Google Refreshes Guidelines for Site Owners

If you’ve had a website for any time, you’ve heard of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. These guidelines give site owners the do’s and don’ts for getting those much-desired search engine rankings.

In my experience, these guidelines boiled down to three common sense areas:

First, have a website that is zippy and error-free.
Don’t spam or stuff keywords.
Utilize well-known best practices.

If Only Search Rankings Were that Easy

The latest reiteration of webmaster guidelines, now officially known as Google Search Essentials, clarifies some murky areas and gets specific in others. I have been working on websites for decades, so many of these topics were standard and customary things we did and double-checked from a developer’s perspective.

However, for DIYers and some not well-versed in these areas, all the variables you must consider could seem overwhelming. Remember, there are no guarantees—even if you meet every bit and byte of Google’s requirements.

Just because a page meets these requirements doesn’t mean that a page will be indexed; indexing isn’t guaranteed.
Google

Knowing this, here’s what you need to know to concentrate on.

Technicalities

Make sure your website is error-free and secure. Test it on several browsers and environments (PC, Tablet, Mobile). You also want to ensure that Google bot is not blocked and that your website is indexable.

Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam

If you are considering doing anything to manipulate rankings, just don’t do it. This includes:

Cloaking — in other words, search engines see one thing, and you provide another.
Doorway pages exist primarily to impact rankings, not cater to site visitors.
You are hacked because you didn’t take security seriously enough.
Hiding text and links.
Stuffing keywords.
Selling, exchanging, requiring links.
Generated or scraped content.
Malware or unwanted software.
Sneaky redirects.
Thin content or affiliate pages exist only for links or ads.
Deception and fraud of any kind.

Site owners should create websites with high-quality content and useful functionality that benefits users.
Google Spam Policies

Key Best Practices

We’re back to the basics. Most of these practices haven’t changed much over the years. So here are the Essentials from the horse’s mouth:

Create helpful, reliable, people-first content.
Use words that people would use to find your content, and place those words in prominent locations on the page, such as the title and main heading, and other descriptive locations, such as alt text and link text.
Make your links crawlable so that Google can find other pages via the links on your page.
Tell people about your site. Be active in communities where you can tell like-minded people about the services and products you mention on your site.
If you have other content, such as images, videos, structured data, and JavaScript, ensure you’re following those specific best practices so that we can also understand those parts of your page.
Enhance your site’s appearance on Google Search by enabling features that make sense for your site.
If you have content that shouldn’t be found in search results or want to opt-out entirely, use the appropriate method to control how your content appears in Google Search.

My POV and #1 Piece of Advice

I’m not a fan of Google. For as long as I can remember, I’ve advised my clients not to rely solely on organic (free) rankings as part of their business model. But I do agree with this statement:

Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content.
Google

That’s where SEO comes in.

Having a contemporary professional website that meets the basics and is continually updated is essential. Rankings in 2025 are challenging to attain—if at all. You must take a multi-pronged approach, including design, content, and social media brand building.

Nothing happens online by osmosis. Even if you follow every single “requirement, ” you can’t rely on search engines’ good graces to be a success.

I’ve got a library of articles with tips and guides to help you be as successful as you choose to be — start with the five below or tap into them at your convenience.

At your service,