Search Off the Record

As 2024 comes to a close, we're reflecting on what SEO things happened this year. Listen along as we chat about what we learned from going to events, the importance of understanding how AI works, and whether everything will be replaced with JavaScript. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr088-transcript Encoding + Googlebot → https://goo.gle/4iZEKXO Listen to more Search Off the Record → https://goo.gle/sotr-yt Subscribe to Google Search Channel → https://goo.gle/SearchCentral Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.

In this episode of Search Off the Record, John and Martin talk to Allan Scott from the Google Search team that handles duplicate content. They explore how Google Search deals with duplicated content, clustering, and canonicalization. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr087-transcript Listen to more Search Off the Record → https://goo.gle/sotr-yt Subscribe to Google Search Channel → https://goo.gle/SearchCentral Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team. #SOTRpodcast #SEO Speakers: Allan Scott, John Mueller, Martin Splitt Products Mentioned: Search Console - General

In this episode of Search Off the Record, Lizzi and John are joined by Rio Ichikawa, a product manager working on UX, CRO, and SEO, to discuss the intersection of SEO and UX. They explore how user experience impacts SEO, emphasizing the shared goals of attracting and converting users. Tune in for a discussion on common UX mistakes - like carousels - and how heatmaps can be a valuable tool for understanding user behavior and optimizing web pages for better engagement and conversion rates. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr086-transcript Rio on X/Twitter → https://goo.gle/4eAOjJz Rio on LinkedIn → https://goo.gle/3OnaHuY Listen to more Search Off the Record → https://goo.gle/sotr-yt Subscribe to Google Search Channel → https://goo.gle/SearchCentral Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.

Sometimes talking to your users is the best way to figure out why that pesky bounce rate is high. But how do you actually do that, especially if you're on a budget? In this episode of Search Off the Record, we're learning all about user experience research (UXR) and how getting a better understanding of how your users interact with your website can help when you're looking for ways to improve it. Tune in as Iva Barisic Hafner, a user experience researcher on the Google Shopping team, explains how to use UXR methods to get to the bottom of the "why" behind user behavior. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr085-transcript Nielsen Norman Group → https://goo.gle/3YI3xrq List of UXR methods → https://goo.gle/40sI6Ma Iva on LinkedIn → https://goo.gle/3A7Te6E Listen to more Search Off the Record → https://goo.gle/sotr-yt Subscribe to Google Search Channel → https://goo.gle/SearchCentral Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.

What does recursion, Weather Frog, and Momo the Magic Cat have in common? In this episode of SOTR, Lizzi and John go behind the scenes of a Google Doodle with Jessica Yu, the lead for Doodles and delight on Google Search, about designing experiences that resonate with your audience. Listen along as we learn more about what's involved in getting an easter egg into Google Search, from hatching the idea to designing (and deploying) the experience and measuring success. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr084-transcript Jessica Yu on LinkedIn → https://goo.gle/3BKgSq1 Momo's first appearance → https://goo.gle/3UbGgeC Submitting an idea for the Google Doodle → https://goo.gle/3A04stC AVIF is now supported by Google → https://goo.gle/3NrwhhK Listen to more Search Off the Record → https://goo.gle/sotr-yt Subscribe to Google Search Channel → https://goo.gle/SearchCentral Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.

In this episode of Search Off the Record, Ben Walton and David Yule from the Google Search Site Reliability Team (SRE) walk us through their day to day work, which surprisingly is not just about putting out fires! Learn what Search SREs really do, how they handle incidents that occasionally occur, and what it takes to be an SRE for Google Search. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr083 SRE handbook → https://goo.gle/3XSbVUF David on LinkedIn → https://goo.gle/3XQKavR Ben on LinkedIn → https://goo.gle/4ewAkEX Listen to more Search Off the Record → https://goo.gle/sotr-yt Subscribe to Google Search Channel → https://goo.gle/SearchCentral Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.

It's been a few months since you hired an SEO; how can you tell if things are headed in the right direction? In this episode of Search Off the Record, Lizzi and John interview Erika Varangouli, head of Branded Content at Riverside.fm, about all things hiring and working with SEOs. Just because uplift isn't happening doesn't mean they're not doing work; we walk through practical things to check throughout the process, such as how things are prioritized, is there regular reporting, and proactive communication around things that don't go as planned. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr082-transcript John's initial LinkedIn Post → https://goo.gle/3XNOqfI Erika Varangouli on LinkedIn → https://goo.gle/3ZukgiH Erika on X → https://goo.gle/3XXGBUR Do I Need an SEO? → https://goo.gle/4dabZUb SEO Starter Guide → https://goo.gle/42alrmy Listen to more Search Off the Record → https://goo.gle/sotr-yt Subscribe to Google Search Channel → https://goo.gle/SearchCentral Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.

In this episode of Search Off the Record, Irina Tuduce from the shopping team joins John Mueller and Lizzi Sassman to chat all things shopping data, from schema.org to feeds spec. Listen along as we chat about how shopping infrastructure gets its data, why pricing data can be tricky, and what the Shopping team has been working on this year. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr081-transcript Irina Tuduce on LinkedIn → https://goo.gle/3Xuiywf Product structured data → https://goo.gle/4eaPJus Feed spec in Merchant Center → https://goo.gle/3Tdl2MU How to set up Merchant Center account → https://goo.gle/4gcSPjq Merchant-level organization markup → https://goo.gle/47fvmd2 Schema.org community on GitHub → https://goo.gle/4e7A6E3 Variants in Google Search → https://goo.gle/4dU4BOc Merchant Listings report in Search Console → https://goo.gle/47hlNuu Listen to more Search Off the Record → https://goo.gle/sotr-yt Subscribe to Google Search Channel → https://goo.gle/SearchCentral Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.

We sat down with Mihai Aperghis, a Google Product Expert (PE) for Search, when he visited the Zurich office for the PE Summit this year. In this episode we talk about how he started his SEO agency, the tools he built, and his role as a Product Expert in the Search Central Help Community. Mihai explains how he built tooling to get data from Search Console into Google Sheets and how he automated this process as well as what features he'd like to see coming to the Search Console API. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr080-transcript Mihai on X → https://goo.gle/4dUzL7I Mihai's tools → https://goo.gle/4dW3yNj Mihai's recap of the PE Summit → https://goo.gle/4cAKhQ4 Search Central Help Community → https://goo.gle/4dUzOAq Intro to Search Console API → https://goo.gle/3AzkJ8P

In this episode of SOTR, John Mueller, Lizzi Sassman, and Gary Illyes talk about misconceptions around crawl frequency and site quality, what's challenging about crawling the web nowadays, and how search engines could crawl more efficiently. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr079-transcript Gary's post on LinkedIn → https://goo.gle/3YAT55q Crawling episode with Dave Smart → https://goo.gle/3WShUsf If-Modified-Since → https://goo.gle/3ywXvja About the IETF → https://goo.gle/3SGVVlo Robots Exclusion Protocol → https://goo.gle/4dgmBSg Proposal for new kind of chunked transfer → https://goo.gle/3AgMF1c Listen to more Search Off the Record → https://goo.gle/sotr-yt Subscribe to Google Search Channel → https://goo.gle/SearchCentral Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team. #SOTRpodcast

Managing websites that use different languages and serve different countries is no easy task. That's why Lizzi, Gary and Martin sat down to talk about all things internationalization, hreflang and what's making managing international, multi-language websites easier. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr078-transcript Docs for international and multilingual sites → https://goo.gle/3WtolAL How x-default can help you → https://goo.gle/3Y8AdKB Web Almanac hreflang usage in 2022 → https://goo.gle/4bKX2Hv Hreflang tags generator by Aleyda Solis → https://goo.gle/4bVRVEI Merkle Hreflang testing tool → https://goo.gle/3WaWbKj Hreflang Builder → https://goo.gle/4cW8fGi Listen to more Search Off the Record → https://goo.gle/sotr-yt Subscribe to Google Search Channel → https://goo.gle/SearchCentral Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team. #SOTRpodcast

In this episode, Zoe Clifford from the rendering team joins Martin and John from Search Relations to talk about how Google Search deals with JavaScript sites, how rendering works and what the mysterious "iteratorect" was. They also discuss what's the DOM, if all pages get rendered, how long it takes and what website owners should look out for when building JavaScript-driven websites. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr077-transcript JavaScript SEO basics → https://goo.gle/3W0XnjB Fixing search-related JavaScript issues → https://goo.gle/3S2bMdY Google I/O 2019 presentation → https://goo.gle/4bCdZ6M Listen to more Search Off the Record → https://goo.gle/sotr-yt Subscribe to Google Search Channel → https://goo.gle/SearchCentral Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team. #SOTRpodcast

In this episode of SOTR, Lizzi and John sit down with Elizabeth Tucker to go behind the scenes of Search Quality product management. Listen along as they discuss using data science to measure quality and make improvements, how search behavior is changing over time, and how to think about E-E-A-T and the Search Quality Rater Guidelines. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr076-transcript BERT paper → https://goo.gle/3XroKpe E-E-A-T for site owners → https://goo.gle/4c5E0fQ Search Quality Rater Guidelines → https://goo.gle/3z07OvN Improving Search with Rigorous Testing → https://goo.gle/45x7OQ0 Day in a life of a Search Quality Product Manager → https://goo.gle/3z087GX Meet Data Scientists at Google → https://goo.gle/3xzZ67c Listen to more Search Off the Record → https://goo.gle/sotr-yt Subscribe to Google Search Channel → https://goo.gle/SearchCentral Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team. #SOTRpodcast

How does Google address incidents that affect Search results, like indexing problems or crawling issues? Join John, Lizzi, and Gary in this episode of Search off the Record as the team discusses internal processes Google uses to detect, investigate, and communicate these incidents to users and website owners. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr075-transcript Google Search Status Dashboard → https://goo.gle/3Vcs9pi Lifecycle of an issue → https://goo.gle/3KsgjCe SRE Playbook's chapter on troubleshooting → https://goo.gle/3V9NPCj Listen to more Search Off the Record → https://goo.gle/sotr-yt Subscribe to Google Search Channel → https://goo.gle/SearchCentral Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team. #SOTRpodcast Speaker: John Mueller, Lizzi Sassman, Gary Illyes Products Mentioned: Search Console - General

In this episode of Search off the Record, John and Lizzi invite Michael Chidzey and “Jo” Juliana Turnbull to talk all things SEO Office Hours. Listen along as they discuss why they picked this format, whether community building has an impact on SEO, and how you can get involved in this growing community of SEO practitioners. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr074-transcript Join the next Good Signals SEO Office Hours → https://goo.gle/4avilfM Good Signals SEO Office Hours announcements on LinkedIn → https://goo.gle/450vo7F Jo Juliana Turnbull on LinkedIn → https://goo.gle/4bISYbP Jo Juliana Turnbull on X → https://goo.gle/44V8xKF Mike Chidzey on LinkedIn → https://goo.gle/4dSJg7Q Submit a question for Google SEO Office hours → https://goo.gle/3K93A7A Watch more Search Off the Record → https://goo.gle/sotr-yt Subscribe to Google Search Central Channel → https://goo.gle/SearchCentral Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team. #SOTRpodcast Speaker: John Mueller, Lizzi Sassman, Michael Chidzey, Juliana Turnbull Products Mentioned: Search Console - General

What's the best way to handle outdated content? Does old content affect SEO? In this episode of Search Off the Record, Lizzi Sassman and John Mueller discuss the importance of addressing old content and updating it to continue being useful to users today. Listen along as Lizzi and John discuss content decay’s effect on Google Search results and practical steps to tackle it. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr073-transcript Crypto redirects → https://goo.gle/4dq7Ywe Outdated blog post on traffic drops → https://goo.gle/3y8UNQd Mobile-Testing Tool blog post → https://goo.gle/4bsCJ1Q Structured Data Tool landing page → https://goo.gle/4bvZ8Lw Watch more Search Off the Record → https://goo.gle/sotr-yt Subscribe to Google Search Central Channel → https://goo.gle/SearchCentral Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.

In this episode of Search Off the Record, Gary Illyes, Lizzi Sassman, and John Mueller put Large Language Models (LLMs) to the test and compete to create the best social post using generative AI. Listen along as they weigh the pros and cons, assess how accurate the posts are, stumble on some owl facts, and see how Google’s own GenAI tool, Gemini, can be used as a creativity tool. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr072-transcript SEO Starter Guide → https://goo.gle/42alrmy rel=prev/next isn't a signal → https://goo.gle/4aIWz8F Managing Multi-Regional Sites → https://goo.gle/3J3u5e9 Bubble chart analysis → https://goo.gle/49q9VW8 Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team. #SOTRpodcast

In this episode of Search Off the Record, John Mueller and Lizzi Sassman are joined by Rick Viscomi from the Chrome Web Performance team to discuss the importance of understanding what users seek to accomplish and optimizing accordingly, rather than focusing solely on metric scores. Listen along as the Search team touches on metrics like Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), and the latest Interaction to Next Paint (INP) as pieces of the pie for a better user experience. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr071-transcript Introducing INP to Core Web Vitals → https://goo.gle/4ar2UW6 Page Experience & Google Search → https://goo.gle/49cEWgm Rick on X (formerly Twitter)→ https://goo.gle/3PCe4ze Core Web Vitals on Stack Overflow → https://goo.gle/4awMqvw Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team. #SOTRpodcast Speaker: John Mueller, Lizzi Sassman, Rick Viscomi, Products Mentioned: Search Off The Record,

In this episode of Search Off the Record, Gary Illyes and Lizzi Sassman take a deep dive into crawling the web: what is a web crawler, and how does it really work? Listen along as the Search team is joined by an expert web developer in the SEO community, Dave Smart, for an in-depth and technical discussion of all things crawling, and maybe dispel some myths along the way. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr070-transcript Managing your crawl budget → https://goo.gle/3IzRZxl Dave Smart on LinkedIn → https://goo.gle/3wPSuRA Tame the Bots → https://goo.gle/4cfCQ1P Search Central Help Forum → https://goo.gle/sc-forum Indexing API docs → https://goo.gle/3v8yVU0 Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team. #SOTRpodcast Speaker: Gary Illyes, Lizzi Sassman Products Mentioned: Search Off The Record

In this episode of Search Off the Record, John Mueller and Lizzi Sassman sit down with Aaseesh Marina, Product Support Manager, to discuss the Search Central community forums. Did you know there is a group of Product Experts and community members that can help you navigate your SEO questions? Listen along as the Search Team takes a deep dive into the Search Central help community forum and discover why it should be your go-to guide for any SEO help. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr069-transcript Search Central help community → https://goo.gle/3sViTv3 Product Expert program → https://goo.gle/3SL6jrI Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team. #SOTRpodcast Speaker: John Mueller; Lizzi Sassman; Products Mentioned: Search Off The Record;