What the scanner never scores

Each row is a claim that circulates widely and is contradicted, dismissed or unsupported by the primary record. The scanner must never emit a fail for these, under any configuration, and must never recommend them. One carve-out: heading levels are scored by SEO-HDG-02 strictly as HTML Standard conformance (C3), and its reason must never connect heading order to Google. When the report touches one of these topics, it uses the stated verdict. A house convention that overlaps a myth (for example, a title-length hint) may exist only as a -HC info item, and its text must quote the source below.

The verdicts are deliberately narrow. Contradicted means the source says the opposite. Not supported means no reviewed source establishes the claim, which is a different thing from the claim being false. Overstated and context dependent mark claims with a kernel of documented truth stretched past what the source says. The scanner treats every row the same way: never a failure, never a recommendation.

Contradicted14Not supported8Contradicted (Google)2Not established1Overstated2Context dependent1

The claims

• Titles must be about 60 characters

  Contradicted

  "While there's no limit on how long a <title> element can be, the title link is truncated in Google Search results as needed"

  Source: [G-TITLE]

• Meta descriptions must be about 155 to 160 characters

  Contradicted

  "There's no limit on how long a meta description can be"

  Source: [G-SNIPPET]

• A missing meta description is an error

  Not supported

  Snippets "are primarily created from the page content itself"; the scanner reports a missing description as an opportunity (SEO-META-02C), never as a failure

  Source: [G-SNIPPET]

• Every page needs exactly one H1

  Not supported

  Google: heading order doesn't matter for Search; the HTML Standard allows several top-level headings

  Source: [G-STARTER], [WHATWG-SECTIONS]

• Heading order affects Google rankings

  Contradicted

  "from Google Search perspective, it doesn't matter if you're using them out of order."

  Source: [G-STARTER]

• The meta keywords tag helps

  Contradicted

  "Google Search doesn't use the keywords meta tag."

  Source: [G-STARTER]

• Keyword density should be a set percentage

  Not supported

  No figure is published; keyword stuffing violates spam policies

  Source: [G-SPAM]

• Pages need a minimum word count; longer content ranks better

  Contradicted

  "The length of the content alone doesn't matter for ranking purposes"; on a preferred word count: "(No, we don't.)"

  Source: [G-STARTER], [G-HELPFUL]

• Schema markup boosts rankings

  Not supported

  Structured data enables, but does not guarantee, rich results

  Source: [G-SD-POLICIES]

• Special markup or files are needed for AI search

  Contradicted (Google)

  "there's no special schema.org markup you need to add"

  Source: [G-AI-OPT]

• llms.txt is required for AI visibility

  Contradicted (Google)

  Google Search ignores llms.txt; it "will neither harm nor help"

  Source: [G-AI-OPT]

• Sitemap priority and changefreq matter

  Contradicted

  Google ignores both; Bing says they "do not influence how your content is crawled or ranked"

  Source: [G-SITEMAP-BUILD], [B-SITEMAP-2025]

• A sitemap improves rankings

  Not supported

  Sitemaps help discovery and do not guarantee crawling or indexing

  Source: [G-SITEMAP-OVERVIEW]

• Submitting or listing a URL guarantees indexing

  Contradicted

  Google does not guarantee it will crawl, index or serve a page, even one that follows Search Essentials

  Source: [G-HOW-SEARCH-WORKS], [G-URL-INSPECTION]

• A perfect PageSpeed score is needed

  Contradicted

  Good tool results don't guarantee top ranking; chasing a perfect score for SEO "may not be the best use of your time"

  Source: [G-PAGE-EXP]

• HTTPS gives a direct ranking boost

  Not established

  A "very lightweight signal" in 2014; the current page experience documentation says aspects beyond Core Web Vitals "don't directly help" ranking

  Source: [G-HTTPS-2014], [G-PAGE-EXP]

• Duplicate content triggers a penalty

  Contradicted

  Ordinary duplication is "not a violation of Google's spam policies"

  Source: [G-CANONICALIZATION]

• nofollow links are never crawled

  Overstated

  Such links "will generally not be followed"; linked pages may still be crawled by other paths

  Source: [G-QUALIFY]

• Linking out to authoritative sites boosts rankings

  Not supported

  External links "can help establish trustworthiness (for example, citing your sources)"; no ranking gain is documented

  Source: [G-LINKS]

• E-E-A-T is a ranking factor

  Contradicted

  "E-E-A-T itself isn't a specific ranking factor"

  Source: [G-HELPFUL]

• AI-generated content is automatically penalized

  Context dependent

  Scaled content abuse applies "no matter how it's created"; using AI is not itself a violation

  Source: [G-SPAM], [G-HELPFUL]

• A .com outranks other TLDs

  Contradicted

  TLD impact on Google performance: "No."

  Source: [G-SITE-POSITION-FAQ]

• Keywords in the domain or URL rank pages

  Overstated

  Keywords in the domain or path "alone have hardly any effect beyond appearing in breadcrumbs"

  Source: [G-STARTER]

• Blocking GPTBot removes a site from ChatGPT search

  Contradicted

  OAI-SearchBot governs ChatGPT search; "Each setting is independent of the others"

  Source: [OPENAI-BOTS]

• Blocking Google-Extended removes a site from Google Search

  Contradicted

  Google-Extended "does not impact a site's inclusion in Google Search nor is it used as a ranking signal"

  Source: [G-CRAWLERS]

• Bounce rate or analytics data are ranking factors

  Not supported

  No reviewed Google document names them

  Source: [G-GA-SC]

• Buying ads improves organic rankings

  Contradicted

  Participation in an advertising program "doesn't positively or negatively affect inclusion or ranking"

  Source: [G-SITE-POSITION-FAQ]

• Third-party "authority" scores are engine metrics

  Not supported

  No engine publishes such scores; they are vendor constructs

  Source: (absence in all registered sources)

Retired search features

Markup for a feature Google has retired is never a failure either. The report notes it as information so an owner can decide whether to keep maintaining it.