HTTP/3 has no direct impact on SEO despite its speed, says Google.
Google Search Consultant John Mueller refutes the theory that HTTP/3 speed can directly affect a website’s SEO.
This topic is addressed during the November 2022 edition of Google’s SEO-hours Q&A session.
Joining Google’s Research Relations team, Muller answered the following question:
Can using HTTP/3 improve SEO because it improves performance?
HTTP/3 offers performance advantages over HTTP/2 and HTTP/3. However, getting the job done is unlikely to make a difference in terms of SEO.
Mueller On The SEO Impact Of HTTP/3
Mueller began his response by saying that Google does not use HTTP/3 as a standard or in crawling the web:
“Google doesn’t use HTTP/3 as a ranking standard right now. As far as I know, we don’t use it for crawling either.”
Google primarily uses HTTP/1 to crawl the web. Googlebot supports HTTP/2 but only uses it if there is a clear advantage over HTTP/1.
HTTP/3 support is probably a long way off. Websites that choose to adopt it early won’t see an immediate improvement in search rankings, Mueller explained:
“In terms of performance, I think that the benefits that users see from using HTTP / 3 will not be enough to influence the importance of the main features of the website, which is the measure that we use in the evaluation of the experience of the site. While making a fast server is always a good idea, I doubt you will see a direct connection with SEO just using HTTP/3. Just as you would be hard pressed to find a direct connection to use a type of RAM speed in your server.”
Mueller gave a similar answer when asked about HTTP/3 in December 2021.
However, he suggested HTTP/3 could “potentially indirectly” affect the very core of the web.
I don’t think we’re crawling with http/3 but that doesn’t mean you won’t see a positive impact on users (and with that, potentially the core web content indirectly too).
— John Mueller is mostly gone 🐀 (@JohnMu) December 6, 2021
Mueller is confident now that there is no impact.
Hear his response in the video below:
Credit: SteafPong88/Shutterstock
Matt G. Southern
Senior Writer at Search Engine Journal
Matt G. Southern, Senior Editor, has been with Search Engine Research since 2013. With a bachelor’s degree in communications, …
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