EDITS.WS

Category: yoast.com

  • The Eco-mode project: reducing the energy consumption of WordPress websites

    A few weeks back, CloudFest organized its yearly Hackathon and Yoast was proud to be a partner and sponsor for this edition. During this event, developers and other web professionals from around the globe came together to solve some real-world problems. While having lots of fun! Of course, we couldn’t sit back and just enjoy the show from afar. A few of us Yoasters also joined the event and participated in the eco-mode project, a project with the goal to have an impact on global internet energy consumption. And it was quite a success!

    What is the CloudFest Hackathon?

    CloudFest, the world’s top cloud computing conference, has returned to Germany in March 2023, and Yoast was thrilled to be part of the hackathon this year. The three-day event brought together 11 open-source projects and 120 attendees with the aim of creating innovative solutions to intriguing tech challenges in the OSS community.

    As a returning sponsor from last year, sadly not having been able to attend in person in 2022, we definitely wanted to get more involved in the event this time around. We sent not just one, but three representatives to join in on the fun and experience firsthand the positive vibes we had heard so much about from previous year’s attendees. Not only did we send Yoasters to attend the hackathon, but our very own Diede Exterkate and I (Leonidas Milosis) co-led one of the hackathon projects, the Eco-mode project. And let me tell you, it was an experience we won’t forget anytime soon!

    The Eco-mode project

    As the project’s description on the hackathon website states:

    Recurring outgoing HTTP requests in WordPress can be a source of needless energy and bandwidth usage that can be recalibrated and optimized.

    The Eco-mode project was born, prior to the hackathon, out of the intention to lower the total energy consumption of WordPress websites, by reducing the outgoing HTTP requests a website performs. The basic idea was that we wanted to investigate whether there are outgoing requests that WordPress sites perform that can be throttled without any functionality breaking.

    The long-term goal of all that would be to create a plugin that performs those recalibrations and if that got widely adopted (perhaps by turning into a canonical plugin), it would translate in a big number of prevented external requests, thus making a dent in the total energy consumption of the internet! Needless to say, as the days of the hackathon were getting closer, I was starting to get more and more excited, realizing that the project could actually make a difference. The responsibility of the task at hand started to get real, which brings us to the event.

    Timeline of the hackathon

    Day 1: Inspiring chaos

    The whole thing started with the lead of each project making a quick pitch, trying to persuade people to join their project. Our approach for the Eco-mode pitch was simple: We were looking for developers that cared about optimizing the performance of WordPress sites while also reducing their energy consumption. That’s an easy sell, right?

    Turns out, it was. We managed to assemble a great team, featuring Thierry Muller, Moritz Bappert, Zsolt Revay, Christoph Daum and Yoast’s Petar Ratkovic. Once the team gathered at the project’s table and we explained the task at hand, it was time to brainstorm. I would describe this first day as chaotic but in an inspiring way. At the end of the day, minimal code had been written but we had shared a couple of ideas and some routes each subgroup could try and follow the next day.

    Day 2: Time to get serious

    This was the time to see if we had any ideas that were actually worth pursuing. I’m not going to lie, at some point I had this nerve-wracking feeling that we were heading toward a dead-end. Every idea shared was proving to be either not doable or not impactful. But then, something weird happened. While we were about to abandon yet another idea for being too disruptive to WordPress’s normal flow, our collective brainstorming created a slight modification of that idea with a bit more sophisticated logic behind it. And that seemed to unlock us because, within an hour, we had 3 different subgroups working on different things with promising potentials.

    The team working on the Eco-mode project
    The team working on the Eco-mode project. Photo: René Lamb ©CloudFest

    After checking with the event’s mentors that our ideas were viable, we now had a clear goal in sight. Each subgroup had tasks and things were finally clicking. The only problem now was time running out. Luckily, in a hackathon setting, you mostly try to build something that proves an idea can work. You know how as a developer you always try to have pristine code, adhering to all sorts of best practices and conventions? Well, you can throw most of those requirements out of the window during a hackathon: “Build now, improve later” as they say. By the end of the day, we had most things ready, with only a couple of loose ends remaining.

    Day 3: The last day

    We had two hours to finish everything and prepare a presentation, which we did – although we did hand in our slides literally at the last minute. We were happy with our progress and decided to have the whole team on stage for the presentation. It was a proper team effort, after all! Once all projects presented their work, it was time for the award ceremony. To create friendly competition, Cloudfest had 6 awards including the #CFHack2023 Champion Award, the ultimate prize. Our experience in the hackathon would have been awesome even without winning anything, so our team wasn’t that stressed about the results. But to make things even better, our Eco-mode project won 3 awards! 

    • The Visionary Catalyst award
    • The Future of The Web award
    • The #CFHack2023 Champion award
    The Eco-mode project winning an award
    The Eco-Mode project team winning an award.

    Project’s progress and next steps

    To sum it up, in one weekend we managed to create a plugin that implements:

    • A couple of ways to automatically reduce a WordPress site’s external requests, thus decreasing its carbon footprint.
    • An API that website owners can use to reduce the site’s external requests even further, depending on each site’s needs and functionalities.
    • A draft of a dashboard where a user could later see estimations of saved requests and user controls for manual optimization.

    Although those implementations should and will be improved in order for the plugin to be considered production-level, this has been a great start to a project that can, if widely adopted, potentially affect global internet energy consumption considerably.

    So, what’s next?

    As for its next steps, a repo has been set up in GitHub, where a bunch of issues have been created to iterate on the plugin. Getting into technical details, on top of the existing tasks in the repo, we have to think about scalability issues and how best to solve them so the plugin can be installed on the high-traffic sites, where it matters most. Furthermore, we want to explore ways of both estimating and measuring the real impact and feed those results back into the optimization process to provide smarter heuristics.

    In general, if the project can properly communicate and sell the vision of a “carbon-aware” WordPress that saves on both carbon and bandwidth costs at the same time, this would be a major win for all of us. The plugin can be the first glimpse of those possibilities, but also even act as the discussion starter for getting both WordPress Core and the plugin ecosystem to be more conscious in their use of resources and improve their code to be more ecological even without the eco-mode plugin. 

    Our commitment to sustainability

    We, here at Yoast, care deeply about the environment and so, the project’s objectives deeply align with our values. That’s why we already included the project in the latest Yoast Contributor Day we organized, where the plugin got even further contributions and we hope to do the same in the future as well.

    But our commitment to sustainability runs deeper. We’re working towards a greener world, with our company culture and the products we offer. That’s why we’ve recently introduced a new feature in Yoast SEO that helps our users reduce their website’s carbon footprint. By using the crawl optimization settings you can prevent unnecessary crawling. This makes your site easier to crawl, costing less energy and increasing the chance that Google will crawl the right URLs. Less crawling reduces the strain on your website and the environment as a whole.

    Final thoughts

    All in all, this has been an absolutely thrilling experience, to say the least. Being able to meet interesting people from your line of work, while also working on a project that has the potential to make a dent in the environmental effects of WordPress, was truly unique. We hope this project will help WordPress users and eventually contribute to a greener web!

    Read more: Why you should care how green your website is »

    The post The Eco-mode project: reducing the energy consumption of WordPress websites appeared first on Yoast.

  • Saying goodbye to Marieke

    It is with mixed emotions that we say goodbye to Marieke van de Rakt, who has decided to leave Yoast. Everyone at Newfold Digital and Yoast will miss her dearly, and we want to thank her for all the wonderful things she has done over the years. She’s played a pivotal role in shaping the company’s vision, growth and success.

    Now, she has ambitious plans to help other organizations, to champion diversity and sustainability, and to continue to change the world for the better. So, let’s take a look at just a few of the things she’s accomplished in her time here.

    Marieke’s life at Yoast

    As you may know, Marieke has been a core part of Yoast since the beginning. She’s been instrumental in so many different areas of the company, and across so many roles, that it’s hard to summarize without leaving things out!

    She founded the Yoast SEO academy, championed a positive and inclusive company culture, driven our marketing and branding efforts, and led the company as CEO. We can’t understate how much of an impact she’s had on the company and the brand, and how much of a lasting effect that will continue to have.

    ​Yoast SEO academy

    In 2015, Marieke had a vision to empower others through knowledge, leading to her founding the Yoast SEO academy; a free source of accessible and reliable SEO education. Now, hundreds of thousands of people all around the world have completed courses, improved their SEO skills, and grown their audiences as a result.

    Championing a positive company culture

    Marieke always felt that it’s important for employees to enjoy their work, feel appreciated, and contribute meaningfully. Our core company values still reflect that, even as Yoast has grown and become a larger and more complex organization. She was often the person driving us forward and thinking ahead when it came to our culture, and has always been a strong advocate for a positive and inclusive company culture. She’s closed gender pay gaps, increased our diversity, and championed our people.

    The brand

    Yoast is one of the most well-known and loved brands in the industry, and Marieke’s influence can be felt here, too. She’s played a key part in defining and championing our look and feel, messaging, communication, and brand vision. That Yoast employees are universally recognized, respected, and influential all around the world is a level of status that she played a huge part in us creating and maintaining.

    Life as a CEO

    As the CEO, Marieke was responsible for the overall strategic direction, day-to-day management, and operational success of the company. With her vast understanding of the market, industry trends, users and community, she enabled Yoast to remain at the forefront of the competitive SEO landscape. Yoast’s successful acquisition by Newfold Digital in 2021 was completed under her purview.

    Marieke really has done a lot for Yoast over the years, and I would encourage you to have a look at our history of Yoast page to see the full extent of the legacy she is leaving behind. 

    Future for Marieke

    If you know Marieke, then you know that she will not be sitting still! She has many projects that she is looking forward to spending more time on. She’ll be investing in open source, sustainable and female-led companies through Emilia Capital, and helping organizations to address gender imbalances and workplace inequality with her Empowerwoment Project.

    We wish her the best of luck with these undertakings and will be cheering her on from the sidelines.

    The future of Yoast

    Yoast is still in an incredibly strong position, with a strong leadership team, product, and roadmap. Whilst we’ll be sad to see Marieke leaving, it’s a positive reflection on the stability of the company and brand that she’s able to do so safely and happily. Marieke has spent the last few months working with our teams, ensuring that her wisdom and vision is passed on successfully. She’ll be leaving her legacy and responsibilities in capable hands.

    We also have the full support of our parent organization, Newfold Digital, who’ll be helping us as we move into a new chapter at Yoast.

    The post Saying goodbye to Marieke appeared first on Yoast.

  • The first E in E-E-A-T, or the importance of Experience

    Google’s Search Quality Raters evaluate whether its search ranking systems provide helpful, relevant information. They evaluate the quality and relevance of search results produced by Google to help improve the algorithms and user experience. To do so, Google uses the E-E-A-T system, which stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. The E for experience is relatively new and helps assess content quality. This article will discuss the Experience factor and how it fits into the updated search quality rater guidelines.

    Table of contents

    Reminder: What is E-E-A-T?

    E-E-A-T is an acronym for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It’s a concept that Google introduced through its Search Quality Raters Guidelines (pdf file) to help evaluate the quality of websites and web pages and to judge how these should be ranked in search engine results pages (SERPs).

    Read our guide on what is E-E-A-T to get the lowdown, but here’s a quick breakdown of what each term means:

    • Experience: When evaluating the content, Google considers the writer’s first-hand or (life) experience relating to the topic.
    • Expertise: Refers to the level of knowledge and skill a content creator or website has in a particular area or subject matter.
    • Authoritativeness: Refers to how reputable and respected the content creator or website is within its niche or industry.
    • Trustworthiness: Refers to the overall reliability and integrity of the content creator or website. This includes aspects such as transparency, accuracy, and ethical behavior.

    Google considers E-E-A-T a critical factor in their ranking systems, especially for search queries related to health, finance, and other areas where the accuracy and trustworthiness of information are crucial — the so-called YMYL sites. This system is used to evaluate the content quality and who’s behind the content. Websites with high experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness are more likely to rank well in Google’s search results for these particular searches.

    What is YMYL?

    YMYL stands for “Your Money or Your Life” and refers to web pages or content that can impact a person’s physical, emotional, or financial well-being, and thus require a higher level of experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.

    What does Experience mean in E-E-A-T?

    Experience is now a part of Google’s Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness system for rating the quality and relevance of content on search engine results pages (SERPs). This move was announced in the latest version of Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines (QRG), released on December 15, 2022.

    Experience refers to knowledge or skill gained through exposure to a particular activity or event. It is the practical application of knowledge or skills gained over time. Experience can be gained through personal involvement or positive or negative observation. For example, someone who has worked in a particular field for many years has much experience.

    Google added Experience to assess results better, believing people want to read first-hand experiences when making important decisions. Pages related to Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) topics are most impacted by Experience. It is crucial to know when sharing experiences or leaving the information to experts is appropriate.

    What’s the difference between experience and expertise?

    Experience and expertise are terms often used interchangeably but have distinct meanings. Let’s take a closer look at the two.

    In Google’s words:

    “Experience: Consider the extent to which the content creator has the necessary first-hand or life experience for the topic. Many types of pages are trustworthy and achieve their purpose well when created by people with a wealth of personal experience. For example, which would you trust: a product review from someone who has personally used the product or a “review” by someone who has not?”

    Conversely, expertise refers to a high level of skill or knowledge in a particular subject or field. It results from a combination of education, training, and experience. Expertise is typically associated with a deep understanding of a particular subject or field that allows for the ability to make judgments, solve problems, and give advice.

    Again, in Google’s words:

    “Expertise: Consider the extent to which the content creator has the necessary knowledge or skill for the topic. Different topics require different levels and types of expertise to be trustworthy. For example, which would you trust: home electrical rewiring advice from a skilled electrician or from an antique homes enthusiast who has no knowledge of electrical wiring?”

    In summary, experience is knowledge or skill gained through exposure to a particular activity or event. At the same time, expertise is a high level of skill or knowledge in a particular subject or field.

    An example of experience vs. expertise in E-E-A-T

    Here’s an example, consider the case of a cancer survivor. As someone who lived with cancer, this person is well-equipped to offer advice on coping strategies and share insights that may benefit others facing similar challenges.

    However, it’s important to recognize that this person does not necessarily possess formal medical expertise in cancer treatment. While both a cancer survivor and a trained doctor may be capable of producing valuable content on the topic, the two will likely be evaluated differently based on their respective levels of experience and expertise.

    Experience and expertise are two concepts, but they can complement each other. Experience can lead to the development of expertise over time, but expertise requires more than just experience. Becoming an expert in a particular subject or field requires education, training, and experience. But remember that you don’t always need formal qualifications to showcase your industry-relevant experience in your content.

    Experience, expertise, and authoritativeness can have some overlap for certain types of web pages and topics. Depending on the purpose and topic of the page, different combinations of E-E-A may be more relevant, so it’s important to consider what would make the content creator reliable for that particular context.

    Who, how, and why?

    To ensure your content is aligned with what search engines reward, consider evaluating it based on the “Who, How, and Why” factors. “Who” refers to the creator of the content, and it’s crucial to make it clear to visitors who authored it. Adding bylines and providing background information about the author can help with this. “How” refers to how the content was produced, and sharing details about the production process, such as the number of products tested in a review, can build trust with readers. Finally, “Why” refers to the purpose of creating the content, which should primarily be to help people. If the primary purpose is to manipulate search rankings, this violates Google’s spam policies.

    Generative AI makes it harder to evaluate content

    With the rise of generative AI technologies such as ChatGPT, GPT-4, Bing Chat, and Google Bard, content creation has become more accessible. These technologies can generate human-like content with remarkable accuracy, making it challenging to distinguish generative AI content from content created by real people.

    However, while AI-generated content tools are faster and more efficient than people, they lack the experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness people can provide. These technologies do not possess the same empathy and personal connection that genuine authors can create within their content.

    Additionally, AI-generated content is less authentic, lacks originality, may contain errors or inconsistencies, and may lack inclusivity. This can negatively affect website owners, leading to a loss of credibility, and decreased organic traffic and sales.

    In February 2023, Google published a post to guide content creators on how it thinks about AI-generated content for Search. In it is this piece:

    “Our advice for creators considering AI-generation. As explained, however content is produced, those seeking success in Google Search should be looking to produce original, high-quality, people-first content demonstrating qualities E-E-A-T.

    Evaluating your content in this way, whether you’re using AI-generated content or not, will help you stay on course with what our systems seek to reward.

    Generative AI lacks these qualities — it isn’t an expert on a topic and doesn’t have (life) experience. You do! So please make the most of it and get or prove those E-E-A-T factors.

    More on this in Google’s guide to creating helpful content for readers.

    How to demonstrate experience in E-E-A-T

    In today’s content-driven world, demonstrating your experience is increasingly crucial. However, displaying it in a unique, compelling way can be challenging. Here are some tips to get you started.

    To effectively optimize for experience, you need to distinguish between expertise and experience in E-E-A-T, knowing when to showcase each. While expertise relates to your knowledge, experience is closely linked to your direct involvement with a particular subject. For example, if you’re seeking information on vascular surgery, you’ll turn to an authoritative source, such as a vascular surgeon at the Mayo Clinic. Conversely, if you’re struggling with weight issues, you might find reading about other people’s experiences helpful.

    Another way to optimize for experience is by sharing evidence of it. For example, describe your experience reviewing an ultralight-weight sleeping pad for multi-day mountain hikes. This could include details on how well the pad insulated against the cold, if it made crinkly sounds that woke up your partner in the tent, and how small it packed away in your backpack. Be transparent about how you or your writer have garnered your experience. You can describe your direct encounters with a product or service. You can create unique and helpful content that separates you by leveraging your expertise.

    Featuring insights from industry experts can also be an effective way to optimize for experience. This involves contacting other content creators or influencers for their input, adding credibility to your blog, and spotlighting your commentary.

    Finally, be honest about the experience and authoritativeness of your authors. Don’t forget to include author bios for yourself and other contributors. This demonstrates that you all have the experience and expertise to provide advice and optimize your content for experience, making it more appealing to readers and search engines.

    Build up your About Us and Author pages

    Your About Us and Author pages are some of the most important pages on your site. It’s where people expect to find information about who is behind this website. It’s a great place to share all those details in one easy-to-find location to show off your experience for E-E-A-T. Here are some things you can add to your About Us and Author pages to get you started.

    6 tips for authors and companies

    1. Highlight the knowledge and expertise of your team by sharing their qualifications, credentials, and experience, including resumes, bios and certifications, to showcase your site’s authority in your field. Display any industry memberships, awards, or other types of recognition to demonstrate credibility further.
    2. Showcase examples of past success and influence to build authority, including case studies, testimonials, publications, public speaking events, and conferences. Linking to high-quality external sites on relevant subjects and media mentions can boost your site’s credibility.
    3. Build trust with potential clients or customers by sharing your company’s story, values, and mission. Being transparent about your process and policies can also help visitors trust you more.
    4. Provide in-depth descriptions of your team members, services, and products to establish your site as a trustworthy source of information in your industry. Use testimonials and samples to showcase your unique selling proposition and differentiate your business from competitors.
    5. Keep your About Us page updated regularly to reflect any changes in your team, services, or company. Display your mission statement prominently on the page and share current news and updates to show that you are an active and engaged participant in your industry. Make sure this information is easily accessible and presented.

    6. Add structured data! Schema.org is a structured data markup vocabulary that helps you add extra information to your pages, helping search engines understand them. Adding structured data to your About Us page lets you communicate details about your business, its products and services, and your team. Yoast SEO automatically adds structured data. Yoast SEO Premium even has extended support for building up your author profiles. Structured data is a valuable tool to improve your About Us page content quality and help Google comprehend it better.
    Investopedia has in-depth author profiles where readers can validate the expertise and experience of the authors

    Share your experience for better E-E-A-T

    This article introduces the Experience part of E-E-A-T, while also describing the differences and similarities with Expertise. Both play a big role in determining if you are the right person to publish this content. Do you have what it takes to help people along their journey — especially in YMYL topics?

    E-E-A-T is an abstract concept with no score attached to it that you can improve for. You can do a lot to improve the quality of your content and your content producers, but there is no single thing to pinpoint as essential. Everything is important, and every bit helps.

    Read more: What is E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness)? »

    The post The first E in E-E-A-T, or the importance of Experience appeared first on Yoast.

  • What are breadcrumbs? Why are they important for SEO?

    Breadcrumbs are an essential part of almost every good website. These little navigational aids don’t just tell people where they are on your site, but they also help Google work out how your site is structured. That’s why adding these helpful little pointers makes a lot of sense. Let’s take a look at how breadcrumb navigation works.

    Table of contents

    What are breadcrumbs?

    A breadcrumb is a small text path, often located at the top of a page, indicating where the user is on the site. On yoast.com, the path to our Keyword research guide is Home > SEO blog > Content SEO > Keyword Research > Keyword research for SEO: the ultimate guide. This trail immediately shows you where you are. Every step of that path is clickable, returning to the homepage.

    breadcrumb path on yoast.com, with proper sections for tags and content
    An example of a breadcrumb path on Yoast.com

    But why is this navigational help called a breadcrumb? When Hansel and Gretel went into the woods, Hansel dropped pieces of bread onto the ground so they could find their way home if they got lost. These crumbs eventually became the model for the ones we see on websites.

    breadcrumbs in the google search results, showing the path for an article on yoast.com
    You can see the breadcrumb clearly in Google

    They also appear in Google search results, and you can take advantage of this if you use Yoast SEO or add the correct form of structured data to your site. Breadcrumbs in search results give users an easy-to-understand overview of where the page sits on your site.

    Yoast SEO automatically adds the necessary structured data — a BreadcrumbList — in JSON-LD format. Just flip the switch in the settings, and you’ll see the relevant lines appear in your source code — although, depending on your theme, you may need to add a small piece of code to your theme. Find out more about our breadcrumb structured data in our documentation. You can use the Yoast SEO breadcrumb block to add them to individual posts or pages quickly.

    Remember that Google uses the structured data on your site to understand its structure and contents fully. So Google uses breadcrumbs both for crawling and rich results.

    location of the Yoast breadcrumbs block in the WordPress block library
    You can find the Yoast breadcrumbs block in the WordPress block library

    Different types of breadcrumbs

    You may have noticed that there are different types of breadcrumbs. These are the three most common ones:

    Hierarchy-based breadcrumbs

    These are the most common, and it’s how we use them on our site. They tell you where you are in a site structure and how many steps it takes to return to the homepage. Something like Home > Blog > Category > Post name.

    Best Buy gives you a good idea of where you are in the store

    Attribute-based breadcrumbs

    Attribute-based breadcrumbs are seen most commonly when a user has searched on an e-commerce site. The trail comprises product attributes – for example, Home > Product category > Gender > Size > Color.

    Office Depot shows every selection in the breadcrumbs

    History-based breadcrumbs

    History-based breadcrumbs do precisely what they say on the tin; they are ordered according to what you have done on the site. Think of these as an alternative to your internet history bar, so you get something like this: Home > Previous page > Previous page > Previous page > Current page. It’s also possible to combine these as Macy’s does in the screenshot below.

    breadcrumbs history
    Some follow you around

    Advantages of using breadcrumbs

    There are several advantages to using these helpful little pointers on your site. Let’s take a quick look at them:

    1. Google loves them

    Your visitors like breadcrumbs, but Google does too. They give Google another way of figuring out what your website is about and how it’s structured. Google uses them as a way to crawl your content. But, as covered earlier, Google may also use them in the search results, making your results much more enticing to users. To increase the chances of your them appearing in Google, you need to add structured data like Yoast SEO. Google Search categorizes information from a web page in search results using proper markup within the page’s body.

    2. They enhance the user experience

    People hate being lost. When confronted with a new location, people often search for recognizable objects or landmarks – the same is true of websites. You need to keep visitors happy and reduce friction as much as possible. Breadcrumbs can help your user experience since they are a common interface element that instantly shows people a way out. You don’t need to click the back button!

    3. They lower bounce rates

    Hardly anyone enters a site via the homepage — It’s all about organic search. That means any part of your site could be an entry point. You must develop a way to guide these visitors to other parts of your site if the selected page doesn’t meet their needs. Breadcrumbs can lower bounce rates because you offer visitors an alternative way to browse your site. Don’t you think sending visitors to your homepage is better than returning to Google?

    How to add breadcrumbs

    There are several ways of adding breadcrumbs to your site. Firstly, if you use WordPress, you can use one of the many plugins or Yoast SEO. If you use a different CMS, the process will be different. It is also possible to add them to your code by hand. If you also want them to appear in Google results, you need to use structured data in a way that Google understands. You can find more information on this in Google’s developer documentation. For SEO, Google doesn’t care where you add them — as long as you add them if that makes sense. Visitors will prefer them in a logical spot, though.

    Yoast SEO has breadcrumb support built-in

    Yoast SEO offers an easy way to add breadcrumbs to your WordPress site. It will add everything necessary to prepare them for your site, not just for Google. Some themes come with support for Yoast SEO breadcrumbs baked in. In that case, you only have to activate them and set them up how you like. In case your theme doesn’t support our breadcrumbs yet, you need to add the following piece of code to your theme where you want them to appear:

    <?php
if ( function_exists('yoast_breadcrumb') ) {
  yoast_breadcrumb( '</p><p id="breadcrumbs">','</p><p>' );
}
?>

    This code can often be placed inside the single.php or page.php files just above the page’s title. Some themes want it at the end of the header.php file. It’s not a good idea to add it to functions.php since this could cause problems.

    After adding the code, you can go to the advanced settings of Yoast SEO and switch on breadcrumb support. You can also control how their structure will look and what prefixes will be used. Find out more in our document on implementing breadcrumbs with Yoast SEO.

    shows the location of the Breadcrumbs settings in Yoast SEO
    You can find the settings for breadcrumbs in Yoast SEO > Advanced > Breadcrumbs

    Breadcrumbs with a WordPress block

    You can use the Yoast SEO breadcrumb block to add breadcrumbs to individual posts and pages using the block editor. This is helpful if you don’t want to touch code or if you only want to add to a specific page. Adding them is incredibly easy — hit the big + icon to add a block. Then, find the Yoast SEO breadcrumbs block by entering the name in the search bar or scrolling down to the Yoast section. Alternatively, you can type /yoast breadcrumbs in an empty paragraph.

    A breadcrumb path added via the Yoast SEO breadcrumb block

    Conclusion

    Despite using breadcrumbs, Hansel and Gretel still got lost in the woods. Don’t let that happen to your visitors! Breadcrumbs provide an easy-to-grasp way for visitors to navigate your site, and they instantly understand how your site structure works. Google loves them for the same reason. So use Yoast SEO to add them to your site easily.

    Read more: Site structure: the ultimate guide »

    The post What are breadcrumbs? Why are they important for SEO? appeared first on Yoast.

  • How to stop videos negatively impacting Core Web Vitals

    Embedded videos are an increasingly important part of websites. And it’s easy to see why. They add an engaging and interactive layer to all manner of page types. But there is one problem: video files are big. Particularly on lower bandwidth mobile connections, they can be very slow to load.

    This can be a problem from a user-experience standpoint, especially if the video is critical for the display of the page (such as with an auto-playing background video). But it can also be a challenge for SEO. Having too many big videos on a page can negatively impact your Core Web Vitals, particularly Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) & Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). Let’s dive deeper into these two topics, and what you can do to fix it.

    Largest Contentful Paint

    If your page includes an inline embedded video, then that video is part of the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP). What does that mean? It means the video is a critical part of the page experience, both from an algorithmic and user standpoint. If your LCP time is too slow (for example, when it depends on the execution of a large amount of JavaScript), then you might receive a failed Core Web Vitals assessment in Google Search Console. Which looks like this:

    Google likes to see pages load up within 2.5 seconds on a mobile 3g connection. That’s definitely a challenge if HD video files are critical to your page experience.

    Cumulative Layout Shift

    If videos are the last to load on your page, they can cause issues with Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). How? By forcing blocks of text or images to move around on the page as the video is loaded.

    To mitigate this, you either need to ensure your videos load with the HTML – but this may block rendering elsewhere – or ensure the frame in which the video will appear loads even before the file asset itself.

    Fix with placeholders

    The way to fix these issues isn’t to remove videos from your website! Instead, you should be smart about how JavaScript and media files are loaded. With video, this means using thumbnail image placeholders – small image files that load in advance. They can act as a trigger for the video to be played when clicked.

    If you use these thumbnails, then the Largest Contentful Paint is complete. Even without executing the JavaScript associated with video players! In addition, you have solved the Cumulative Layout Shift almost instantly.

    The solution: Yoast Video SEO plugin

    The Yoast Video SEO plugin has a number of benefits for improving your site speed and health. For example, loading thumbnail placeholders! Rather than loading each video file as soon as a page request is made, the Yoast Video SEO Plugin loads up a placeholder image in advance of the videos. While the user views the page, the plugin loads the videos in the background. The result? When a visitor clicks on the play button, your videos are ready.

    The placeholder images are also small and quick to load, which means the Largest Contentful Paint can be built out very swiftly. Plus, there’s no danger of a late Cumulative Layout Shift occurring due to a slow-loading video file. In other words: the Yoast Video SEO for WordPress plugin is an easy way to ensure your videos don’t negatively impact your Core Web Vitals!

    The post How to stop videos negatively impacting Core Web Vitals appeared first on Yoast.

  • Yoast SEO 20.5: Improvements and security fixes

    We just released Yoast SEO 20.5, which has many enhancements and (security) fixes! Our team has been working hard to implement these changes to enhance your experience and help make your SEO journey smoother. In this post, we’ll tell you all about the latest release.

    Improvements in Yoast SEO 20.5

    One of the main enhancements in this release is the updated Google SERP preview. We’ve updated our mobile and desktop snippet previews to align with Google’s current styling. This is important because you can now check how enticing your snippets look. It also helps you to see if you’ve optimized them properly for the current Google search results pages.

    The updated preview mirrors Google’s current design again

    We’ve updated our database indexing system. This could contain orphaned items due to posts, terms, or users being deleted while Yoast SEO was deactivated. Every time a plugin is activated, we run a cleanup action. This helps to ensure the database table is as clean and efficient as possible.

    We’ve also improved the recognition of keyphrases starting with a period, such as “.net developer,” in the keyphrase in title assessment. This ensures that Yoast SEO can accurately read and assess your content, even when punctuation marks are involved.

    We’ve addressed several bugs in this release. One of those led to a fatal error when upgrading Yoast SEO while also having Local SEO active. We’ve also improved how we tidy up our database records when users are deleted. We’ve also dropped compatibility with outdated PHP versions, ensuring you use the most up-to-date and secure software for your website.

    Finally, we’ve made some modifications to the first-time configuration to highlight the availability of a free webinar to get the most out of Yoast SEO. This webinar is there to help new Yoast SEO users find their way around the plugin and get started on their SEO journey. They’ll have the chance to watch a dedicated walk through video and have a live Q&A session with some of our experts!

    Security fixes

    In Yoast SEO 20.5, we’ve also improved the security of our plugins. This update addresses several security vulnerabilities identified and reported by the WordPress security service Patchstack and our security/development team. We take security very seriously and are committed to ensuring our products are secure for all users.

    With this update, we have addressed and fixed these issues. We recommend that all users update their plugins to this latest version as soon as possible to stay protected from any potential security threats.

    Big thanks to Patchstack for promptly identifying and reporting this issue. We also thank our senior developers, Paolo Scala, Leonidas Milosis, and Enrico Battocchi, for finding and resolving these issues. Our users’ security is our top priority, and we will continue working tirelessly to ensure our product remains safe and secure.

    We strive to be comprehensive in our security measures, and we acknowledge that we sometimes might miss some issues. This is where we rely on you, our users and the security community to assist us by reporting any security concerns found to us directly. We have a security program with guidelines for submission and rewards for cooperation. We encourage everyone to help us uphold the integrity of our products and keep our community secure.

    Yoast SEO 20.5: Update now!

    Yoast SEO 20.5 is available today. In this release, we made several improvements and brought our Google to the latest UX changes from the SERPs. We’ve also fixed some security-related issues to make the plugin more secure.

    That’s it for this release. Happy updating!

    The post Yoast SEO 20.5: Improvements and security fixes appeared first on Yoast.

  • Why you should care how green your website is

    If you own a website or are thinking of creating one, you should be mindful about your ecological footprint. Because the tech industry plays a big role in the current climate crisis. With its data centers, large manufacturing operations, and huge amounts of e-waste, it’s accountable for nearly 4% of global CO2 emissions. Which, shockingly enough, is similar to the travel industry. And this number is only growing! So, what can you do to make your website greener?

    The tech industry’s bad environmental footprint

    Nowadays, everyone owns at least one digital device. Most of us own many. And the number continues to rise. According to Cisco’s Annual Internet Report, we will own 29.3 billion networked devices in 2023, which is a ridiculous amount of products that need to be manufactured.

    And the factories needed to produce our devices don’t just negatively impact the environment because of their gas emissions. Factors such as land degradation, biodiversity loss, and water consumption also play a role. For example, the industry uses 12,760 liters of water (which is 3,190 gallons) to produce just one smartphone.

    The rise of data centers

    The story only gets bleaker when we look at data centers. Because the more digital devices we use, the higher our global data traffic will be. In order to keep up with this traffic, new data centers are being built and expanded every year. And though they currently only consume 1% of the world’s electricity, it’s expected that data centers will consume about 20% in 2025. Which isn’t all that strange, if you consider that there are currently 8000 data centers in the world.

    It’s time to take action

    Climate change is a serious threat. If we don’t want our world to become uninhabitable in a few years, we should take action. Luckily, there are multiple things you can do to improve your website’s carbon footprint. Before you get started, it’s good to check how green your website is now. You can use an online carbon footprint calculator, like Website Carbon Calculator. 

    Save energy by blocking bad bots

    This is a big one. As we mentioned before, bots also spend energy as they crawl your site. And they crawl your site many times a day, and often when there is no need. So many, in fact, that bots make up around 30% of the daily internet traffic!

    That’s why you should identify unnecessary bots and block them from your site, so when they request your server, your server won’t answer. You’ll be saving energy. You can block bad bots by blocking the individual or entire range of IPs where the unusual traffic comes from. Or you can use a bot management solution like Cloudflare. 

    Reduce bot traffic

    What about the bots you don’t want to block? It is still useful to reduce their traffic. For example, on any given day, Google crawlers can visit the Yoast website 10,000 times. During these visits, they only crawl 4,500 unique URLs, meaning that a lot of energy gets wasted on crawling duplicate URLs. 

    And it’s not just Google bots that are visiting us. There are bots from other search engines, digital services, commercial bots, etc. And we don’t want to waste that much energy! That’s why we created the crawl optimization feature, which removes unnecessary URLs, feeds, and assets from your WordPress site. This helps bots crawl your site more efficiently and reduce their visits. In other words: You’re saving energy! 

    Green host, green website

    You can also take control over your website’s carbon footprint by choosing the right hosting provider. Because 48% of the total energy that’s used by the internet (and your website) is used in a data center. So if you choose a hosting provider that actively purchases renewable energy for their data centers, you’ll have far lower carbon emissions. 

    Don’t be like GameSpot

    With all these steps to make your website greener, it’s a surprise that many large companies still have ‘dirty’ sites. Take GameSpot for example, which is a news site about video games. GameSpot produced the most CO2 per visit last year. They also ranked second-to-last for the energy they produce per year, which is more than 550,000 grams of CO2. Meaning: It would take 26 trees an entire year to compensate for the carbon emitted by the GameSpot website. 

    GameSpot homepage

    Example of a green site

    Now that we’ve discussed the ‘dirtiest’ site, let’s look at the cleanest and greenest: Google. They only produce 5,480 grams per year. Which isn’t surprising when you consider their net-zero target in 2030. Google’s sustainability efforts range from machine learning to help cool data centers to smart thermostats that conserve home energy. And with their eco-routing in Google Maps, which gives users the route with the lowest carbon footprint, Google has reduced greenhouse gas emissions by more than 500,000 metric tons. Which is the equivalent of getting 100,000 fuel-burning cars off the road.  

    Google homepage

    Final thoughts: Start now!

    Our advice? Start now. Because the longer it takes to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions, the more damage we’re doing to our environment. That’s why Yoast introduced the crawl optimization feature. Because we also want to contribute to Google’s net-zero goal. So use our plugin to make your website greener, and do whatever else you can, no matter how small. Because small actions can have a big impact.

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  • WordPress 6.2: A new site editing experience

    It’s here, WordPress 6.2 has been released and with this update comes loads of stuff for you to enjoy! Staying true to the format, this release is named after jazz musician Eric Allan Dolphy Jr. WordPress 6.2 “Dolphy” comes with an updated site editor that gives you more control over what your website and pages look like. But there’s also a focus on performance, with this being the first WordPress release that had a performance lead! And lots of other enhancements, like fixes for accessibility issues, PHP8 compatibility and more. Read all about it, right here!

    The site editor

    WordPress 6.2 comes with lots of new features and improvements to the block editor. Updates to the interface, a better overview of the possibilities and improved blocks. It’s all there for you to discover and take the next step in website editing. And a fun fact, with this WordPress release, the site editor is now officially out of beta! Meaning that the site editor is now more stable than ever.

    A new interface for the site editor

    The site editor has an updated interface which gives you more control over your site editing experience. It allows you to navigate through your templates and template parts and edit parts of your site in one place. It’s also possible to add a new template or template part by clicking the plus icon next to Templates. This new interface gives you an overview of the templates (for example your 404-page, search results page and archive pages) and template parts (for example your footer or header) to edit.

    Site editor interface in WordPress 6.2
    The site editor interface in WordPress 6.2

    You can find the site editor by going to Appearance in the sidebar and clicking on Editor below that. It’s good to know that the site editor is only available on websites that use a block theme. So if you don’t see the option Editor, you might be using a theme that doesn’t support the site editor.

    A smoother experience for the block inserter

    WordPress 6.2 comes with a renewed block inserter, which you can access by clicking the blue plus icon at the top of any page or post you’re editing. The new look feels simpler and we mean that in a good way. You can now use the block inserter to add blocks, patterns and media directly to your content. You can just drag and drop the image of your choice into the page. The block inserter also gives you a preview of the blocks, patterns, or images while keeping the categories in your view. This makes it easier to weigh your options and access the content that you’re looking for.

    Another new feature that’s part of the renewed block inserter is the option to add media from OpenVerse. OpenVerse is an extensive media library with over 600 million free, openly licensed images and audio. This can help you find a suitable image (or audio fragment) and import it directly into the page.

    Block inserter interface in WordPress 6.2
    Inserting an image with the block inserter

    WordPress 6.2 comes with a Style Book

    This new version of WordPress comes with a Style Book, which gives you a complete overview of how every block in your site’s library looks. Just click on the Styles icon at the top of your page (next to your Publish/Update button and the Settings icon) and select the style book icon which will show up below that. This makes it easy to change the appearance of the blocks you’re using on your page, for example, the styling of your headings or paragraphs. Having all of this in one place makes it easier to edit all these elements and keep your styling consistent.

    The new Style Book in WordPress 6.2
    The new Style Book in WordPress 6.2

    Add a sticky block to your page

    It’s now possible to keep a block fixed to the top of the page as a site visitor scrolls down your page. Right now, this only works for top-level group blocks. To try it out, simply add a group block to your page or post and you should be able to see the Position tab in the block settings. Select ‘Sticky’ instead of default and this block will become sticky and will stay at the top of the viewport at all times. Kind of cool, right?

    An improved navigation block

    The navigation block was already available in the block editor but has become a bit easier to use with this latest release. It allows you to add, remove and edit the separate items in your menu in the block settings of your navigation block. You can also drag and drop the menu items to change the order in which they’re shown. You can choose to show an existing menu or create a new one right there (select the menu of your choice by clicking the three dots in the block settings). What’s also cool is that it’s possible to add ‘Search’ to your menu, which adds a search function to your navigation block. There are also other elements you can add, just click the plus icon in the block settings and give it a try!

    The introduction of Block Settings and Styles tabs

    The options that are being added to Block Settings sidebar keep growing and growing. Which is great, as it gives us more control over the blocks we use on a page. But it was becoming a bit crowded. That’s why WordPress 6.2 is introducing Block Settings and Styles tabs. When a block is selected, the sidebar will show you two tabs, one for the more general settings and one for styles. The latter will show you all the options you have to change the appearance of your block. This will help keep the sidebar more organized and help users understand where they need to be to make changes to the block.

    Distraction free mode

    The name says it all, this feature helps you work on your page or post with no distractions around. Or at least, any distraction that WordPress can remove for you. Click on the three dots at the top right corner of your page (next to Publish/Update and settings) and select Distraction free to give it a try. This hides all the toolbars that you normally see when you’re working on a page in WordPress. Bringing you some more peace and quiet to focus on your content. If you want to exit the distraction-free mode, just move your mouse to the top of your page and the three dots will appear again (together with your Publish/Update and settings button). This allows you to disable this mode by clicking Distraction free again.

    Pro-tip: we also recommend activating Fullscreen mode (which hides your admin UI) for an even cleaner and less distracting screen.

    distraction free mode in WordPress 6.2
    Go to Options in the top right corner to activate Distraction free mode

    Performance improvements

    The performance of your website is essential nowadays. That’s why this update also comes with many performance improvements, visible in the benchmarks for both Web Vitals and Server Timing metrics. The WordPress 6.2 field guide also tells us that performance is further improved for block themes with around 20% faster TTFB (time to first byte, a metric for determining the responsiveness of a web server) and around 14% faster LCP (how long it takes for the largest piece of content to appear on the screen). On pages with hero images, the LCP improvements are even greater at around 19%.

    Also good to know: This was the very first WordPress release with a performance lead appointed! The performance lead with this release was Felix Arntz. With a performance lead joining the release team, we can safely assume that performance will continue to be an important part of future WordPress releases.

    Under the hood

    In addition to performance improvements, there’s a lot of other stuff that’s been worked on which is a little less visible. Let’s dive into a few highlights and show you what’s going on under the hood of WordPress 6.2.

    Improved PHP8 compatibility

    WordPress aims to support new versions of PHP as much as possible. This means that WordPress Core contributors try to identify any potential compatibility issues and work to prevent these as much as they can. This release isn’t any different. Significant effort has been put toward making WordPress compatible with PHP8 and reducing the risk of WordPress users running into any problems.

    Accessibility improvements

    We also want to mention that this release of WordPress also comes with a lot of fixes for accessibility bugs and regressions. To give an example, one of the improvements that are part of this release is the realization of more consistent accessibility behavior across different browsers. It might seem like small stuff, but every improvement we make in regard to accessibility is another step towards a web that is accessible for everyone. With no exceptions.

    Google fonts in default themes

    Default WordPress themes will offer better privacy with Google Fonts now locally included. Beforehand, these fonts were loaded from a remote source (Google Fonts). The themes Twenty Twelve through to Twenty Seventeen now include font files in the theme folder. This update ensures that the themes follow current recommendations for fonts from a privacy perspective, making them GDPR-compliant.

    Faster plugin & theme updates

    A long, long time ago, WordPress 2.5 introduced copy_dir() for copying a directory from one location to another. However, this method took up a lot of memory, disk space, time and file operations. Which is not ideal at all. Thanks to the introduction of a move_dir function in this release, you will now be able to save time and disk space.

    Update to WordPress 6.2

    Those were the most important features in the latest release of WordPress, but that doesn’t mean we covered everything. We would recommend updating to this latest version of WordPress and trying it out for yourself! Let us know what you think about all the changes to the block editor in the comments below. We can’t wait to hear about your experiences!

    Read more: The WordPress block editor: Why you should be using it »

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  • Yoast SEO reduces your site’s carbon footprint with crawl optimization

    Today, we’re very excited to be releasing Yoast SEO 20.4. With this release, we’re bringing our crawl optimization feature to Yoast SEO Free. With this feature, you can improve your SEO and reduce your carbon footprint with just a few clicks. This blog post will tell you about this feature and why we’ve brought it to Yoast SEO.

    Before we explain this Yoast SEO feature, it’s good to start with a quick reminder of what crawling is. Search engines like Google or Bing use crawlers, also known as bots, to find your website, read it and save its content to their index. They go around the internet 24/7 to ensure the content saved in its index is as up-to-date as possible. Depending on the number of changes you make on your website and how important search engines deem your site, the crawler comes around more or less often.

    That’s nice, but did you know crawlers do an incredible amount of unnecessary crawling?

    Let’s reduce unnecessary crawling

    As you can imagine, search engine crawlers don’t just visit your website but every single one they can find. The incredible number of websites out there keeps them quite busy. In fact, bots are responsible for around 30% of all web traffic. This uses lots of electricity, and a lot of that crawling isn’t necessary at all. This is where our crawl optimization feature comes in. With just a few simple changes, you can tell search engines like Google which pages or website elements they can skip — making it easier to visit the right pages on your website while reducing the energy wasted on unnecessary bot traffic.

    The carbon footprint of your website

    You might be wondering why we want to help you reduce the energy consumption of your website. Does it make that much of a difference? The answer is yes! Regardless of the size of your website, the fact is that your website has a carbon footprint. Internet usage and digital technology are two massive players in pollution and energy consumption.

    Every interaction on your website results in electricity being used. For instance, when someone visits your website, their browser needs to make an HTTP request to your server, and that server needs to return the necessary information. On the other side, the browser also needs the power to process data and present the page to the visitor. The energy needed to complete these requests might be small, but it adds up when you consider all the interactions on your website. Similar to when a visitor lands on your site, crawlers or bots also make these requests to your server that cost energy. Considering the amount of bot traffic (30% of web traffic), reducing the number of irrelevant pages and other resources crawled by search engines is worth it.

    Take control of what’s being crawled

    The crawl optimization feature in Yoast SEO lets you turn off crawling for certain types of URLs, scripts, and metadata that WordPress automatically adds. This makes it possible to improve your SEO and reduce your carbon footprint with just a few clicks.

    Check out this fun animation to get an idea of what this feature can do for your website:

    The crawl optimization feature was already part of Yoast SEO Premium, but today we’re also bringing it to the free version of our plugin. We do this to make as much of an impact as possible. There are over 13 million Yoast SEO users, so if everyone’s website crawling is optimized, we can have an enormous impact!

    How to use the crawl optimization feature

    How do you get started with crawl optimization for your website? Just go to Yoast SEO > Settings > Advanced > Crawl optimization. Here you will find an overview of all the types of metadata, content formats, etc., that you can tell search engines not to crawl. You can use the toggles on the right to enable crawl optimization.

    screenshot of crawl optimization settings in Yoast SEO
    Screenshot of the Crawl optimization section in Yoast SEO settings

    The crawl optimization settings in Yoast SEO 20.4 allow you to:

    • Remove unwanted metadata: WordPress adds a lot of links and content to your site’s and HTTP headers. For most websites, you can safely disable these, making your site faster and more efficient.
    • Disable unwanted content formats: For every post, page, and category on your site, WordPress creates multiple types of feeds; content formats designed to be consumed by crawlers and machines. But most of these are outdated, and many websites won’t need to support them. Disable the formats you’re not actively using to improve your site’s efficiency.
    • Remove unused resources: WordPress loads countless resources, some of which your site might not need. Removing these can speed up your site and save energy if you’re not using them.
    • Internal site search cleanup: Your internal site search can create many confusing URLs for search engines and can even be used by SEO spammers to attack your site. This feature identifies some common spam patterns and stops them in their tracks. Most sites will benefit from experimenting with these optimizations, even if your theme doesn’t have a search feature.
    • Advanced: URL cleanup: Users and search engines may often request your URLs using query parameters, like ?color=red. These can help track, filter, and power advanced functionality – but they come at a performance and SEO ‘cost.’ Sites that don’t rely on URL parameters might benefit from these options. Important note: These are expert features, so ensure you know what you’re doing before removing the parameters.

    Would you like to know more about using this feature and the separate toggles? Check out the help documentation on the Yoast SEO crawl optimization settings.

    Update to Yoast SEO 20.4 now

    That’s it for now. Make sure to update to Yoast SEO 20.4 and optimize your website’s crawling immediately! It’s not only better for your website, your site visitors, and search engines. It also has a positive impact on our environment. Especially when you realize how many we are, if all 13 million of us optimize the crawling on our website, we can reduce the amount of energy used by a ridiculous amount. So let’s start right now!

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  • 404 Not Found error pages: the do’s and don’ts

    A “404 error” page is an essential part of any website. It informs your users the page they requested had been moved or changed. Do you need to pay attention to your 404 page and give it some love? Absolutely yes! In this post, we’ll go through the dos and don’ts of a 404 page and help you get more value out of it.

    What is a 404 page, and why do we need it?

     A 404 page, also known as an “error page”, or “page not found” page, is the content your visitors see when they land on a page that doesn’t exist.

    The number 404 is the status response code for that page. The 404 response indicates that your visitor’s browser could communicate with your web server, but the server could not find what was requested.

    There are many reasons why a requested page can’t be found. It may be that:

    • The page was deleted.
    • There are typos in the URL.
    • The permalink structure has changed.
    • The domain name was changed.

    Whatever the reasons, remember that it’s probably your fault and not your users’ fault. So keep that in mind and create content based on that assumption.

    It’s worth noting that, sometimes certain pages need to go down temporarily. In that case, it’s much better to serve a 503 Service Unavailable message than serve a 404 error not found.

    What to include on your 404 page (the Dos)

    When users click on a link, they expect to land on a page that answers their questions or gives them the necessary information. For whatever reason, the page they land on returns a 404 message. In that case, what should they do next? 

    If you don’t help your users take the next step after they land on a 404 page, they might still browse your site for information. But nothing is stopping them from leaving and browsing other websites. In that case, you’re not providing users with what they need while losing traffic to your competition.

    A better way to utilize your 404 page is to help users navigate to other useful pages on your site. There are many ways to go about that. For instance, you could:

    • Include a search bar so users can quickly search for other information.
    • Include a button that takes users to the homepage.
    • Include links to other important/popular sections on your website.
    • Include links to popular product or category pages.
    • Guide them to read your popular or most recent blog posts.

    As for the error message, make it perfectly clear that you can’t find the requested page. A simple “We may have deleted or moved this page” should be fine.

    Examples of nice 404 pages

    Below are examples of good 404 pages. These pages provide extra value — or enjoyment! — to visitors by including options to help them navigate the website, whether via the search bar, shop page links, or popular blog posts.

    Ebay.com’s 404 page
    Lego’s 404 page is still awesome
    Our own 404 page

    The value of your 404 page

    Many marketers and website owners don’t see the value in the 404 page, which shouldn’t be the case. If you have a website, you want to keep your visitors on your site. You want them to engage with your content, browse other pages or check out your offers. But if they land on an error page with nothing to point them in the right direction, they’ll most likely turn back and leave.

    That’s why you need to help visitors navigate your site when they land on a 404 page. By doing so, your 404 page may help to:

    • Reduce bounce rate and keep people on your site longer;
    • Engage your visitors with other content or offers on your site;
    • Make it easier for visitors to navigate your site;
    • Maintain a consistent branding experience while building up your brand image.

    Content management systems like WordPress or your web server include a default 404 error message page. But these default pages are ugly and very bare bone. There’s nothing there besides the error message, not even traces of your branding. That’s why you need to customize your 404 page, which can be easily done via plugins if you’re a beginner. A quick search on WordPress.org gives you many options.

    The default 404 page that WordPress creates

    What not to do on a 404 page (the Don’ts)

    Many websites do a 301 redirect from a 404 page to the homepage, which is not a good practice. What you’re doing is putting people on a train they did not choose themselves. Why send them to London if they want to go to Paris? If a visitor wants to find a particular page on your website, please give them that page or an explanation of why you can’t.

    Being funny is a good thing. But when it comes to a 404 page, we would instead create an actual page that’s helpful to users instead of a funny one that provides no value. Fun is great, and it could fit well with your brand image. But you need to make it work. Please don’t put a picture of a giraffe licking the screen and think your visitor will like your website regardless of not finding what they want. Help them get back on track. Or point them to your homepage to start over again (but don’t redirect them!).

    Another thing we strongly suggest against is not customizing your 404 page at all. As mentioned above, the default 404 page that WordPress or your web server includes is lackluster. It doesn’t provide any extra value to your visitors. That’s not what you want! So make sure your website has a custom 404 page, and make sure it helps visitors navigate your site somehow.

    Examples of 404 pages that can be better

    Below are examples of 404 pages we think can do better, whether by including a search bar, links to popular pages or categories, or just a better copy for the “error not found” message itself.

    IMDB’s 404 page
    South Park’s 404 page

    404 pages and impact on SEO

    It’s worth noting that having some 404 errors on a website is not necessarily a cause for concern. It’s common for websites to have broken links or pages that are removed or renamed over time. Google also said that having some 404 pages doesn’t hurt your overall website ranking. However, if a significant portion of your web pages returns 404 errors, this could indicate more significant structural issues that may affect SEO.

    You can closely monitor your 404 pages by using tools such as Google Search Console or Screaming Frog. Make sure to monitor and fix 404 errors regularly. That helps ensure your website is properly crawled and indexed by Google and may help improve your overall SEO performance.

    It’s also essential to ensure that any internal links to a missing page are updated to point to relevant content on your site. Doing so ensures that your users and search engines are directed to the most relevant pages. It also prevents them from encountering additional 404 errors.

    Why do you think your 404 Not Found page is great?

    Or perhaps you have some great examples, good or bad. We’d love to see these, so please drop a link in the comments!

    Read more: Website maintenance: 404 error pages »

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