Heymer and Zander (1992) concluded that the Yellow Mediterranean Goby, called Gobius luteus by Miller and El-Tawil (1974), is the ‘true’ G. auratus Risso, 1810 and designated a neotype. The species supposed to be G. auratus by Miller and El-Tawil (1974) was designated as an undescribed species and the new name G. xanthocephalus was applied after the investigation of abundant populations of both forms at Banyuls-sur-Mer, France (Heymer and Zander 1992). Herler et al. (2005) redescribed G. auratus Risso, 1810 to extend the morphological characteristics of the species to cover also the northern Adriatic population. Two colour morphs are described: pure yellow colour morph 1 from the Mediterranean and central Adriatic and yellow dotted colour morph 2 from the northern Adriatic.

This nearshore species is common and abundant and somewhat widely distributed in the northern Mediterranean Sea. There are no known major threats; therefore, it is listed as Least Concern.

This species is endemic to the Mediterranean Sea (Kovačić et al. 2014) and has a fragmented distribution from Port-Cros Island, France east to Antalya, Türkiye including western Corsica from Scandola Nature Reserve south to Campomoro, the Tremiti Archipelago, the northern Adriatic Sea, and the Aegean Sea (Renoult et al. 2022). It is unclear whether discontinuities in its distribution are a result of missing habitat requirements or a lack of exploration (Renoult et al. 2022). Records from the Atlantic Ocean and Spain in the Mediterranean Sea should likely be attributed to Gobius xanthocephalus (Renoult et al. 2022). The depth range is 8-80 m, though it most often occurs deeper than 20 m (Renoult et al. 2022).

This species is generally uncommon, but can be locally common (Renoult et al. 2022). The largest collected sample of this species included 54 specimens collected in the Kvarner area, the north Adriatic Sea, Croatia (Herler et al. 2005). Despite the low total number of known records of the species, and the low number of collected specimens in these records, from the studies on abundance in the Adriatic Sea, it could be concluded that the species is probably abundant and common in its typical habitat (Bilecenoglu 2002).

Two studies on the abundance of this species have been performed for the north and south Adriatic Sea. Herler and Patzner (2005) studied its frequency and abundance of using visual counts in the northern Adriatic Sea, where it attained its highest abundance at depths below 8 metres and at substrate inclinations between 30 and 90°. The species attained its highest values at the western coast of Cres, where it reached a maximum of 1.5 individuals per m² over entire transects but up to 3.0 individuals per m² in certain transect sections (Herler and Patzner 2005). At Krk, the maximum abundance over entire transects was only 0.3 individuals per m² (Herler and Patzner 2005). Bussoti and Guidetti (2005) found much lower values of average density for this species, at 25-30 m depth three to six individuals per 100 m², and at 12-15 m depth, one individual per 100 m².

This species inhabits hard substrata, with adults most frequently occurring at 25-30 m depth over coralligenous assemblages consisting of bryozoans, cnidarians, and red encrusting algae (Renoult et al. 2022). Juveniles can be found inhabiting shallower water (12-15 m) over erect macroalgae (Renoult et al. 2022). In Croatia, adults are very common from 5-10 m (J. Vukić and R. Šanda pers. comm. 2024). It has two distinct morphotypes; a "dotted" morph that occurs in the northern Adriatic Sea, and a "plain-coloured" morph that occurs throughout the rest of its range (Renoult et al. 2022). The transition zone for these two morphotypes is believed to exist near the Zadar region of Croatia (Renoult et al. 2022). The maximum total length is 9 cm (Renoult et al. 2022).

There are no known major threats.

This species is not utilized.

There are no species-specific conservation measures.