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Google's John Mueller & Other Googlers Working On New Year's Day 2026

Jan 1, 2026 - 7:47 am 0 — by Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz / Executive Editor

Barry Schwartz is the CEO of RustyBrick and a technologist, a New York Web service firm specializing in customized online technology that helps companies decrease costs and increase sales. Barry is also the founder of the Search Engine Roundtable and the News Editor of Search Engine Land . He is well known & respected for his expertise in the search marketing industry. He only provides consulting services to expert SEOs and also performs search marketing expert witness or on LinkedIn and read his full bio over here . 37,828 Articles as barry.schwartz Filed Under Google

Just like with Christmas day every year, so to with New Year's Day - Google's John Mueller and often other Googlers, are out and looking to respond to some questions on Google Search and SEO. John Mueller so far posted a few times on Reddit this morning, January 1, 2026. Plus, Fabrice Canel from Microsoft Bing later in the day was offering some support.

One individual, John Mueller, has been doing this every New Year for like 18 years now. John Mueller from Google has a tradition of helping webmasters both on New Years and Christmas. He did new years 2025 , 2024 , 2023 , 2022 , 2021 , 2020 , the 2019 also, and has done it year after year prior to that. He did it Christmas too in 2025 , 2024 , 2023 , 2022 , then in 2021 , 2020 , 2019 , 2018 , 2017 , 2016 , 2015 , 2014 , 2013 , 2012 , 2011 , 2010, 2009 , 2008 , and 2007 .

Where did he post so far today?

In a Reddit thread named Large number of 404s in GSC. Redirect to homepage or return real 404/410? John provided a super detailed response - he wrote:

Taking a step back, I think this is one of those situations where it doesn't really directly matter for SEO (hence the various opinions), but it does have a strong usability effect. Even with a 1-page website, people will reach your site with invalid URLs - the bigger & more popular the site, the more often it will happen. Do you want to help those users to find the gems within your site, or do you want to shoo them away? They wanted to come to your site for something, you just need to help them find it. Having a great 404 page at least makes it a possibility.

As to why does it not really matter for SEO? Here's my thinking:

* 404: URL doesn't get indexed; it's an invalid URL, so this is fine. Just to be clear: 404s/410s are not a negative quality signal. It's how the web is supposed to work.

* 410: It's a 404, essentially.

* Homepage redirect: URL doesn't get indexed. Maybe it stays soft-404 & gets crawled (not great, not terrible).

* Category redirect: URL doesn't get indexed. Potentially a short-term support for the category page, but still confusing to users. (If you do this, at least display something on the page explaining how they got there.) Longer-term soft-404.

* 200 with 404 page content: definitely soft-404.

He also posted a short reply on a Reddit thread named Evil SEO tricks , he wrote, "This feels like every Monday."

Another Reddit thread named Does extensive Schema markup actually help Large Language Models (LLMs) understand your entity better, or is it just for Google Rich Snippets?

This question will stick with us for the next year and longer, and the short answer is yes, no, and it depends (speaking from my POV, this is not official guidance, nor can I speak for anyone other than myself of course).

Some features thrive with structured data (to which I also count structured feeds). Pricing, shipping, availability for shopping is basically impossible to read in high fidelity & accurately from a text page, for example. Of course the details will change though - which is why it's important to use a system that makes it easy to adapt.

Other features could theoretically be understood from a page's text, but it's just so much easier for machines to read machine-readable data instead of trying to understand your page (which might be in English, or in Welsh, or ... pick any of the 7000+ languages). Some visual elements rely on specific structured data; if you want it, then follow the instructions. These will vary across surfaces / companies, and will definitely change over time. If you wait, "that type" will be deprecated right after you implement it, so make it easy to get it added when it makes sense for your site.

And other structured data types, well, there's a lot of wishful thinking. Always has been, and will continue to be. Your "best geo insurance comparison site" isn't going to rank better by adding insurance markup.

And a few more on Reddit where he wished folks a good new years .

He also posted on Bluesky:

Happy new year, Yordan!

— John Mueller ( ) January 1, 2026 at 7:34 AM

I am sure there is more to come from both John and representatives at Google and Bing.

Forum discussion at Reddit .

Update: Rajan Patel, Google's VP of Engineering of Search is up early working too:

Thanks Barry. Looking into it. Happy new year!

January 1, 2026

Martin Splitt:

Let's see what this year has in store.

— Martin Splitt ( ) January 1, 2026 at 8:51 AM

Alright. I am thinking of restructuring and rewriting the JavaScript SEO documentation to be more geared towards an SEO audience. I'm just not sure what that needs to be like 🤔

— Martin Splitt ( ) January 1, 2026 at 10:36 AM

Fabrice Canel from Bing:

Thanks ! I was able to reproduce this and have shared it for review. Best is to use the feedback link at the bottom of the search results page and left‑click the area you’d like to comment on. We appreciate all feedback; it really helps us improve. We review all.

January 1, 2026

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