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Search Off the Record

Technology Podcasts

Search Off the Record takes you behind the scenes of Google Search and its inner workings! In each episode, the folks from the Search Relations team will give you background info on the decision-making behind launches, feature prioritization in Search Console, and the projects Google Search teams are working on. They will share fun stories from the many conferences they attend as well as from their day-to-day working life at Google. They will also dive into the currently trending conversations in the SEO community at large. Have a listen!

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Location:

United States

Description:

Search Off the Record takes you behind the scenes of Google Search and its inner workings! In each episode, the folks from the Search Relations team will give you background info on the decision-making behind launches, feature prioritization in Search Console, and the projects Google Search teams are working on. They will share fun stories from the many conferences they attend as well as from their day-to-day working life at Google. They will also dive into the currently trending conversations in the SEO community at large. Have a listen!

Language:

English

Episodes

Search and Open Source

3/8/2023
On this episode of Search Off the Record, guest Edu Pereda, Engineer at Google joins Martin Splitt and Gary Illyes to chat about Search Open Sourcing projects. Open source is a source code made available for the public to modify and distribute. Learn about the Search open source library projects, requirements in mind when creating open source libraries, why not every library can be open source, and more in this podcast episode! Resources: Episode transcript...

Duration:00:28:04

Site moves: Are they getting any easier?

2/23/2023
With the right resources, site moves or domain changes don’t have to be as hard as we once remember. In this episode of Search Off the Record, join Lizzi, Gary, and John for a chat about site moves. Learn about the different types of site moves, common issues, and how to move your site without harming search ranking results. Find out how site moves affect users and Search, how there could be a drop in traffic, and more. Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr056-transcript Search...

Duration:00:29:48

Search Console Help Center

1/12/2023
In this episode of Search Off the Record, Josh Cohen, a Tech Writer on the Search Console Team, joins John and Lizzi to chat about the Search Console Help Center. They dive into who drives changes in Search Console, tips for writing feedback, and questions to ask when deciding the right level of information to give in a document. Learn the differences between product and doc issues, not being able to remove content from a website you don't own, and more! Resources: Episode transcript →...

Duration:00:36:08

Year in review 2022

12/22/2022
John, Gary, and Lizzi wrap up 2022 by reflecting on projects, events, and past episodes of Search Off the Record. They discuss the most surprising aspect of 2022, updating Search documentation, and much more! Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr055-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team. #SOTRpodcast

Duration:00:24:49

Search Status Dashboard

12/14/2022
On this episode of Search Off the Record, John, Gary, and Lizzi chat about the Google Search Status Dashboard for incident reporting. They discuss what prompted the dashboard, how this compares to reporting Search incidents on Twitter, and more! Learn how the dashboard can streamline communication between Google and those reporting incidents. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr054-transcript Status Dashboard → https://goo.gle/3Wt80KL How To Use the Dashboard →...

Duration:00:23:58

From journalism to SEO with Jennifer Slegg

11/30/2022
In this episode of Search Off the Record, Gary and Lizzi talk with a guest from the larger Search Marketing Community, Jennifer Slegg - an expert on all things Search Engine Marketing, specializing in the Quality Rater's Guidelines and E-A-T. Reminisce about the internet in the early 2000s, hand-coded websites, minimal search results, no ads, and straight-to-the-point content. Jennifer shares her experience transitioning from journalist to Search Marketer, the writing process for her...

Duration:00:32:16

Let’s talk redirects

11/17/2022
Redirects are a genuine approach to moving something from one place to another. In this episode of Search Off the Record, John and Martin talk about the different types of redirects and which one you may want to use. They share the differences between 301 and 302 redirects, what type of redirects 308 and 307 are, why someone may want to use a JavaScript redirect over a meta refresh-type redirect, and more. They also cover merging and splitting domains, frustrating geo-targeting redirects,...

Duration:00:27:15

LIVE Q&A from brightonSEO

11/3/2022
Join John, Lizzi, and guest, Myriam Jessier, SEO Trainer, for a live recording of SOTR from brightonSEO: a conference where SEOs gather to chat, network, and learn about search marketing. In this episode, they answer a bunch of questions hand-picked before the event. They cover topics like which is better: subdomain or subdirectory, to criteria for penalizing backlinks, and the pros and cons to templated content outlines. Learn about adding schema types, image alt, and...

Duration:00:31:51

Search Central docs and SEO

10/20/2022
Find out if Google Search Central implements its SEO best practices and guidelines on its own website and documentation! Hosts John and Lizzi discuss SEO tools, sitemaps, hreflang links, robots.txt, click-through rates, and more. They cover what they’ve implemented, what they are thinking of updating, and what they are passing on. Hear all things link related, categorizing, and working with an external SEO agency during rebranding. Episode transcript →...

Duration:00:30:25

Let's talk image SEO

10/6/2022
Do you want to know how to increase traffic to your website with images? What about making your website more accessible for screen readers with alt text for an image? Our hosts John and Lizzi chat about optimizing for image search. They cover everything from naming your image file, how often Googlebot crawls images, increasing visibility of your page through image search, to improving alt text and image accessibility. Resources: Episode transcript →...

Duration:00:33:37

The early days of Google Search Central

9/22/2022
In this episode of Search Off the Record, Vanessa Fox, a former Google employee, joins hosts John and Lizzi to talk about the early days of Google Search Central (or shall we say, Webmaster Tools). She shares the beginnings of the Sitemaps tool, Webmaster Help group, Webmaster Tools, and more! Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr047-transcript Our very first blog post, authored by Vanessa Fox → https://goo.gle/3qEM6WM URL Structure guidelines →...

Duration:00:27:38

Non-HTML files on the web

9/8/2022
Join hosts Gary and Lizzi for a chat about file types on the web beyond HTML, like PDFs, PowerPoints, and images. We cover issues with all sorts of file types, if you should convert your weird file into HTML, what file types are indexed, and more on non-HTML files. Resources: PDFs in Google search results → https://goo.gle/3RZ16dV Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr046-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the...

Duration:00:28:01

PODCAST TRAILER: Welcome to Search Off the Record

9/1/2022
What is Search Off the Record? Listen to our podcast trailer! Do you geek out about SEO? Are you interested in exploring on-going projects with the people that work on Google Search? Well, look no further! Listen to the Search Off the Record podcast to go behind the scenes of SEO and Google Search, all while having fun and mischief with our hosts from the Search Relations team from Google: Gary Illyes, Lizzi Sassman, John Mueller, and Martin Splitt. Watch the Search Off the Record...

Duration:00:01:34

Should I worry about crawl budget?

8/25/2022
There is a lot of confusion around crawl budget so Martin, Lizzi, and Gary from Search Relations are here to bring clarity for everyone unsure about it. Are you worried about your website not being crawled quickly? Not sure what consumes and wastes your crawl budget? Learn when you should and shouldn’t be worried about your crawl budget. This episode covers misconceptions and frequently asked questions concerning crawl budget. Resources: What Crawl Budget Means for Googlebot →...

Duration:00:29:04

Let’s talk accessibility

8/11/2022
In this episode of Search Off The Record, guest Danny Farra, UX Interaction Designer at Google, joins Lizzi Sassman to chat about accessibility of websites. We explore how to get started with accessibility, from using a screen reader for the first time to assessing contrast ratio and cognitive accessibility. Listen to this podcast to learn about assisted technology tools like screen readers and more! Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr044-Transcript Google Accessibility →...

Duration:00:33:17

How do removals work in Google Search, really?

8/4/2022
In this episode of Search Off the Record, Lizzi Sassman, John Mueller, and Gary Illyes have an insightful conversation around how removals work in Google Search. Specifically, they chat about how Google Search operates when removals are in the mix. How does crawling, indexing, and blocking work in the backend? What really happens at each of these stages when it comes to removals? Listen to this podcast to get a behind-the-scenes look at Google Search Resources: Check out our episode about...

Duration:00:28:57

How Barry Schwartz Created RustyBrick

7/14/2022
In this episode of Search Off the Record, Lizzi Sassman and Gary Illyes sit down with Barry Schwartz - a search engine connoisseur. Specifically, they explore how Barry runs his online career, balancing RustyBrick and Search Engine Roundtable. We even talk about website development, and the origin story behind RustyBrick - a web construction firm specializing in website development, web page design, SEO optimization, and more! Check out and subscribe to Barry Schwartz’s YouTube channel →...

Duration:00:29:56

How can you block content from Google Search?

6/30/2022
In this episode of Search Off the Record, we take a look at what it takes to block content from Google Search. Lizzi Sassman, Gary Illyes, and John Mueller chat about the role of robots.txt files and robots meta tags. What roles do they play in crawling and indexing? What other practices can you employ to remove unwanted content from Google Search? Listen to this podcast to discover some useful Search tips and tricks when it comes to barring content. Episode transcript →...

Duration:00:27:58

Let’s talk about UX and SEO

6/21/2022
In this episode of Search Off the Record, Martin Splitt, Gary Illyes, and Lizzi Sassman sit down to talk about user experience and SEO. What is UX? Besides Core Web Vitals, what other things could we try to automatically infer about the user experience of a site? From interstitials to site structure, our team of Search experts sit down and chat about the relationship between UX and SEO. Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr040-Transcript Let’s talk Core Web Vitals video →...

Duration:00:28:33

A spotlight on SEO and data with Michelle Robbins

6/2/2022
In this episode of Search Off the Record, we talk with Michelle Robbins - a software engineer by trade and member of the Search Marketing community. Lizzi Sassman and Gary Illyes sit down with Michelle to discuss how she got interested in SEO and even talk about data’s relation to SEO. How can data improve your SEO? Moreover, they explore common issues with data: bias, misrepresentation, and correlation vs. causation. Listen to this episode to see where the worlds of data and SEO...

Duration:00:32:25

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