anymore. That’s why this is a good place to start cleaning up! With the workout, you can go through the posts and pages one by one and consider: is this post not relevant anymore? Then delete and redirect the URL to a better destination in a few clicks! Is it still relevant but outdated? Then update it and start adding links to it from related posts. Did you just forget to link to this post? Then start adding some links! The workout takes you by the hand through all these steps, so it’s easy to keep track of your progress.
The orphaned content workout in Yoast SEO Premium
How often should you do this workout? It’s hard to make a general statement about this because it very much depends on the amount of old content you have, how good your internal linking is, and how much new content you’re creating. If you have a bigger site, it will probably be quite a time investment when you do it for the first time. But if you maintain it and do this workout regularly, on a monthly basis, for instance, you will get it done faster every time!
6. Check your content per topic/tag
When you have a lot of similar articles, they can start competing with each other in the search engines. We call that content or keyword cannibalization. That’s why it’s good to look at all the articles you have on a certain topic from time to time. Do they differ enough? Are they right below each other in Google’s search results on page 2? Then you might have to merge two articles into one to make that one perform better. Depending on the size of your site, you can look at this on a category or tag level or even on smaller subtopics.
In the aforementioned post, we describe in detail how to go about this content maintenance process of fixing keyword cannibalization. In short, you’ll have to create an overview of the posts on that topic. Then look at how all of these articles perform with the help of Google Search Console and Google Analytics. This will help you decide what to keep, merge, or delete!
Content maintenance: you need time and tools!
As you might have already noticed, content maintenance can be quite a task. But if you do it regularly and use the right tools, it gets easier over time. And the easier it gets, the more fun! Who doesn’t want a tidied-up website? It will make you, your site visitors, and Google very happy. So, don’t wait too long to implement a good content maintenance strategy and use the right tools to make your life easier!
Black Friday is three weeks away, so it’s time to finalize the last adjustments. Here’s what to focus on now, based on two Yoast Black Friday coffee chats with our own principal SEOs, Carolyn Shelby and Alex Moss. Alex states, “Black Friday isn’t one day anymore, but a season. If you’re not visible to AI now, you won’t be in the results when shoppers ask for recommendations.”
No major technical changes. Switching platforms, payment processors, or themes? Wait until January. Focus on optimizing what you have
Code freeze starts now. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. Test changes in a staging environment first
Exception: Installing Yoast SEO or WooCommerce SEO add-ons is a low-risk activity. Do it if needed
Pro tip: If you must update plugins, test on staging and avoid updates one week before Black Friday.
2. Fix these right now (or regret it later)
Fraud attacks are ramping up
Fraudsters test stolen credit cards by buying cheap items (<$5). Signs you’re being targeted:
Sudden spike in orders for your lowest-priced item
High failure rates (declined payments)
Orders from VPNs/rotating IPs
How to fight back:
Raise your minimum price. Bundle items to push totals over $5 (e.g., “Buy 2 stickers, get free shipping”)
Add friction (carefully):
Enable CAPTCHA on checkout
Turn on Stripe Radar (if using Stripe) or velocity checks (limits orders per IP)
Avoid disabling guest checkout, as this will hurt conversions
Contact your payment processor. Say: “I’m seeing fraudulent test orders. Here’s the pattern, please help me block them.”
Block high-risk countries (if you don’t ship there). Use Cloudflare’s WAF (Web Application Firewall) to filter traffic.
Warning: Fulfilling fraudulent orders costs you product + shipping + time. Verify payments before shipping.
Language and search alignment
AI/LLMs (ChatGPT, Gemini) can’t “see” hidden text. If it’s behind tabs/toggles/accordions, they’ll miss it. Move critical info (FAQs, specs, reviews) to visible text.
Avoid “clever” product names. Example: A dress colored “Pristine” won’t show up in searches for “ivory dress”.
Fix: Add generic terms in parentheses:
Wrong: “Pristine Midi Dress”
Right: “Pristine (Ivory) Midi Dress”
Test your products with AI: Ask ChatGPT: “Find me [your product] in [color/size/price range].” If it misses your product, your descriptions need work.
Reviews are trust signals (for humans and AI)
Encourage detailed reviews. Generic “I love it!” won’t help.
Ask customers: “How do you use this product? What problem does it solve?”
Example: “These hiking shoes fit my wide feet—finally no blisters!”
Leverage brand reviews. If you sell multiple products, get reviews for your brand (e.g., via G2 or Trustpilot). LLMs pull these when answering questions like “What’s the best brand for X?”
Last-resort tactic: Ask friends/family to leave honest reviews. (No fake ones, because Google penalizes that.)
Pro tip: Utilize Yoast SEO’s FAQ schema for reviews and Q&As. However, please keep FAQs visible; avoid hiding them in toggles.
3. Optimize for AI and search (quick wins)
Product pages: Lead with the good stuff
First 100 words matter most. AI/LLMs and users skim, so put key details up top, such as price, shipping info, and bundling options
Plain and concise language wins over clever marketing.
Example:
Original: “Experience luxury with our artisanal ceramic mug.”
Optimized: “14oz ceramic mug. Dishwasher-safe, holds heat for 2 hours.”
Add videos. Show the product in use (e.g., flipping through a planner, wearing a dress). Yoast SEO Premium includes video SEO tools. Please use them
Focus on your “underdog” products. These aren’t your top three bestsellers, but they’re the items ranking lower down your sales list. They might not sell as much, but they often have higher profit margins, making them a worthwhile consideration.
How to optimize them:
Use Google Search Console to identify:
Products with steady sales and high profitability (promote these in bundles or via email).
Products that could benefit from topic clustering (group related queries to uncover hidden opportunities).
Give them a boost by:
Bundling them with bestsellers (e.g., “Buy our top-selling coffee maker, get 20% off these premium beans”).
Upselling or cross-selling (e.g., “Customers who bought this also loved…”).
Use email and social to seed the AI
Send a Black Friday teaser email this week. Include:
Your brand name + product names (helps AI recall you later)
Clear discounts (e.g., “20% off all espresso makers—no code needed”)
Links to product pages (not just the homepage)
Why? ChatGPT/Gemini now scans emails (if users connect their Gmail). If someone asks, “Where can I buy X?”, the AI may suggest your brand because it saw your email
Social posts: 80% useful, 20% fun. Example:
Wrong: [Image of pizza with caption: “Ooooh”]
Right: “Our Chicago deep-dish pizza—now 15% off for Black Friday! [Link] #DeepDishDeals”
Remove friction from checkout
Audit your checkout flow. Ask:
Do you need a phone number? (Many users abandon carts here.)
Is shipping info clear upfront? (e.g., “Free shipping on orders over $50”)
Can users save their cart for later?
Test with dummy orders. Use Shopify/WooCommerce’s test credit card numbers to simulate purchases
4. Last-minute hacks (do these soon)
Task
Why it matters
Log in to Merchant Center > Check for warnings.
Create a Black Friday landing page
Centralizes promotions for AI/users.
Use a PLP (Product Landing Page) with text like: “Gifts under $50 for sports-loving dads”. Link to it from emails/social.
Update Google Shopping feed
Fix errors (missing SKUs, sizes) now.
Log in to Merchant Center and check for warnings.
Add FAQ schema
Helps AI answer questions like “What’s the return policy?”
Use Yoast SEO’s FAQ block (visible text only!).
Check inventory
Avoid selling out of bestsellers.
Reorder now, because shipping delays are expected to spike in November.
Set up a backup payment processor
Fraud attacks can freeze your account.
Add Stripe (even if inactive) as a backup to PayPal.
5. What not to do before Black Friday
Don’t wait until the last minute to launch promotions or make critical changes. Big brands start their Black Friday campaigns in early November. If you hold off until Thanksgiving week, you’ll miss the early shoppers and the AI “training window.” LLMs prioritize brands they’ve seen mentioned in emails, social posts, or searches before the holiday rush.
Avoid hiding key details behind tabs, accordions, or images. AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini often skip hidden text when scraping product pages, and users tend to overlook shipping costs and return policies as well. Never ignore Fake Friday (the Friday before BF), the unofficial kickoff when bargain hunters start browsing. Run a pre-sale or teaser discount to capture this traffic before competitors do.
Steer clear of overcomplicating bundles or discounts. A “Buy 5 random items, get a mystery gift” deal might sound creative, but it confuses shoppers and dilutes profits. Instead, pair high-margin items with slower sellers (e.g., “Buy a camera, get 50% off a memory card”).
Don’t assume your payment processor can handle fraud spikes. If you’re suddenly hit with stolen card tests (look for a surge in cheap, failed orders), your account could get flagged or frozen. Set up Stripe Radar or PayPal’s fraud filters now—and have a backup processor ready.
Finally, never neglect mobile checkout testing. If your “Add to Cart” button is hard to tap or forms don’t autofill on phones, you’ll lose impulse buyers. Test on a slow 3G connection to simulate real-world frustration.
Your Black Friday success starts now
The countdown is on. Black Friday will be here before you know it. But here is the good news. You still have time to make a real impact. Whether it is tightening up your product descriptions, safeguarding against fraud, or making sure your site is AI-friendly, every small tweak you make now can translate into bigger sales when the shopping frenzy hits.
If you are feeling overwhelmed, remember this. You do not have to do it all alone. Tools like Yoast SEO Premium and WooCommerce SEO can help you optimize your product pages, structure your content for both AI and search engines, and even add schema markup to ensure your products are more visible to both AI and search engines. It is like having an SEO expert in your corner, guiding you through the chaos so you can focus on what really matters. Selling more and stressing less.
So take a deep breath, tackle one task at a time, and trust that you have got this. Here is to your most successful Black Friday yet. Now go get those sales. And if you need a little extra help, you know where to find us.
Buy WooCommerce SEO now!
Unlock powerful features and much more for your online store with Yoast WooCommerce SEO!
http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png00http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-11-06 13:36:542025-11-06 13:36:54Last-minute Black Friday SEO prepping for ecommerce stores
Structured data helps search engines, Large Language Models (LLMs), AI assistants, and other tools understand your website. Using Schema.org and JSON-LD, you make your content clearer and easier to use across platforms. This guide explains what structured data is, why it matters today, and how you can set it up the right way.
Structured data helps search engines and AI better understand your website, enhancing visibility and eligibility for rich results.
Using Schema.org and JSON-LD improves content clarity and connects different pieces of information graphically.
Implementing structured data today prepares your content for future technologies and AI applications.
Yoast SEO simplifies structured data implementation by automatically generating schema for various content types.
Focus on key elements like business details and products to maximize the impact of your structured data.
What is structured data?
Structured data is a way to tell computers exactly what’s on your web page. Using a standard set of tags from Schema.org, you can identify important details, like whether a page is about a product, a review, an article, an event, or something else.
This structured format helps search engines, AI assistants, LLMs, and other tools understand your content quickly and accurately. As a result, your site may qualify for special features in search results and can be recognized more easily by digital assistants or new AI applications.
Structured data is written in code, with JSON-LD being the most common format. Adding it to your pages gives your content a better chance to be found and understood, both now and as new technologies develop.
Below is a simple example of structured data using Schema.org in JSON-LD format. This is a basic schema for a product with review properties. This code tells search engines that the page is a product (Product). It provides the name and description of the product, pricing information, the URL, plus product ratings and reviews. This allows search engines to understand your products and present your content in search results.
Structured data gives computers a clear map of what’s on your website. It spells out details about your products, reviews, events, and much more in a format that’s easy for search engines and other systems to process.
This clarity leads to better visibility in search, including features like star ratings, images, or additional links. But the impact reaches further now. Structured data also helps AI assistants, voice search tools, and new web platforms like chatbots powered by Large Language Models understand and represent your content with greater accuracy.
New standards, such as NLWeb (Natural Language Web) and MCP (Model Context Protocol), are emerging to help different systems share and interpret web content consistently. Adding structured data today not only gives your site an advantage in search but also prepares it for a future where your content will flow across more platforms and digital experiences.
The effort you put into structured data now sets up your content to be found, used, and displayed in many places where people search and explore online.
Is structured data important for SEO?
Structured data plays a key role in how your website appears in search results. It helps search engines understand and present your content with extra features, such as review stars, images, and additional links. These enhanced listings can catch attention and drive more clicks to your site.
While using structured data doesn’t directly increase your rankings, it does make your site eligible for these rich results. That alone can set you apart from competitors. As search engines evolve and adopt new standards, well-structured data ensures your content stays visible and accessible in the latest search features.
For SEO, structured data is about making your site stand out, improving user experience, and giving your content the best shot at being discovered, both now and as search technology changes.
Structured data can lead to rich results
By describing your site for search engines, you allow them to do exciting things with your content. Schema.org and its support are constantly developing, improving, and expanding. As structured data forms the basis for many new developments in the SEO world, there will be more shortly. Below is an overview of the rich search results available; examples are in Google’s Search Gallery.
Structured data type
Example use/description
Article
News, blog, or sports article
Breadcrumb
Navigation showing page position
Carousel
Gallery/list from one site (with Recipe, Course, Movie, Restaurant)
Course list
Lists of educational courses
Dataset
Large datasets (Google Dataset Search)
Discussion forum
User-generated forum content
Education Q&A
Education flashcard Q&As
Employer aggregate rating
Ratings about employers in job search results
Event
Concerts, festivals, and other events
FAQ
Frequently asked questions pages
Image metadata
Image creator, credit, and license details
Job posting
Listings for job openings
Local business
Business details: hours, directions, ratings
Math solver
Structured data for math problems
Movie
Lists of movies, movie details
Organization
About your company: name, logo, contact, etc.
Practice problem
Education practice problems for students
Product
Product listings with price, reviews, and more
Profile page
Info on a single person or organization
Q&A
Pages with a single question and answers
Recipe
Cooking recipes, steps, and ingredients
Review snippet
Short review/rating summaries
Software app
Ratings and details on apps or software
Speakable
Content for text-to-speech on Google Assistant
Subscription and paywalled content
Mark articles/content behind a paywall
Vacation rental
Details about vacation property listings
Video
Video info, segments, and live content
The rich results formerly known as rich snippets
You might have heard the term “rich snippets” before. Google now calls these enhancements “rich results.” Rich results are improved search listings that use structured data to show extra information, like images, reviews, product details, or FAQs, directly in search.
For example, a product page marked up with structured data can show its price, whether it’s in stock, and customer ratings right below the search listing, even before someone clicks. Here’s what that might look like:
Some listings offer extra information, like star ratings or product details
With rich results, users see helpful details up front—such as a product’s price, star ratings, or stock status. This can make your listing stand out and attract more clicks.
Keep in mind, valid structured data increases your chances of getting rich results, but display is controlled by Google’s systems and is never guaranteed.
Results like this often appear more prominently on mobile devices. Search listings with structured data can display key information, like product prices, ratings, recipes, or booking options, in a mobile-friendly format. Carousels, images, and quick actions are designed for tapping and swiping with your finger.
For example, searching for a recipe on your phone might bring up a swipeable carousel showing photos, cooking times, and ratings for each dish. Product searches can highlight prices, availability, and reviews right in the results, helping users make decisions faster.
Many people now use mobile search as their default search method. Well-implemented structured data not only improves your visibility on mobile but can also make your content easier for users to explore and act on from their phones. To stay visible and competitive, regularly check your markup and make sure it works smoothly on mobile devices.
Knowledge Graph Panel
A knowledge panel
The Knowledge Graph Panel shows key facts about businesses, organizations, or people beside search results on desktop and at the top on mobile. It can include your logo, business description, location, contact details, and social profiles.
Using structured data, especially Organization, LocalBusiness, or Person markup with current details, helps Google recognize and display your entity accurately. Include recommended fields like your official name, logo, social links (using sameAs), and contact info.
Entity verification is becoming more important. Claim your Knowledge Panel through Google, and make sure your information is consistent across your website, social media, and trusted directories. Major search engines and AI assistants use this entity data for results, summaries, and answers, not just in search but also in AI-powered interfaces and smart devices.
While Google decides who appears in the Knowledge Panel and what details are shown, reliable structured data, verified identity, and a clear online presence give you the best chance of being featured.
Different kinds of structured data
Schema.org includes many types of structured data. You don’t need to use them all, just focus on what matches your site’s content. For example:
If you sell products, use product schema
For restaurant or local business sites, use local business schema
Recipe sites should add recipe schema
Before adding structured data, decide which parts of your site you want to highlight. Check Google’s or other search engines’ documentation to see which types are supported and what details they require. This helps ensure you are using the markup that will actually make your content stand out in search and other platforms.
How Yoast SEO helps with structured data
Yoast SEO automatically adds structured data to your site using smart defaults, making it easier for search engines and platforms to understand your content. The plugin supports a wide range of content types, like articles, products, local businesses, and FAQs, without the need for manual schema coding.
With Yoast SEO, you can:
With a few clicks, set the right content type for each page (such as ContactPage, Product, or Article)
Use built-in WordPress blocks for FAQs and How-tos, which generate valid schema automatically
Link related entities across your site, such as authors, brands, and organizations, to help search engines see the big picture
Adjust schema details per page or post through the plugin’s settings
Yoast SEO also offers an extensible structured data platform. Developers can build on top of Yoast’s schema framework, add custom schema types, or connect other plugins. This helps advanced users or larger sites tailor their structured data for specific content, integrations, or new standards.
Yoast keeps pace with updates to structured data guidelines, so your markup stays aligned with what Google and other platforms support. This makes it easier to earn rich results and other search enhancements.
Yoast SEO helps you fine-tune your schema structured data settings per page
Which structured data types matter most?
When adding structured data, focus first on the types that have the biggest impact on visibility and features in Google Search. These forms of schema are widely supported, trigger rich results, and apply to most kinds of sites:
Most important structured data types
Article: For news sites, blogs, and sports publishers. Adding Article schema can enable rich results like Top Stories, article carousels, and visual enhancements
Product: Essential for ecommerce. Product schema helps show price, stock status, ratings, and reviews right in search. This type is key for online stores and retailers
Event: For concerts, webinars, exhibitions, or any scheduled events. Event schema can display dates, times, and locations directly in search results, making it easier for people to find and attend
Recipe: This is for food blogs and cooking sites. The recipe schema supports images, cooking times, ratings, and step-by-step instructions as rich results, giving your recipes extra prominence in search
FAQPage: For any page with frequently asked questions. This markup can expand your search listing with Q&A drop-downs, helping users get answers fast
QAPage: For online communities, forums, or support sites. QAPage schema helps surface full question-and-answer threads in search
ReviewSnippet: This markup is for feedback on products, books, businesses, or services. It can display star ratings and short excerpts, adding trust signals to your listings
LocalBusiness is vital for local shops, restaurants, and service providers. It supplies address, hours, and contact info, supporting your visibility in the map pack and Knowledge Panel
Organization: Use this to describe your brand or company with a logo, contact details, and social profiles. Organization schema feeds into Google’s Knowledge Panel and builds your online presence
Video: Mark up video content to enable video previews, structured timestamps (key moments), and improved video visibility
Breadcrumb: This feature shows your site’s structure within Google’s results, making navigation easier and your site look more reputable
Other valuable or sector-specific types:
Course: Highlight educational course listings and details for training providers or schools
JobPosting: Share open roles in job boards or company careers pages, making jobs discoverable in Google’s job search features
SoftwareApp: For software and app details, including ratings and download links
Movie: Used for movies and film listings, supporting carousels in entertainment searches and extra movie details
Dataset: Makes large sets of research or open data discoverable in Google Dataset Search
DiscussionForum: Surfaces user-generated threads in dedicated “Forums” search features
ProfilePage: Used for pages focused on an individual (author profiles, biographies) or organization
EmployerAggregateRating: Displays company ratings and reviews in job search results
PracticeProblem: For educational sites offering practice questions or test prep
VacationRental: Displays vacation property listings and details in travel results
Special or supporting types:
Person: This helps Google recognize and understand individual people for entity and Knowledge Panel purposes (it does not create a direct rich result)
Book: Can improve book search features, usually through review or product snippets
Speakable: Reserved for news sites and voice assistant features; limited support
Image metadata, Math Solver, Subscription/Paywalled content: Niche markups that help Google properly display, credit, or flag special content
Carousel: Used in combination with other types (like Recipe or Movie) to display a list or gallery format in results
When choosing which schema to add, always select types that match your site’s actual content. Refer to Google’s Search Gallery for the latest guidance and requirements for each type.
Adding the right structured data makes your pages eligible for rich results, enhances your visibility, and prepares your content for the next generation of search features and AI-powered platforms.
Voice search remains important, with a significant share of online queries now coming from voice-enabled devices. Structured data helps content be understood and, in some cases, selected as an answer for voice results.
The Speakable schema (for marking up sections meant to be read aloud by voice assistants) is still officially supported, but adoption is mostly limited to news content. Google and other assistants also use a broader mix of signals, like content clarity, authority, E-E-A-T, and traditional structured data, to power their spoken answers.
If you publish news or regularly answer concise, fact-based questions, consider using Speakable markup. For other content types, focus on structured data and well-organized, user-focused pages to improve your chances of being chosen by voice assistants. Voice search and voice assistants continue to draw on featured snippets, clear Q&A, and trusted sources.
Structured data uses Schema.org’s hierarchy. This vocabulary starts with broad types like Thing and narrows down to specific ones, such as Product, Movie, or LocalBusiness. Every type has its own properties, and more specific types inherit from their ancestors. For example, a Movie is a type of CreativeWork, which is a type of Thing.
When adding structured data, select the most specific type that fits your content. For a movie, this means using the Movie schema. For a local company, choose the type of business that best matches your offering under LocalBusiness.
Properties
Every Schema.org type includes a range of properties. While you can add many details, focus on the properties that Google or other search engines require or recommend for rich results. For example, a LocalBusiness should include your name, address, phone number, and, if possible, details such as opening hours, geo-coordinates, website, and reviews. You’ll find our Local SEO plugin (available in Yoast SEO Premium) very helpful if you need help with your local business markup.
Properties: name, address, phone, email, openingHours, geo, review, logo
The more complete and accurate your markup, the greater your chances of being displayed with enhanced features like Knowledge Panels or map results. For details on recommended properties, always check Google’s up-to-date structured data documentation.
In the local business example, you’ll see that Google lists several required properties, like your business’s NAP (Name and Phone) details. There are also recommended properties, like URLs, geo-coordinates, opening hours, etc. Try to fill out as many of these as possible because search engines will only give you the whole presentation you want.
Structured data should be a graph
When you add structured data to your site, you’re not just identifying individual items, but you’re building a data graph. A graph in this context is a web of connections between all the different elements on your site, such as articles, authors, organizations, products, and events. Each entity is linked to others with clear relationships. For instance, an article can be marked as written by a certain author, published by your organization, and referencing a specific product. These connections help search engines and AI systems see the bigger picture of how everything on your site fits together.
Creating a fully connected data graph removes ambiguity. It allows search engines to understand exactly who created content, what brand a product belongs to, or where and when an event takes place, rather than making assumptions based on scattered information. This detailed understanding increases the chances that your site will qualify for rich results, Knowledge Panels, and other enhanced features in search. As your website grows, a well-connected graph also makes it easier to add new content or expand into new areas, since everything slots into place in a way that search engines can quickly process and understand.
Yoast SEO builds a graph
With Yoast SEO, many of the key connections are generated automatically, giving your site a solid foundation. Still, understanding the importance of building a connected data graph helps you make better decisions when structuring your own content or customizing advanced schema. A thoughtful, well-linked graph sets your site up for today’s search features, while making it more adaptable for the future.
Your schema should be a well-formed graph for easier understanding by search engines and AI
Beyond search: AI, assistants, and interoperability
Structured data isn’t just about search results. It’s a map that helps AI assistants, knowledge graphs, and cross‑platform apps understand your content. It’s not just about showing a richer listing; it’s about enabling reliable AI interpretation and reuse across contexts.
Today, the primary payoff is still better search experiences. Tomorrow, AI systems and interoperable platforms will rely on clean, well‑defined data to summarize, reason about, and reuse your content. That shift makes data quality more important than ever.
Practical steps for today
Keep your structured data clean with a few simple habits. Use the same names for people, organizations, and products every time they appear across your site. Connect related information so search engines can see the links. For example, tie each article to its author or a product to its brand. Fill in all the key details for your main schema types and make sure nothing is missing. After making changes or adding new content, run your markup through a validation tool. If you add any custom fields or special schema, write down what they do so others can follow along later. Doing quick checks now and then keeps your data accurate and ready for both search engines and AI.
Interoperability, MCP, and the role of structured data
More and more, AI systems and search tools are looking for websites that are easy to understand, not just for people but also for machines. The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is gaining ground as a way for language models like Google Gemini and ChatGPT to use the structured data already present on your website. MCP draws on formats like Schema.org and JSON-LD to help AI match up the connections between things such as products, authors, and organizations.
Another project, the Natural Language Web (NLWeb), an open project developed by Microsoft, aims to make web content easier for AI to use in conversation and summaries. NLWeb builds on concepts like MCP, but hasn’t become a standard yet. For now, most progress and adoption are happening with MCP, and large language models are focusing their efforts on this area.
Using Schema.org and JSON-LD to keep your structured data clean (no duplicate entities), complete (all indexable content included), and connected (relationships preserved) will prepare you for search engines and new AI-driven features appearing across the web.
Schema.org and JSON-LD: the foundation you can trust
Schema.org and JSON-LD remain the foundation for structured data on the web. They enable today’s rich results in search and form the basis for how AI systems will interpret web content in the future. JSON-LD should be your default format for new markup, allowing you to build structured data graphs that are clean, accurate, and easy to maintain. Focus on accuracy in your markup rather than unnecessary complexity.
To future-proof your data, prioritize stable identifiers such as @id and use clear types to reduce ambiguity. Maintain strong connections between related entities across your pages. If you develop custom extensions to your structured data, document them thoroughly so both your team and automated tools can understand their purpose.
Design your schema so that components can be added or removed without disrupting the entire graph. Make a habit of running validations and audits after you change your site’s structure or content.
Finally, stay current by following guidance and news from official sources, including updates about standards such as NLWeb and MCP, to ensure your site remains compatible with both current search features and new interoperability initiatives.
What do you need to describe for search engines?
To get the most value from structured data, focus first on the most important elements of your site. Describe the details that matter most for users and for search, such as your business information, your main products or services, reviews, events, or original articles. These core pieces of information are what search engines look for to understand your site and display enhanced results.
Rather than trying to mark up everything, start with the essentials that best match your content. As your experience grows, you can build on this foundation by adding more detail and creating links between related entities. Accurate, well-prioritized markup is both easier to maintain and more effective in helping your site stand out in search results and across new AI-driven features.
How to implement structured data
We’d like to remind you that Yoast SEO comes with an excellent structured data implementation. It’ll automatically handle most sites’ most pressing structured data needs. Of course, as mentioned below, you can extend our structured data framework as your needs become bigger.
Do the Yoast SEO configuration and get your site’s structured data set up in a few clicks! The configuration is available for all Yoast SEO users to help you get your plugin configured correctly. It’s quick, it’s easy, and doing it will pay off. Plus, if you’re using the new block editor in WordPress you can also add structured data to your FAQ pages and how-to articles using our structured data content blocks.
Thanks to JSON-LD, there’s nothing scary about adding the data to your pages anymore. This JavaScript-based data format makes it much easier to add structured data since it forms a block of code and is no longer embedded in the HTML of your page. This makes it easier to write and maintain, plus both humans and machines better understand it. If you need help implementing JSON-LD structured data, you can enroll in our free Structured Data for Beginners course, our Understanding Structured Data course, or read Google’s introduction to structured data.
Structured data with JSON-LD
JSON-LD is the recommended way to add structured data to your site. All major search engines, including Google and Bing, now fully support this format. JSON-LD is easy to implement and maintain, as it keeps your structured data separate from the main HTML.
Yoast SEO automatically creates a structured data graph for every page, connecting key elements like articles, authors, products, and organizations. This approach helps search engines and AI systems understand your site’s structure. Our developer resources include detailed Schema documentation and example graphs, making it straightforward to extend or customize your markup as your site grows.
Tools for working with structured data
Yoast SEO automatically handles much of the structured data in the background. You could extend our Schema framework, of course — see the next chapter –, but if adding code by hand seems scary, you could try some of the tools listed below. If you need help with how to proceed, ask your web developer for help. They will fix this for you in a couple of minutes.
Yoast SEO uses JSON-LD to add Schema.org information about your site search, your site name, your logo, images, articles, social profiles, and a lot more to your web pages. We ask if your site represents a person or an organization and adapt our structured data based on that. Also, our structured data content blocks for the WordPress block editor make it easy to add structured data to your FAQs and How-Tos. Check out the structured data features in Yoast SEO.
The Yoast SEO Schema structured data framework
Implementing structured data has always been challenging. Also, the results of most of those implementations often needed improvement. At Yoast, we set out to enhance the Schema output for millions of sites. For this, we built a Schema framework, which can be adapted and extended by anyone. We combined all those loose bits and pieces of structured data that appear on many sites, improved these, and put them in a graph. By interconnecting all these bits, we offer search engines all your connections on a silver platter.
See this video for more background on the schema graph.
Of course, there’s a lot more to it. We can also extend Yoast SEO output by adding specific Schema pieces, like how-tos or FAQs. We built structured data content blocks for use in the WordPress block editor. We’ve also enabled other WordPress plugins to integrate with our structured data framework, like Easy Digital Downloads, The Events Calendar, Seriously Simple Podcasting, and WP Recipe Maker, with more to come. Together, these help you remove barriers for search engines and users, as it has always been challenging to work with structured data.
Expanding your structured data implementation
A structured and focused approach is key to successful Schema.org markup on your website. Start by understanding Schema.org and how structured data can influence your site’s presence in search and beyond. Resources like Yoast’s developer portal offer useful insights into building flexible and future-proof markup.
Always use JSON-LD as recommended by Google, Bing, and Yoast. This format is easy to maintain and works well with modern websites. To maximize your implementation, use tools and frameworks that allow you to add, customize, and connect Schema.org data efficiently. Yoast SEO’s structured data framework, for example, enables seamless schema integration and extensibility across your site.
Validate your structured data regularly with tools like the Rich Results Test or Schema Markup Validator and monitor Google Search Console’s Enhancements reports for live feedback. Reviewing your markup helps you fix issues early and spot opportunities for richer results as search guidelines change. Periodically revisiting your strategy keeps your markup accurate and effective as new types and standards emerge.
Read up
By following the guidelines and adopting a comprehensive approach, you can successfully get structured data on your pages and enhance the effectiveness of your schema.org markup implementation for a robust SEO performance. Read the Yoast SEO Schema documentation to learn how Yoast SEO works with structured data, how you can extend it via an API, and how you can integrate it into your work.
Several WordPress plugins already integrate their structured data into the Yoast SEO graph
Structured data has become an essential part of building a visible, findable, and adaptable website. Using Schema.org and JSON-LD not only helps search engines understand your content but also sets your site up for better performance in new AI-driven features, rich results, and across platforms.
Start by focusing on the most important parts of your site, like business information, products, articles, or events, and grow your structured data as your needs evolve. Connected, well-maintained markup now prepares your site for search, AI, and whatever comes next in digital content.
Explore our documentation and training resources to learn more about best practices, advanced integrations, or how Yoast SEO can simplify structured data. Investing the time in good markup today will help your content stand out wherever people (or algorithms) find it.
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The message from this month’s SEO Update is clear: AI and data accuracy are reshaping how we plan, optimize, and measure SEO. This is not just a slate of updates, but a signal to rethink impressions, content creation, and tooling so you stay effective. Chris Scott, Yoast’s Senior Marketing Manager, hosted the session. Alex Moss and Carolyn Shelby shared deep dives on AI trends, Google updates, and Yoast product news.
Data and rankings in flux
A key shift centers on data. Google removed the num=100 parameter, which changed how much ranking data shows up per page in Google Search Console. The result isn’t a sudden performance drop; it’s a correction. Impressions can look lower because the data is being cleaned up, and that matters more than the raw numbers. Paid search data stays solid, since ads rely on precise counting for financial reasons.
AI content and media: use it, don’t rely on it
Sora 2 can generate short videos from text prompts, providing handy visuals to accompany blog posts. Use AI visuals to complement your core messaging, not to replace it. In e-commerce, Walmart, WooCommerce, and Shopify are testing AI-enabled shopping features. Don’t rush a full switch before major buying events.
Local SEO and engines beyond Google
Bing’s Business Manager now has a refreshed UI focused on local listings, signaling a push into local search. Diversifying beyond Google can reveal new AI-powered opportunities. It’s about testing where AI-driven search and shopping perform best, not moving budgets blindly.
AI mode and how people behave
Research into AI-dominant sessions shows a distinct pattern: users linger 50 to 80 seconds on AI-generated text, and clicks tend to be transactional. Intent patterns shift, too. Now, comparisons lead to review sites, decisive purchases land on product pages, and local tasks point to maps and assets.
Meta descriptions and AI generation
Google tested AI-generated descriptions for threads lacking meta content, but meta descriptions aren’t obsolete. Best practice is to lean on Yoast’s default meta templates (like %excerpt%) as a reliable fallback. Write with an inverted pyramid in mind, which puts key information first, so AI can extract it cleanly. Keep a fallback description in Yoast SEO so automation stays under your control.
AI in everyday workflows
ChatGPT updates push toward more human-to-human interactions, and tools like Slack can summarize threads and search discussions by meaning, not just keywords. Growth in AI usage feels steadier now; some younger users opt for other AI tools.
Insights from Microsoft and Google
The core rules haven’t changed: concise, unique, value-packed content wins. Shorter, focused writing works best for AI synthesis; trim fluff and sharpen clarity. The message is simple because clarity beats complexity, especially as AI becomes more central to how content is consumed.
Yoast product updates to watch
The Yoast SEO AI+ bundle adds AI Brand Insights to track mentions and citations in AI outputs, and pronoun support has been added to schema markup for inclusivity. If you’re tracking AI relevance beyond traditional signals, this bundle can be a smart addition.
http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png00http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-10-22 13:11:592025-10-22 13:11:59A recap of the October 2025 SEO Update by Yoast
Anchor text, which is also known as link text, is the visible, clickable text of a hyperlink. It usually appears in a different color and is often underlined. Good anchor text tells readers what to expect when they click and gives search engines valuable context about the linked page. Getting your anchor text right helps users navigate your content more easily, improves your internal link structure, and provides search engines with clues about your page relationships, which can positively influence your SEO.
Anchor text enhances user navigation and provides context for search engines, improving SEO outcomes.
Good anchor text clearly describes the linked content and avoids misleading or over-optimized phrases.
Different types of anchor text exist, each with specific use cases; mix them for variety and clarity.
Yoast SEO offers tools to analyze competing links and improve anchor text for better search engine ranking.
To enhance anchor text, ensure it matches the linked content, flows naturally, and clearly signals clickable links.
What does an anchor text look like?
Anchor text is the part of a link that describes the linked page. It guides both readers and search engines toward relevant information. For example, if we link to our post about keyword research tools, the phrase “keyword research tools” is the anchor text.
In HTML, it looks like this:
<a href="https://yoast.com/keyword-research-tools/">keyword research tools</a>
The first part is the URL, while the second, the visible text, is the anchor text. Ideally, the words you choose should naturally describe the content on the linked page.
Why are link/anchor texts important?
Links are vital for SEO. They show how your pages connect and help search engines understand your site structure. The anchor text in those links provides extra context.
When Google crawls your site, it uses link text as a clue to what each linked page is about. If multiple links all use the same focus keyphrase, Google might not know which page should rank highest for that topic, leading to competition between your own pages.
That’s why thoughtful, descriptive anchor text matters. It helps search engines interpret your site and helps readers decide whether a link is worth clicking. Over-optimized or misleading link text can confuse both.
Tip: Avoid using your main focus keyphrase in multiple anchor texts within one post, as it can create competing links. Your linking should always feel natural and avoid over-optimization.
An example of internal links with good anchor texts
Different kinds of anchor text
Anchor text applies to both internal and external links. External sites can link to your content in various ways, and each type sends a different signal to search engines:
Branded links: Use your brand name as anchor text (e.g., Yoast)
If Yoast SEO detects that one of your links contains your focus keyphrase or a synonym of it, then Premium users get a warning. The reason? You don’t want multiple pages trying to rank for the same phrase.
For example, say your focus keyphrase is potato chips. If you link to another page using that exact phrase, Yoast SEO will flag it as a competing link. You’ll see a notification in your SEO analysis, so you can adjust it before publishing. If you have Yoast SEO Premium or Yoast SEO for Shopify, the check will also look for the synonyms of your keyphrase.
The competing links check in Yoast SEO helps you improve your linking
How to improve your anchor link texts
If Yoast SEO alerts you about competing links, or if you simply want to improve the quality of your link text, here are some best practices to follow.
1. Create a natural flow
Your writing should feel effortless. If a link feels awkward or forced into a sentence, it probably doesn’t belong there. Always prioritize readability, as a smooth flow improves both engagement and SEO. For more advice on writing content that feels natural while still ranking well, read our SEO copywriting guide.
2. Match the link text to the linked content
Readers should immediately understand what to expect when they click on a link. For example, a link that says meta description should lead to a post explaining what a meta description is and how to optimize it. Clear, logical linking builds trust and helps users navigate your content with ease.
3. Don’t trick your readers
Never mislead readers with inaccurate or confusing link text. If your link text says, “potato chips,” it shouldn’t lead to a page about cars. Consistent and honest linking keeps readers engaged and signals quality to search engines.
4. Make it clear that the link is clickable
Use visual cues such as color contrast or underlining, so it’s easy to tell when text is a link. This not only improves usability but also helps people using assistive technology to navigate your content. To see more on writing accessible, well-structured posts, visit our blogging guide.
5. Bonus tip: put your entire keyphrase in quotes
When using long tail keyphrases, you might see a warning about links that include parts of your focus keyphrase. To avoid this, put your full keyphrase in quotes, for example, “learning how to knit.” This tells Yoast SEO to look for the entire phrase rather than matching individual words.
If you’d like to learn more about writing effective link text and improving your content for SEO, take our SEO copywriting course, which is included with Yoast SEO Premium.
Go Premium and get free access to our SEO courses!
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But internal links work best when you write good anchor text for them. Each link should serve a clear purpose and guide readers naturally to related topics. Avoid adding unnecessary or irrelevant links just for the sake of having more connections.
Thoughtful internal linking improves the user experience and helps search engines understand your site’s structure, which is essential for strong SEO performance.
This is anchor text
Anchor text remains a small but powerful element of SEO. It helps users decide whether to click, gives search engines valuable context, and supports a logical site structure.
Keep your anchor text relevant, natural, and transparent and avoid manipulative or over-optimized linking practices. Search engines are now smarter than ever at spotting unnatural links, especially in the era of AI and semantic understanding.
So stay genuine, link with intent, and use Yoast SEO to guide you along the way.
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