The Story of Aleyda Solis

At the end of the day, hopefully with this resource, it will allow two people that have


The Story of Aleyda Solis

less of an income and resources at the start to empower their careers, to start establishing


The Story of Aleyda Solis

themselves that type of knowledge that is needed to decide whether they want to be an


The Story of Aleyda Solis

SEO and how to focus their career, what area is the best for them, et cetera.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

So do you think it's critical for people to have their own website when they start?


The Story of Aleyda Solis

If you're thinking about SEO, should you be practicing everything on your own website


The Story of Aleyda Solis

before you become professional?


The Story of Aleyda Solis

Or is there a path kind of like, I don't know, if you want to be a doctor, it's not that


The Story of Aleyda Solis

you go off and practice on people randomly.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

It's like, first you have your education and then you do your work.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

How do you see that happening with regards to SEO?


The Story of Aleyda Solis

I will highly recommend if it is doable.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

And I believe that now there are so many different platforms that provide that option for free


The Story of Aleyda Solis

to go ahead and create your own website, to test things around, to validate what you read,


The Story of Aleyda Solis

what you learn, to check what is actually true in your context and to also identify


The Story of Aleyda Solis

how hard things are realistically.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

Because in theory, many things sound like very easy sometimes and in practice it's not.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

So yes, I will highly, highly, highly recommend for anybody learning SEO to go and even if,


The Story of Aleyda Solis

for example, they don't want to be a technical SEO necessarily, you can go and start a WordPress


The Story of Aleyda Solis

website that is completely free.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

They don't need to go necessarily into the code.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

That is something that is not attractive for them at that point, et cetera, just to focus


The Story of Aleyda Solis

on the content optimization type of things.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

So there are so many ways that you can do this and leverage.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

And the point here is to validate, to test for yourself, to build for yourself in order


The Story of Aleyda Solis

to have a better understanding.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

And there's no better way to learn than doing it.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

Right?


The Story of Aleyda Solis

Indeed.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

Cool.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

Yeah.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

I think it's always one of those things where you run across people who are interested in


The Story of Aleyda Solis

SEO, but they don't really know where to start.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

And at least pushing them off and telling them, oh, just try it out.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

I think that's always a little bit encouraging.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

Also in the sense of, well, you can't break anything if you're just playing around with


The Story of Aleyda Solis

your own website.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

In the worst case, you start over and you pick a new domain name if you really messed


The Story of Aleyda Solis

up.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

But essentially, it's really low cost and low effort to try things out.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

And then you can go through the resources that you have and try different things out.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

And yeah, I don't know.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

Look at things like internal linking and how to put content together and then read the


The Story of Aleyda Solis

documentation, read the blog posts, the guides that are out there, watch some of the videos.


The Story of Aleyda Solis


The Story of Aleyda Solis

How to structure your own site, et cetera.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

Hopefully, they do something as bad that you need to change your domain name in case the


The Story of Aleyda Solis

domain name is the one at your name.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

Then you will need to change your own name.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

So I'm kidding.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

But yes, I hear you.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

I completely agree.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

I feel, I don't know if it's still the case, but at least the older school SEOs, they've


The Story of Aleyda Solis

all gone through the phase of setting up weird sites that in the end you're like, maybe I


The Story of Aleyda Solis

shouldn't leave this online.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

I don't know.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

I have these people that join my office hours from time to time as well where I can tell


The Story of Aleyda Solis

they're doing sneaky stuff and they're trying things out.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

But you can also tell that they're getting started in this world of SEO.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

From my point of view, if you're trying weird things out for yourself, you're learning something.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

All of the sneaky stuff that you learn from doing weird things with regards to SEO, all


The Story of Aleyda Solis

of that maps to parts of SEO, to technical SEO.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

And once you settle down and work at a real company, in quotes, you can still use all


The Story of Aleyda Solis

of those techniques.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

You understand which parts are sneaky and which parts are problematic, but the techniques


The Story of Aleyda Solis

are essentially the same.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

And you can go in there and say, well, I have practice with this.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

I've seen how hard it is to rank for competitive queries, but you kind of at least have a bit


The Story of Aleyda Solis

more understanding.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

I think that's super useful.


The Story of Aleyda Solis


The Story of Aleyda Solis

I completely agree.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

In fact, I have to say that, especially if you're starting and applying for jobs as a


The Story of Aleyda Solis

junior type of specialist, showing that you have been proactive and have tested for yourself.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

Even if you're just starting learning, that can definitely give you an additional point


The Story of Aleyda Solis

for the position that you're applying for sure.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

And then of course, trying everything out.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

What is important here is the, let's say the ethics side of things.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

If you test many things that are maybe against Google guidelines, but if it is in your website,


The Story of Aleyda Solis

just to verify how harmful we can be, and you assume the consequences, then no problem


The Story of Aleyda Solis

at all.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

The problem is that when you apply this sort of techniques in websites, your clients are


The Story of Aleyda Solis

paying you to help them and you do something that will end up being harmful at the end


The Story of Aleyda Solis

of the day.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

So that is what is actually bad about it.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

So as long as we are aware of all of this and behave accordingly, then no problem at


The Story of Aleyda Solis

all for sure.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

Yeah, you definitely have to know the kind of the line where you have to avoid crossy.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

My feeling is if you're doing these kinds of sneaky things, you know what is sneaky


The Story of Aleyda Solis

and what is not.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

And then you should know to avoid doing that kind of stuff for legitimate companies because


The Story of Aleyda Solis

they can't just go off and change their name just because you messed up something on the


The Story of Aleyda Solis

website completely.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

What I really like nowadays at least is that you can ask even really basic questions on


The Story of Aleyda Solis

certain sites.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

Like I see on Reddit, for example, sometimes there are really basic questions and people


The Story of Aleyda Solis

jump in and without being sarcastic, they answer.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

So it's not me who's answering, but someone else.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

On Twitter, for example, I see that, for example, John or you, sometimes you are answering very


The Story of Aleyda Solis

basic questions.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

And I feel that's very nice that people should feel free to ask even what they would consider


The Story of Aleyda Solis

like an air-coat dumb question because, well, everyone has to start somewhere.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

And if you are worried that you might do something stupid and get your sideband or a client's


The Story of Aleyda Solis

sideband, better just go and ask, especially if it's a simple thing that basically people


The Story of Aleyda Solis

don't have to invest lots of time in actually answering.


The Story of Aleyda Solis


The Story of Aleyda Solis

I completely agree.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

And that is why it's important that also that I think that more than before right now, there's


The Story of Aleyda Solis

this awareness at least about how important it is to be a little bit more inclusive with


The Story of Aleyda Solis

this type of questions.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

Also with newcomers that no dumb questions, right?


The Story of Aleyda Solis

And unfortunately SEO Twitter sometimes can be harsh and difficult and dumb, I be trolls,


The Story of Aleyda Solis

et cetera.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

So even myself sometimes don't think about saying something because of how it can be


The Story of Aleyda Solis

understood or the reaction.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

So I cannot definitely understand how scary it might be even if you're just starting,


The Story of Aleyda Solis

right?


The Story of Aleyda Solis

That is why I'm also very happy to see all of this type of efforts that are made.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

So for example, Ariesh, where the woman in tech SEO group providing a safe, let's say


The Story of Aleyda Solis

a safe space for women to ask around.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

Also more mentorship programs for people who are not so well represented in the industry


The Story of Aleyda Solis

too.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

So those are amazing efforts, but 100% I agree that the way to actually solve the roof of


The Story of Aleyda Solis

it all is that we should all be free and able to ask whatever we might be thinking without


The Story of Aleyda Solis

necessarily this sort of backlash, right?


The Story of Aleyda Solis

And of course, if you ever ask or need to know anything regarding SEO, please just tweet


The Story of Aleyda Solis

away, tag me, and I'll be more than happy to refer you to the resource or answer you


The Story of Aleyda Solis

right away if it is something easy, doable to do at that point.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

Cool.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

So Twitter is the best place for people to find you or is there somewhere else where


The Story of Aleyda Solis

people could go if they wanted to, I don't know, hire you to do something bigger?


The Story of Aleyda Solis

Yeah, I have my website, alaydasolis.com, where they have forms to get in touch with


The Story of Aleyda Solis

me, et cetera, if it is something more professional related.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

And then of course in Twitter, I am very active, but I'm always sharing resources, news.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

I also have a newsletter that is called SEO formal in case you want to keep updated and


The Story of Aleyda Solis

what's happening in the SEO industry, updates from Google too, although there are always


The Story of Aleyda Solis

updates, so yes, lots of news.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

And yes, I think that a good place to get in touch with me right away will be Twitter


The Story of Aleyda Solis

indeed, at Alayda.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

I am there.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

So cool.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

Well, thank you for joining us here, Alayda.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

It's good to have you and I think this was a really good start in having some more guests


The Story of Aleyda Solis

from outside of Google as well.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

Oh, thank you very much for the opportunity.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

It was such a fun conversation.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

Indeed.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

It was really exciting, always exciting to chat with you, Alayda.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

Thank you.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

Thank you very much for the chance to be able to have a fun time with you here.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

It's a nice change from my usual day today, for sure.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

We've been having fun with these podcast episodes.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

I hope you, the listener, have found them both entertaining and insightful too.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

Feel free to drop us a note on Twitter or chat with us at one of our next virtual events


The Story of Aleyda Solis

we go to if you have any thoughts.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

And of course, don't forget to like and subscribe.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

Thank you and goodbye.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

Goodbye.


The Story of Aleyda Solis

Bye.


The Story of Aleyda Solis


How can you block content from Google Search?

Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Search Off the Record, a podcast coming


to you from the Google Search team discussing all things search and maybe having some fun


along the way.


My name's Lizzie, and I'm joined today by some other folks on the Google Search team,


Gary and John.


Hi, Gary.


No.


Hi, John.


Hi, Lizzie.


Great to be here.


Thank you.


Wow.


What a welcome.


So today I thought that we could talk about blocking content from search because you know


what?


I published this website.


You may have heard about it maybe last episode, matcha-guy.com.


I commandeered it from another person here, and there's a page.


Wait, wait, wait, wait.


What?


Yes.


That's my website.


No, it's my website.


No, I'm most certain that's my website.


I'm pretty sure I'm the matcha guy.


Yes, because you know what?


I searched for this recipe that I published, and it's showing up in search, and I actually


don't want other people to see it.


And I was wondering what I should do.


Why did you publish it?


Well, I wanted some people to see it, like maybe just the super followers, like a small


set of people, because it's a secret recipe, and I don't want the word to get out broadly.


Maybe just 20 people should see it.


But I am your super follower.


Well, I am super.


Oh, but you're not my follower.


I like soup.


Sometimes.


This is going well.


Okay, okay, okay.


So have you considered removing the page?


Well, I don't want to remove it.


It's an important recipe about how to make a really delicious cup of matcha.


So I don't really want to delete it altogether.


Is there something else I could do?


Pig Latin.


Write it in Pig Latin.


Write the recipe in Pig Latin.


But my super followers don't know Pig Latin.


Oh.


Sadly.


I don't know that.


Oh, because I ran a survey.


Interesting.


Yes.


You have interesting surveys.


How come I didn't get that survey?


Well, maybe you're not my super follower.


Well, we already established that I'm super.


That's true, but not my follower necessarily.


Oh, yeah, that's right.


I forgot about that part.


That's complicated, man.


Right.


I don't know.


How about, wait, wait, wait.


How about if they are so super, your followers, I mean, maybe they can remember a password


and then you can just put the whole thing behind a password?


That does sound like a good idea, but what if they can't remember the password or I don't


really have that page, like a login page kind of set up?


Is there another option that I could consider?


Passwords are super annoying.


Someone could be phishing the super follower and then secretly look at your matcha recipe.


Yeah.


Also, I'm OK with my super follower send it to their family.


That would be OK.


They should be able to share the link without having their family members login.


So there'd be a way that maybe it's not password protected, but it's not showing up in search.


I don't want just anyone.


Wait, wait, wait, wait.


I had an idea.


OK.


How about robots.txt?


What's that?


We had an episode about this.


Oh, you're right.


Come on.


I was on that episode.


I don't know why I asked that question.


Jeez.


So tell us more, Gary.


What do you do?


I take robots.txt, the whole site, and then that page is gone?


What are you two talking about?


What's happening?


Like, one is writing documentation.


The other one was writing documentation about robots.txt.


And now you are asking me these weird questions.


I don't like to be here.


I want to be gone.


Wow.


We're lucky that you're here.


Well, so what do you do with robots.txt?


You limit what crawlers can do on your website, right?


So you could put something like, hello, Googlebot, please don't crawl this URL.


And then Googlebot will not crawl that URL.


So you could definitely do that in your robots.txt file.


Like disallow colon and then path to the URL or path part of the URL where you published


that recipe that you stole from me.


Yeah, it's true story.


It was 1897.


And I made this recipe, this matcha latte.


Maybe that's why I don't want it found in search.


I didn't want you to find out that I stole your recipe.


Right.


Yes.


And you just admitted it.


Anyway, so robots.txt.


Okay.


So I would just upload robots.txt to my site and disallow the crawling for this web page


for the recipe on my site.


And that would be perfectly fine.


Is there any scenario where I would not want to do this?


Like am I missing something?


So, I mean, with robots.txt, you limit crawling.


You don't limit indexing.


But in the very vast majority of the cases that will suffice.


But then if your recipe became very popular, for example, and many people linked to it,


then we might still index the URL, but not the content of the page.


And in those cases, that recipe might still show up in search without description, for


example, like without a web snippet.


Google would infer a title link from the anchor texts that are pointing to your page, for


example.


I see.


So if my page became super popular, the result will still show up.


Like it doesn't mean that it's not going to be blocked from Google search if I disallow


this recipe in my robots.txt.


It's not a fail safe.


It's not a complete fail safe.


But again, in the very vast majority of the cases, it will just work.


Okay.


So if I wanted a fail safe method.


Is there something else that I could consider?


Robots meta tags.


Yeah.


Is there a meta tag that I could put on my page?


None, actually.


Oh, nice.


I'm so sorry.


Wow, that was so nerdy.


Oh my God.


Oh, that was great.


So essentially you could use the no index robots meta tag, but there is also the none


robots meta tag, which is basically no index plus no follow.


So...


Oh.


So that is the same as doing no index and no follow?


Interesting.


Okay.


So why would I want to do both no index and no follow?


I don't know.


But like that's just the abbreviation they came up with in the beginning because at some


point they must have thought that HTML is such a concise page language that you have


to save every character.


So instead of writing out no index and no follow, you could just write none and it would


be the same thing.


Why wouldn't they do something like nonef?


Nonef?


Nonef.


Maybe we should ask Larry or Sergey.


I don't like whoever made that up.


I have no idea.


Probably Jeff, Jeff Dean, early engineer at Google.


I mean, it's kind of weird because HTML pages are just so messy and big overall that saving


a couple of characters, what is that going to change?


But anyway.


Do people still use the none tag today?


Probably.


Do you have any numbers, Gary?


More than seven?


I mean, I do have numbers.


Seven is one of them, but I doubt that most of them would be related to this question.


Okay.


So let me pose another question for you.


Let's say I have a lot of recipes on the matcha-guy.com and I want to make sure that they're all


no index.


Is there a way to do this at scale, like a generator or something?


Almost.


Yes.


Have you considered that you are publishing wrong?


Potentially.


But this is for this real, very real scenario for the podcast.


So most of your pages, you don't want them shown in search or?


I guess this is like a bad example.


You think?


Or maybe just not the matcha examples.


All right.


We know.


You told me that you wanted me to ask you about generators.


In what case would people want to generate meta tags for their site?


Okay.


Yeah.


So especially in the early days when people wrote HTML themselves, in many cases, you


wouldn't really know what meta tags to use.


So it's something like these weird search engines didn't have fantastic documentation


at the time and various blogs were interpreting the possible meta tags that were out there


and everyone was kind of copying things from other people.


There used to be, or probably still are, these sites that would generate meta tags for you.


So basically you go there, you enter the keywords that are on your page, and then it would create


a set of meta tags that you can just copy and paste onto your pages.


So even if you didn't really know what all of these meta tags did, you could put a bunch


of them on your pages.


And I think the weird part is that probably most of the meta tags mentioned there could


be technically correct, but they don't have any functionality.


So things like, you could mention the location of your web server in a meta tag, or you could


mention the name of the author of the page in a meta tag, but there's nothing useful


that comes out of it.


So you would go to the sites and the meta tag generators would be like, oh yeah, I have


27 meta tags I can generate for you.


And of course that would be better than the meta tag generator that just generated like


five meta tags.


So you copy those 27 meta tags to your pages and hope that they don't cause any problems


because you don't really know what they're doing.


Yeah, I do think that in those cases where you want a large chunk of your site not getting


indexed and you really want to go down the route of password protecting those directories,


for example, or organizing your site into like a more logical structure where you can


put stuff that you want noindexed in a specific directory.


And then you can use, for example, Apache modules or Nginx modules.


I don't think they are modules.


I don't know what they are called to craft these configurations that will apply noindex


to every single URL under pattern or under a prefix like URL prefix.


That is very technical though, like way more technical than HTML or robots.txt.


Both of which are, well, especially robots.txt, which is extremely simple syntax.


But in the vast majority of the cases, you probably can get help from your hoster by


contacting support and just asking them how to do that.


Plus, if you are using a hosting platform like that uses server manager software like


cPanel, then you can set these settings there.


That sounds very complicated.


It's like, you just do all of this.


I don't know, complicated physics, which is quite easy actually.


Compared to quantum mechanics, for example, it's super simple.


Well, for you maybe.


All right, everyone, if you have questions about blocking half of your website, just


contact Gary.


Yeah, I'm on Twitter, at method E.


I guess for many sites nowadays, you would use your CMS, like WordPress or whatever hosting


platform you have.


And my guess is you just have an option there to password protect individual pages.


Maybe that would be enough.


And then the CMS is making sure that those login pages aren't showing up in search, or


how would that work?


Do you still need to worry about the actual login page not showing up?


I haven't seen any problems from that.


So my guess is it probably just works, but no idea.


I mean, one thing you can do to double check is open it in an incognito window and then


looking at the source code.


It's not 100% exactly what Googlebot might see in some cases, but at least you can double


check to see is there a robots.matter tag there or not, and does it say no index or


none?


So on the login page topic, sometimes you actually want a login page indexed.


For example, if you have an online banking portal, for example, and you have a page where


clients can log in, it's very likely that people will actually look for that page, like


how to log into my banking or whatever.


And in those cases, you definitely don't want the login page no indexed.


So you want it to be indexed so people can find the login page.


I remember a few years ago, local bank or the bank that I use, for whatever reason,


they decided that they want to put up a no index on their login page.


And then you had to hop through these hoops to get to the login page, like going to the


home page, and then there click another link that takes you to the banking portal.


And then from the banking portal, you click another thing that will bring up the login


model dialogue.


And that felt just wrong, because really, I just want to log in to my banking account.


And I don't necessarily want to see all half of your website to do that.


So in those cases, you probably want to allow the login pages indexed.


Also, if you have many ultra followers or whatever they are called, then they might


want the same thing, basically, or where can I log in so I can go to my member profile


or whatever?


So I guess if most of your content is behind a login, then something should at least be


indexed.


It would be awkward if everything from Macha Guy were no indexed, because then people wouldn't


be able to find it at all in search.


Well I do have another scenario that may be more relevant, I guess.


We have on 1Z our Google Search Central site, the name that we call that site, 1Z.


We've got a lot of blog posts there that go back to 2007, which I thought maybe it would


be a good idea to no index some of the pages selectively if I thought that, hey, this page


is outdated.


We don't really want people to be finding that in search when they look up, say, duplicate


content or something.


Like, what does Google Search say about duplicate content?


And we might have 15 pages about this topic.


Would it be a good idea to selectively no index those really old pages that maybe they


should be able to be found for historical purposes, but they're not necessarily the


most up-to-date answer on a certain topic?


I think this brings back nightmares.


I kind of recall a discussion about this very long one, way too long one.


So I never want, no, that's too harsh.


I rarely want content out of search.


Like if we had a blog, for example, and in 2001 we published good content there, then


I would expect that to be around pretty much forever.


And this comes handy when, like for this podcast, for example, we do quite a bit of internet


archeology, where we are trying to find like when was the first encounter of X tool or


whatever.


And for that purpose, I think it's excellent.


What we would want to do on 1C with a blog is using rel canonical to basically creating


a cluster and pointing to a canonical page, like managing duplicate content or whatever,


from the blog posts that are not that relevant anymore, perhaps.


Even in those cases, it's sometimes tricky because with a blog post, we can be way more


verbose and way more chatty than with search documentation.


And sometimes that also means that we can give more examples.


We can be more or less corporate, even especially in the early days, we could be way more way


less corporate, which means that some people might understand things better or easier.


And for that purpose, I would really want things to be in the index, but maybe point


with a banner to the canonical page.


So we could leverage the synergies of the archive content.


synergies


Spoken like a true manager.


archive.


That's another word that's in the meta tag documentation.


No archive.


When would I use that meta tag?


Yeah, john, when?


When?


I don't really know where this came from, the name specifically, because it's not, it


doesn't really refer to the archive itself or making an archive process.


It's more that we wouldn't show a cached page in the search results.


And I imagine the other search engines also called it something similar.


That's like the cached page that they would show with that little cached link in the search


results sometimes.


And with the no archive meta tag, you basically block that from appearing.


Because search engines, in order to actually index the content, they kind of have to keep


an archive of the page internally.


It's just they don't show it externally in cases like that.


So it's okay.


It's almost like, I don't know, kind of like a snippet control meta tag, you block a specific


part of the snippet from appearing.


Interesting.


Would this be for pages that are super fresh, like we only want the most up to date version


of this page, like the archive is like not going to be helpful to people.


So only the fresh one?


Or is that not right?


I think it's, it's just for whatever people want to do with it.


Like if they don't want to have a cached page shown, like for whatever reason, they can


kind of block that.


I've seen cases of that happening when they just really, really want people to go to the


website itself for whatever reason, or when perhaps the content itself is behind the paywall


or login wall or something like that, where traditionally users would have to go through


kind of the website login process to actually get the content.


And they just want to make sure that people actually follow through on that and don't


have kind of this workaround by looking at the cached page.


You mentioned also no snippet, which would be, I guess, another way of blocking content


when you might not necessarily want to block the entire page, but maybe you want to have


some other level of fine tune control.


Yeah, I guess like in a case with a cooking website or recipe website, you could, for


example, have something on your page which is really unique to a recipe that you just


don't want to tell people ahead of time.


It's like you have this super secret ingredient that you put into matcha, which might be,


I don't know, ginger or pepper or something.


I don't know.


I don't know what secret ingredients people put into matcha.


But you could have something like that.


And then you could still have kind of like my secret matcha recipe as a title of a page.


And within the text of the page, you could mention the secret ingredients.


And if you block a snippet from being shown, then you can kind of prevent Google from showing


part of the page as a snippet in the search results, which might help to kind of keep


your secret under the covers until people click through to your website.


It depends on what you want to do with it.


And then you have more control with snippets as well because you have the, I forgot what


it's called, but like how many characters you want.


The max snippet.


The web snippet.


Also for the image, I think there's something, max image something.


Yeah, max image size or something like a preview, like how large the image can be in the preview.


That's sort of interesting because it's not like it's blocking Google from indexing that


image.


It's more like block Google from serving the size of the image or something.


I think it's more something in Google Discover where you would see that, where sometimes


you have entries that have this giant image on top and sometimes you have the smaller


thumbnails.


And if for whatever reason you're like, I don't want to have a big image shown because


people should go to my page to see my big images, then that's something you can set


there.


What else do we have?


We have nofollow, of course, because reasons.


What does nofollow do?


Like where would you use that on Machiguy, Gary?


Yeah.


Tell us about the links that you bought.


What?


I know.


I saw.


I saw the exchange.


There was this shady person and you were exchanging currency with that person.


And I know that they gave you links in exchange of that currency.


Tell us about it.


So then I would nofollow that person.


It's like instead of a super follow, then you would nofollow that person.


Oh, ultra follow.


Oh, yeah, yeah, nofollow.


You can sign up.


Obliterate follow.


No, wait.


So nofollow just for the links that go outside my site?


It's for all links on a page.


I guess the tricky part is the nofollow robots meta tag would be for everything on the page.


And on an individual level, you could nofollow individual links.


OK, but what if I linked to other recipes or something, like within my matcha recipe


page?


That's fine.


That's the way the web is.


You link to other recipes to other people's sites.


I think the problem would just be if someone came to you and said, I would like to buy


an ad on your website, and you link to their website in exchange as an ad, then you would


add a nofollow there.


And that's kind of that shady situation that Gary was hinting at.


That I would never take part in.


I was not hinting.


Yes.


He was accusing, outright accusing me.


I was just alluding to it.


OK, so you're selling links?


So wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.


So can I combine noindex with nofollow and then add a nosnippet as well and a noir hive


and a max image preview and max snippet size seven?


Of course you can.


But I mean, you're not going to see anything.


Can I do nofollow max image preview, noir hive, and nosnippet?


Probably.


I mean, you can do whatever you want on your last day.


This sounds like a quiz.


Wait, what?


You can do whatever you want on your website.


It's just like the question, like what will search engines do?


Wait, now I have to, why did you schedule that one on one with me?


I'm nervous.


I will shut up.


How many combinations do you think we can have, John?


All robots meta tags?


Sure.


I would say more than seven.


More than a hundred?


I know the answer.


You know the answer?


Ugh, this is a trick question.


I know the answer because John forgot to delete that line from our planning doc.


Oh, yes.


Oh.


He also put the answer like directly in text as well.


You didn't even have to click the link to see the answer, John.


Did I put the answer in?


And basically it's burned into my retina.


Oh, no.


Well, will you tell us?


It's 869 plus one.


Plus one.


OK.


Combinations of robots meta tags.


Correct.


So you, like if you wanted to use all robots meta tags on a website, you would have to


make at least 870 pages.


What do you have planned for the weekend?


Oh, I have access to GPT-3.


So it takes literally minutes.


Literally minutes to create so many meta tags?


Cool.


Literally.


But what if we create new meta tags?


Or what if there are new ones that are created?


Is this in the future for?


Yeah, John, tell us about the future.


Will there be new meta tags being added?


I think that's always tricky because then we would have to have more combinations and


then Gary would have to create more pages for his test site.


Oh, but that's easy.


We covered that.


That's the easy part.


It takes him a few more minutes.


Yes, that's the easy part.


I think so, at least in the past, what I've seen when talking with the leads at Google


Search is they don't really like to have new meta tags because there's just so much overhead


with everything around meta tags.


So as soon as we add something new, we kind of have to promise to support it for a reasonable


amount of time.


We have to do all the documentation.


We have to do all the implementations internally.


And if it's something that is tied to a specific feature where we don't know how long that


feature will be around, then it's very much like there is so many dependencies there that


we kind of say, well, we prefer not to have new robots meta tags.


Hey, John, John, John, John.


Do you remember rel author?


Well, that's not a robots meta tag.


What about rel next?


In general, all of these control mechanisms are super useful when they're relevant and


when they remain valid for a longer period of time.


But as soon as you can't guarantee that or if you do something that is tied to very,


very small feature set, then it's very complicated to justify kind of all of the effort of doing


the work on our side, the documentation, explaining it to everyone externally, everyone externally


then going off and saying, oh, yeah, maybe we should implement this.


And they plan the implementation for months and months.


And then if after a couple of years, we come back and say, well, actually, we turned that


feature off.


We can turn the robots meta tag off now too.


And there's just so much time and effort invested into doing something that ends up having no


long term value.


And that's kind of something we try to avoid.


We really want to help people to make something for the long run.


And obviously, nothing is forever.


So it's not like we can guarantee that things will stick around forever.


But it should be kind of self-sustaining and valid for a longer period of time.


OK, that makes sense.


So we might, but maybe not.


The door is open if the use case proves that it will be useful for a long period of time.


Yeah, I guess we try to avoid it.


But it's not that we'll guarantee that we'll never make new ones, because I'm sure there


will be new ones.


Kind of like the recent one, which I forgot, like index if embedded, I think, where it's


kind of a special use case, but it's a very kind of important use case and one that we've


seen a lot.


So it's reasonable to do something for that.


Yeah, in general, we as in the search relations team, try to push back on new meta tags.


But every now and then we get these surprises like index if embedded, because they made


sense for something very specific but important.


But also we don't see how, or we are not going to see a new way to implement videos, for


example.


Basically, in that specific case, in case of index if embedded, there are at least two


ways to provide videos.


But when it comes to embedding, then it's always a frame and we don't see that changing.


It's been around since forever.


There's no new way to do that.


So basically, we just had to come up with something that made sense for that particular


purpose.


So what about other file types like a PDF?


What if we put all the recipes into a PDF?


Is there a way to block those?


I mean, you have the robots header, like HTTP header.


Oh, yeah.


Okay.


But what if I upload the PDF on my CMS site and I don't have access to that?


Tough.


Yeah.


You can use the removal tool.


But really, in those cases, if you don't have access to the headers, you can change the


headers, then you probably just don't want to upload that thing, the PDF.


I guess robots.txt would also work.


But then you have the difficulty that perhaps if someone linked to it, it could be indexed


as a URL.


I mean, robots.txt definitely works for images, for example, or video.


Why does it work there?


Would it work for a PDF though?


So it would work for an image or video, but not necessarily a PDF?


Right.


So we index video and images quite differently than web content.


Like for example, even in case of PDF, the first step that we take when we try to index


it is to convert it to HTML.


And then from there on, we treat it as HTML.


So in those cases, we index it for web, like for the web tab.


It's not called a web tab anymore, but all tab or whatever.


While images and videos are indexed for a different tab or mode or whatever you want


to call it.


Maybe we should standardize the names for this.


And yeah, it's just completely different, like different content types.


So why would robots.txt work for images?


Good question.


Maybe it shouldn't.


Is it because in the image search, we would show the image?


Like what will we show with a robot?


Oh, yeah, exactly.


Exactly.


Yeah.


Okay.


John, coming to save the day.


Save the day, yeah.


Yeah, we wouldn't have anything to show as a snippet.


Well, virtual snippet, pseudo snippet.


I think we could find the end to this episode, maybe right now.


And that's it for this episode.


Next time on Search Off The Record, we'll be continuing our In The Spotlight series


where we talk with someone who inspires us in the SEO community, Barry Schwartz.


We've been having fun with this podcast and I hope you, the listener, have found it both


entertaining and insightful too.


Feel free to drop us a note on Twitter at Google Search C or chat with us at one of


the next events we go to if you have any thoughts.


And of course, don't forget to like and subscribe.


Thank you and goodbye.


Goodbye.


English Google SEO office-hours from December 18, 2020

All right, welcome, everyone, to today's Google SEO Office


Hours Hangout.


My name is John Mueller.


I am a search advocate at Google in Switzerland.


And part of what we do are these Hangouts


where people can join in and ask their questions


about their website and web search,


and we can try to find some answers for you.


A bunch of things were submitted on YouTube already,


so we can go through some of those.


But we can also go through some of your questions


first if any of you want to step up and mention something


that's been on your mind.


Can I ask a Web Stories question then?


All right.


Do Web Stories follow the same sort


of rules in the domain setup?


So if we have that content living at forward slash UK


and then a bunch of Web Stories and then forward slash US,


a bunch of Web Stories, is that the best way to handle that?


Or can you just have forward slash Web Stories


and Google will work out what the best audience is?


If we're creating AMP pages specifically for those.


So for geotargeting in particular?


Yeah, because it'll be on a global site


where we'll have US, UK, South Africa, Australia, et cetera.


Would you have a central pool of those Web Stories


or would you do them at the country domain level?


I don't know.


OK.


So I think Web Stories are only shown


as this unique UI thing in certain countries.


I don't know if that's in the UK, but it might be UK in the US,


something like that.


The Telegraph has it.


So I assume, in fact, I think the Telegraph


is one of the examples that they use within the.


So unless I'm going mad.


Well, then maybe you're seeing them because we don't have them


in Switzerland.


So I'm just assuming what they will look like.


But essentially, for all other countries,


we show them as normal web pages.


So they're normal AMP pages.


And we will index them like normal web pages.


So that means any geotargeting that you have there


for those pages, depending on where they're located,


that would apply there as well.


But I don't know how that would apply for the situation when


we show them as that Web Story UI in Discover


and in the search results.


OK.


But it couldn't hurt to follow a country level role,


presumably, because if the country doesn't exist


in Web Stories, let's say it's Australia or whatever,


then it's not going to find it anyway.


So it doesn't matter.


Yeah.


I don't know.


It's also one of those things where,


since it's a bit of a new UI, I could


imagine that they're kind of watching out


for how these Web Stories are used and how they perform.


And if you have the same story for multiple countries,


then it could be that it comes across as, oh, you're


just republishing the same content multiple times.


So that's kind of the unknown from my side,


if it comes across as you're republishing things


or if it's purely tied to geotargeting.


Right.


And luckily for us, we can do geotargeting and unique content


per country.


But OK.


As far as I know, I think some of the product experts


experimented with this a bit.


And I know somebody with a, I think, with a UK site


created Web Stories that got displayed in US Discover


results, because most of the traffic


seemed to have come from US users,


despite that being a UK website.


So my guessing, I guess, is that perhaps we


should just treat them like normal blog posts.


If you have blog posts that are just in English


and are not targeting a specific audience,


you wouldn't necessarily make duplicates


for each kind of country version.


You just have that blog post, and that's it.


Or maybe your commercial site has different country


or language versions, but you have one single blog,


and you keep that separate and just in one language


or whatever.


It's easier.


And Google kind of picks it up and shows it


how it makes sense for Google, basically.


Right.


I mean, ours is country-specific subfolders


with country-specific.


This is for experience gifts, not the other site.


So it would be specifically for that country.


It's interesting how the telegraphs are.


MIHAI APERGHISLINGA.


Not the actual.


Because as far as I know, web stories do work.


They're just not being shown in the UI


is not being shown in specific countries.


But they themselves are still being indexed by Google,


as far as that.


OK.


Yeah, I'll double check with the web stories folks


when they're back.


I got a Core Web Vitals question for you, John.


I think it makes sense.


I just want to understand the rationale behind it


a little bit more.


So metrics like LCP, which is measured in time, so like 3


or 2 and 1 half seconds for good,


that is dependent on internet connection.


That weighs heavily into that metric.


So better developed countries with faster internet


are going to more likely have a better LCP than the same website


perhaps, where the audience is in a country


with underdeveloped internet connection.


That is accurate?


That can happen.


Yeah.


I mean, for speed, the internet connection is one thing.


But the way that the pages are built up


is not purely tied to the internet connection speed.


So that's something where I'm going to kind of


Super mobile flutter boot.


Whoop.


Okey dokey.


OK.


Let's hope this doesn't go too crazy.


Sometimes we have, I don't know, these kind of like Zoom bombers


drop in and do crazy stuff.


So we'll see.


I may ask a very basic question, please.


Sure.


I am just so stuck.


I am not as technical as all of you.


I am using Google Sites, not Suites.


And I made a website.


And I cannot get, I've enabled Google Analytics to track


the property.


And I simply cannot get, I can't get


Google to crawl the site.


And when I get into Google Search Console,


I've auto verified the property.


When I do a URL inspection, I get a message


that the URL is not in property.


I have to wait a couple of days.


But that's been stuck for two weeks.


I just wonder what to do.


My recommendation there would be maybe


to post in the Webmaster Help Forum.


So Mihai is one of the experts there.


But sometimes this depends a little bit


on the specifics of your case.


So in particular with Google Sites,


there is a kind of a weird situation with the way


that the URLs are structured in the sense


that it can be that you're testing a URL, which


is one of those URLs that we don't actually crawl,


but which is something that you might see in the UI.


So that's sometimes a bit, I don't know,


quirky with Google Sites in particular.


And kind of going to the Help Forum, posting your URL there,


usually people will be able to take a look and say, oh, you


should have been checking the other URL instead of that one,


for example.


Oh, good.


Which site is that?


Which Webmaster did you recommend?


It's the Google Search Central Help Forum.


I can drop the link into the chat as well.


That'd be terrific.


Thank you so much.


Sure.


Hi, John.


Hi.


This is Kiran.


How are you?


How are you doing?


Yeah, I'm good.


John, the thing is actually I found a fault in Google


to foster algorithm bias for the software category.


Is it possible to discuss how about that personally?


Already I've spoken with your representative side


for India, representative country manager.


Regarding on this, the research what he said


is not satisfied with me.


Actually, Google is a company to provide a solution for that.


For my category and the following research,


what they said to me is not satisfied with that business.


Can we discuss about this personally, not in this chat


room?


Because I lost a yearly, for example, $250 million


I lost in my company due to the, I think, you can understand.


Can we discuss personally about this?


Is it possible?


Usually we don't set up one-to-one meetings.


So that's something which usually we don't do.


If there's something where you're


running into situations with regards to maybe


the monetized side of Google, usually you


can reach out to a, what are they called, account manager


to kind of discuss that there.


But especially when it comes to search,


it's not that we would set up a one-to-one meeting


with any company.


It's OK, how to contact the account manager in India, John?


I don't know.


That's something where you'd have


to go through whatever monetized channel


that you're working with.


If you're working with Google Ads,


then through that, for example, you'd have to go.


Or if you're using AdSense, for example,


you'd have to go through that.


Right, right.


OK.


Then we can discuss right now itself regarding this.


For e-commerce, so platform business category people,


the following search results are very good, right?


So there is no issues for the e-commerce business end


or news angles or in blog spots, OK?


Bloggers for bloggers, like that.


For software category, software publisher companies,


like Fileepo, SoftVidya, like CNET,


like for that kind of category company.


Actually, I launched a company called Filecoffee.com in 2014.


OK, and I started building with a large enterprise


to publish a software for my country, India.


So there is no representative in India


to publish a software in India, because software pollution is


not an easiest task.


It's a very highly challenging field, right?


For that, I started.


But due to Google bias engine, how


the Google is seeing for the software category,


site told me about that Google is seeing the category


for them worldwide.


Because anyone can be downloaded in and throughout the world.


Like if I published the software in my domain,


means even the Japan people also able to download the file.


Or the United States of people can download the file, right?


Right, John?


Right.


Fine.


But the thing is actually in my country,


it's the second largest country.


OK, downloading the software.


So I started the company from India,


but I'm not getting nothing revenue from here.


So how you are going to deal, John, about this?


OK, so you're not seeing your site visible in the search


results in India?


Yes, you are right.


Yeah.


OK.


My recommendation there might also


be to go to the Webmaster Help Forum


and post some specifics, in particular, some searches


that you see when you're looking from India,


to highlight the issue that you're seeing there.


And the folks in the Search Central Forum,


they can escalate these if there's something on Google's


side that needs to be done.


They can also give you tips with regards


to what you might be doing, what you might do differently


with regards to geotargeting, with regards


to mapping the content to what the queries are looking for,


those kind of things.


Yeah, actually, they've given us some of the tips


and for that to do that.


Actually, they are recommending for an AdWords.


Because I'm a startup company, how much millions of dollars


I can spend for the AdWords?


So is it possible to do that?


I have no idea how AdWords works.


So that's also something where it's like sometimes


when you're a new business, you do various things


to get popularity and to kind of grow a little bit more


well-known first.


And that can include ads, but ads is not something


that we do from the organic search side.


So that's something you'd have to kind of figure out


separately.


OK, OK, OK, John.


OK, thank you.


John, can we just touch back on my core web finals question


again quickly?


Thanks.


So yeah, just about the internet connection affecting the speed.


So basically what I'm trying to understand,


so I have a multi-national site where


the majority of the customers, or a portion of the customers


are in North America where there's better internet


connection.


And then a portion of the customers


are in more underdeveloped countries with a slower


internet connection.


It's essentially the same architecture, different content.


But the speed scores might be the same.


But then because the internet connection is poorer


in maybe South America, I have a worse LCP score there.


So what can I do about that?


Or what's the methodology behind that, I guess?


In general, our idea with this score


is to map where your users are actually using your site from.


So if users are primarily in one location where they have


bad internet connectivity, you're


kind of competing with other sites who are also


focusing on those users.


So it's not that you have kind of a disadvantage


just because you happen to have users with a slow internet


connection.


It's more, well, for those users,


those are the sites that are available.


And maybe they will come to you as well.


Maybe they'll go to other sites.


So it's a level playing field, basically,


is what you're saying, yeah.


That's kind of the idea, yeah.


So it's not just like, well, this site


focuses on users in the US.


And they have really fast connections.


Therefore, they have good scores.


And we will rank them higher.


It's more that, well, depending where


your users are coming from, we will try to rank you like that.


So would you look at the ranking on a per country basis?


Or so if it's a multinational site like that, the US section,


would that have a different kind of benchmark


or, I guess, be against a different audience


than, I guess, the other sections?


Could be.


So there are a few things that kind of play into that.


On the one hand, we have to have enough data


from the Core Web Vital side to understand these segments.


And if we have data for those segments,


then we can apply that.


Whereas if we don't have a lot of data for your website,


then maybe we'll just say, oh, the whole website


has this one data point.


And then it's kind of like all bundled together


in that one aggregated data point.


But if we have more data, and you'll


see that in Search Console, if there are multiple sections


there with number of URLs, you can see a little bit more,


like, well, there's data for the US part.


There's data for the South American part,


for the European part, all of those things.


AUDIENCE 1 And I sectioned those different subfolders out


into different properties anyway.


So I can use that data that way, then I guess.


Sure.


Yeah.


OK.


And then just to further your point one more,


with one more thing, what if a site is not in the crux data


set at all?


How, then, does it get ranked?


I mean, we run into this problem with all kinds of metrics.


So that's something where we kind of


have to figure out how do we start the site off.


And that's something which you see


not specific to the speed side, but which you also


see with regards to, I don't know, lots of other factors,


like around the quality of the site overall,


where some people will say, oh, there's


this Google honeymoon period until Google


has enough data for my site.


Or I'm in the Google sandbox because Google


is ranking my site lower than it should be.


In the beginning, until we have enough data.


And that's kind of reflected in there.


It's not so much that we treat it in a bad way


or in a good way, but we have to make some assumptions.


And over time, we should be able to collect data on that.


OK.


Cool.


That makes sense.


Thanks so much.


Sure.


Hi, John.


Hi.


It's Deepak here.


I'm from India.


I'm doing job at an MCC company.


Actually, my question regarding basic and technical website


structure, actually, I'm facing some issues with my website.


There is a regarding crawling and indexing.


It's a bigliving.co.uk website.


I have changed website structure many times.


But still, I'm not able to index my website in search engine.


There are basic, some categories page are indexed.


But other pages like filter pages and internal sub pages


are not indexed properly.


So that's why I'm not able to get in a good way.


That's why I'm not able to get in a good results.


And this site is called enterprise website.


OK.


So can you please guess to me what


I have to do with this website or structure where I can?


Yeah.


So it's hard to say without looking


at the website in detail.


And so that's something where I might also


suggest going to the forum to get some tips there.


But in general, changing the website structure


makes it a lot harder for us.


So if you've changed the structure a few times already,


then every time you change the structure,


we have to understand the new structure.


And that takes time.


So finding a way to focus on one structure


that you can keep for the long run, that's, I think,


is really important.


So fewer changes and more focus on one clear structure.


The other thing that I think is important


is focusing on fewer pages as much as possible.


So you mentioned filter pages, for example.


And if you can avoid having all of these filter pages indexed


by setting them as noindex, for example,


then we can focus a lot more on the actual detail pages.


So that's something where when you look at your website,


maybe if you're seeing that Google is struggling


with crawling and indexing, then think about which pages


do you really, really care about,


which ones are really important for your business,


and make it so that search engines can really


focus on those pages.


So limit the links to the other pages,


limit the indexability of the other pages


so that we can really focus on the smaller set of pages


that you find important.


SPEAKER 2 OK, sir.


One more question, please.


It's regarding URL structure.


Obviously, what we are talking about


is essentially a website structure.


But what you think about URL structure means root domain,


category, then subcategory, after that, product page.


So is it right URL?


Yeah, I think that's perfectly fine.


URL structure, I don't have super strong opinions on that,


because different sites make it in different ways.


And usually, if you have unique URLs, it just works.


But that's a reasonable structure.


That's also, like I said, something


I wouldn't just change.


So if you get advice from some other SEO,


and they say, oh, you should put dashes instead of subdirectories,


for example, I wouldn't change that kind of thing,


because it makes it much harder for us


to understand your site.


So instead, pick one structure that you're kind of OK with,


and keep that for the long run.


SPEAKER 3 OK, sir.


All right.


And all right, sir.


Thank you very much.


I think I'm satisfied with your answer.


Sure.


SPEAKER 2 I have a follow-up question to that.


SPEAKER 3 Hi, John.


OK.


And so it would be maybe a


SPEAKER 3 Yeah.


So today, I would like to know that actually, our website


is an e-learning website.


And it's ranking well, and it's getting the good traffic.


And actually, we want to apply the story branding


thing to our website.


So for that, we want to cut down our content in our service


pages and in the home page.


And we want to put more graphics in it.


And let's say maybe we cut down the content up to 75%.


And what kind of impact it will show in the ranking


and as well as the traffic?


I don't know.


It really depends.


So if you're removing content, then obviously,


we can't rank you for that content.


If you're removing things that are not


important for your site, then that's perfectly fine.


If you're removing something that


is critical for those pages, then of course,


those pages won't be visible for those queries.


So yeah.


So I would like to add that.


So we'll take the consideration of the keywords,


and we will put those keywords in the content.


And we want to write in terms of customer prospect.


So because of that, we want to trim down the content


and make it very crispy for the users.


So my recommendation there, if you're


looking at trying to make a bigger change,


like removing 75% of the content seems like a big change,


I would take a handful of pages and test it and make


the changes there and see how they perform.


If they perform OK, then maybe do the same work


on the other pages.


If they don't perform as good as you expect,


then maybe try different things out and test that.


OK, if they're not working well, if I restore the page again


with the same content which I have deleted,


so will it rank again?


Sure.


Yeah.


I mean, it obviously takes a little bit of time


for indexing to catch up.


But it will be like before.


OK, great.


And one more question, last question.


And actually, in our blog, we upload one article each day.


I mean, we publish one article each day.


So what do you suggest the best thing,


I mean, to say like in terms of content numbers,


how many articles we supposed to upload in a week or a month?


It depends up to you.


Some sites make very few changes and few articles.


Others make lots of articles.


It really depends on how much content


you have available that you can create


and what people are looking for.


And thank you so much.


And I appreciate Google for conducting


this kind of webinars.


And Merry Christmas.


Thanks.


You too.


Martin, I think you had a question.


Yeah, the follow-up question to the change


of the internal structure of the domain.


Let's say you really change a big thing,


like the main navigation, for example.


What kind of time frame would you


recommend until all the signals have been reprocessed,


so to say?


I would assume you would see the large part


of the reprocessing taking place within maybe two or three


weeks.


In general, we try to recrawl all pages within six months.


So the long tail will take a bit of time


to be updated, but the pages that we crawl the most,


that we think are the most important for your site,


they should be updated within a couple of weeks.


So my guess is, at least after a month,


you should see the effects of a change like that.


All right, that's great.


Thank you.


Sure.


Hi, John.


Hi.


So which method to choose if we have a category with product


for a few months?


They are indexing very well.


They run very well.


But in one shiny day, the owner delete them or remove them


from categories.


And what method will be better for us to choose?


To noindex, canonical, or something


to leave them like a blank page.


So it's a product that you're removing from your site?


Is that correct?


Yeah, but the question is for the category


because the category is ranked.


And in the list in the category are very much products,


but they finish one day.


Oh, so you remove the whole category?


Yeah, all products from category.


OK.


And the category is empty for a few months.


But after a few months, will we come back?


I would just make it 404.


Yeah, I wouldn't try to do anything too tricky there.


I think if you set it noindex, the same thing will happen.


If you try to set it canonical to a different category,


we'll treat it as a soft 404.


So from that point of view, I think


404 is kind of the easiest approach


that has the same effect.


And if we get the products a few months after that,


we should create new categories.


Sure, yeah.


And if you have new internal linking pointing


to those category pages, then we will pick it up.


Yeah, of course.


And thank you so much.


And one more question about the last update.


I was wondering something after the date.


Do you think it's reasonable to immediately take some action


or should we wait until it's over?


Because sometimes webmasters trying


to change something when the update is roll out,


but I don't know.


It's a very smart decision.


What is your advice here?


I mean, so I think the core update,


I think that's finished rolling out.


So from that point of view, it's finished anyway.


But in general, if you have things


that you can improve on your website, why would you wait?


Especially if there's something bigger


that you want to improve on your website,


then there's always some update happening at some point.


So I would just make those fixes and improvements


and keep track of them, of course,


so that you know a little bit when what happened.


But I would just make those changes.


Yeah, thanks.


And do you think that the website can lose its visibility


to recover without this SEO specialist intervention


in the period between two updates?


Sure.


It's possible.


I mean, it's like SEO specialist.


You can't pick up a magic wand and kind of make


a website magically appear.


It's something where, especially when


it comes to the core updates, we're


looking at the relevance of the website overall.


And that's something that anyone can take a website and say,


oh, I will rewrite the content, and I will recreate the website.


It doesn't need to be an SEO.


I think there's a little bit of an effect


there that SEOs often know a little bit more


of what's happening and what Google might be watching out


for.


But anyone can update a website and make it better.


Yeah.


Thank you so much, John.


Sure.


Let me run through some of the submitted questions.


And we'll definitely have a bit more time


to chat as well afterwards.


But just so that we've kind of run through those quickly,


we experienced a severe ranking drop.


Our domain is only visible for brand searches.


All other rankings have nearly completely vanished for now


since three weeks.


On the other hand, we do not experience


any alert in Search Console.


Is it possible that the Search Console is a bug


so that there are no alerts shown,


even if the domain is punished via penalty?


So it's always possible that there's


a bug in Search Console.


I mean, it's kind of like computer software.


It's always possible there.


However, I would be very surprised


if there were a bug in particular with regards


to the manual actions.


So we call them manual actions.


People externally tend to call them penalties


because manual actions are something that, like, they just


happen all the time.


And lots of sites see them.


Lots of sites try to fix them.


And that's something where if there


were a general bug with regards to how we show manual actions,


I think lots of people would notice it


and complain about that.


SPEAKER 2


May I ask a question?


And the reason for that, so if it's not a penalty.


Yeah.


So I don't know exactly the number of weeks,


but we recently had a core algorithm update.


And that might map into that time frame


that you're looking at there.


And with the core algorithm updates,


we try to improve the way that we understand relevance


in the search results.


And with that, it can happen that a website becomes suddenly


less visible and significantly less visible in some cases


even than it was before.


And it's not that there's something


that you're explicitly doing wrong or an error or something


on your website.


It's more our systems feel that this is the way that we should


show websites in search now.


And we have a blog post about the core algorithm updates.


So I would go through that.


SPEAKER 3


So we already checked this.


That was our first thought.


So it happened around the 25th, 24th, 25th of November.


So we are pretty sure it's not the core update.


OK.


I mean, there are also lots of other changes


that can happen in search.


So it can certainly happen that our algorithms


are picking something up on your site and reacting to that.


If it's not, it's an issue.


I can provide another information.


So there was an incident.


So a link network, a link building network,


or an illegal fraud network was pointing


on 300 domains which were in my company's portfolio.


So they were hosted on our own servers.


And by linking from the link network to our domains,


those domains got indexed.


And they all had a redirect to our main company page.


So that's a steady hint as well, which can help to clarify it.


Usually something like that wouldn't be a problem for us.


Because if it were a problem, we would


flag that as a manual action.


And you would see that in Search Console.


And yeah.


It's a service.


So it's a huge company.


And the service from my company that's


something like the daughter of the big company,


they are hosted on the same server.


So the traffic from the indexed URLs


pointing on our domain are on the same server.


So that's why I mentioned it's not taken into respect as spam.


It is taken into respect as spam because they


are hosted on our own servers.


So if they are foreign servers, which are not under our control,


the spam attack would not have those consequences.


Yeah, I don't know.


My general feeling is we would still


be able to deal with that normally.


But it sounds like you have a very unique situation.


So that's something where I would also maybe


point at the help forum, maybe post there.


You can also drop your URL here in the chat.


And I can take a quick look afterwards.


I can't make any promises with regards to what we can do there.


But I'm happy to take a quick look


to see that things are working as expected.


I need to ask someone if I can put our word, but I want to.


Sure, sure.


No problem.


Thank you.


OK.


All right.


Let me run through some of the other submitted questions


so that we get a few of those covered.


During the core update rollout, is it


like the quality of the website is calculated


from the overall site signals, and then


this site quality score is propagated to every page


gradually page by page?


Is it possible that some pages drop and some pages surge


and the overall traffic to the domain remains the same?


It's like when we try to understand


the relevance of a website, on the one hand,


we try to look at the bigger picture of the website.


But we do also look at smaller parts of a website.


So it can certainly happen that some things go up,


some things go down.


And on average across the domain,


you will see some change.


Or maybe it'll even out even in kind


of weird coincidental cases.


So that's certainly possible the way


that you're seeing things there.


And it's also that there are always


a lot of different things that come out


with regards to search.


And some are a little bit more focused on the domain


or on a bigger picture of the website.


Some are focused more on smaller parts of a website.


So even outside of a core update,


you might see these shifts across some parts of your site


and other parts going up, some parts going down.


When do you bring back the request indexing tool?


It's like, I don't know.


So we will see.


I know that lots of people want it.


And the Search Console team is pretty close to kind


of getting that back lined up.


I don't know what the timing there will be.


It's like there is some chance that we might still


get it this year, though it's getting really tight.


From a ranking standpoint, if Core Web Vitals


use real user data, I think we talked about this briefly


before, in March, your big mobile update will come.


If we are ranking well at the moment on mobile,


can that change with the mobile update?


For example, our internal linking


is basically nonexistent on mobile.


Our mobile navigation menu is blocked for the crawler


currently.


How much is our desktop page actually influencing


the rankings on mobile?


So I didn't take a look at your specific site.


But if your site is already shifted over


to mobile-first indexing, then you


will not see any changes in March


when we shift the rest of the web over.


Because we're already using the mobile version of your site


for indexing there.


And for the largest part, we have


shifted over most websites.


So that's something where if we've shifted it over,


you're not going to see any changes.


If we haven't shifted your site over to mobile-first indexing,


then that does mean that, on the one hand,


our systems are not sure if your site will work well


with mobile-first indexing.


And if your site still doesn't work well


with mobile-first indexing in March,


then we will pick whatever mobile content you have


and index that, which might be worse than your site is now


with regards to indexing.


So that's something where, depending on your case,


you might see changes or you might not see changes.


Page speed core web vitals question.


Does the origin summary include only index pages


or the domain experience?


So I don't know offhand how the core or how the crux,


the Chrome User Experience Report data


is collected with regards to what goes into the origin


summary or not.


But there is fairly detailed documentation


on the Chrome User Experience Report data.


So I would double check that there.


I still get alerts from an old subdomain


that I moved away many errors in Search Console.


I'm concerned that it's affecting


my ranking with the current and active domain.


Should I fix these errors?


Probably not.


So Search and Search Console, they


keep track of things for a really, really long time.


And it can happen that you move to a different domain


and the old domain still exists.


Maybe there's no hosting there anymore in the meantime.


And if anything happens where we try to crawl a page


and find errors, then we will flag that in Search Console.


But that doesn't mean that there is any effect


on your current site with regards to search.


So for the most part, if you've moved away many years ago


and something gets flagged on the old domain,


then you can just ignore that.


I want to split a website into two websites.


I want to keep some pages and posts on the current domain.


But the pages and posts, I want to move to a separate website.


It will keep the same branding structure, basically,


everything.


I just want to separate visitors and make


two websites easier for them.


Except for 301, redirection for the moved pages,


is there anything else I should keep in mind to do in order


to maintain the website reputation and not lose


ranking of those migrated pages?


So I think the redirects are really the primary thing


that you should focus on.


But any time that you split or you merge websites,


the end result is really hard to determine ahead of time.


And it can be that things are better.


It can also be that things are worse overall.


So in particular, if you're taking a website


and you're splitting it up into lots of small pieces,


like lots of pieces and not just two,


then it can happen that all of those pieces individually


are just kind of like OK from a quality point of view,


but not good enough to compete in a competitive environment.


So in particular, if you're active in a very competitive


area and you split things off into smaller pieces,


then it might be harder for us to rank those.


Whereas if you combine them, it might


be easier for us to rank those.


On the other hand, if it's a less competitive area,


then it's very possible that we'll just


index all of those versions and show those appropriately


in the search results.


So that's something where it's really


hard to determine ahead of time what the SEO effect will be.


And because of that, I would recommend


doing this kind of a split or merging primarily


then when you have really, really strong business


reasons to actually do that.


If you really know your users are annoyed


if you have both of these things on the same website


and maybe they convert births because of that,


then that's something where I'd say, well, maybe it


makes sense to split these off.


But if you're just trying to tweak things slightly


and you don't expect a big effect from your user side,


then by doing this kind of splitting off,


my suspicion is that overall you will be a little bit worse


situation than before.


When will Search Console allow disavow files submitted


to domain verified sites and allow all four versions


to apply at the same time?


We don't want to do it four times.


I don't know.


I think that's on the Search Console list of things to do.


In particular, when they rolled out the new disavow feature,


we did bring them the feedback because it also


came from folks like you.


So I don't know what the timing there will be.


The good part, I guess, here is that for the most part,


it's really rare that you have to do a disavow file


submission.


So if you do this in an extreme case once a month


and you have to do it four times rather than one time,


it's not a ton of time saved.


On the other hand, if you're doing this daily, then probably


you're focusing on things that don't have as strong effect


as you'd expect.


I'm starting my new website, and I'm


making it accessible for people with disabilities.


My question is, how can we include


animation and videos and infographics


if I want to make it accessible?


Second, does accessibility make for trouble


when it comes to indexing?


So I don't have a lot of expert advice


with regards to accessibility.


I don't have a lot of background knowledge there.


So it's hard for me to say what you should really


focus on there.


But there are definitely experts out there


who can help you to figure that out.


With regards to indexing, usually I


find that if you make a website more accessible,


that it actually becomes better for search.


Because usually that means you don't just have one image,


and Google has to figure out what this image means.


But rather, you have the image, and you


have an alt attribute for the image,


and you give more details about the image.


And all of that makes it easier for us


to understand what your site is about.


So that's something where usually,


with regards to crawling and indexing,


making things more accessible is more of a positive effect


rather than a negative one.


Should I separate my e-commerce from my main website?


What's the guideline?


If any, would it be better for SEO?


You can do it either way.


So some sites have a blog and an e-commerce site


on the same domain.


Some split that off into multiple domains.


It's essentially possible for you


to do that in any particular setup.


So that's something where I would focus more


on what works well for you, what works well for tracking,


for analytics purposes, and then go from there.


I'm very novice but have managed my website this past year.


I'm really having difficulty understanding Search Console


with regards to my accounts.


Looks like everyone here is more experts.


Is there a more appropriate Google forum?


I would probably go to the Search Central Help Forum.


I keep saying that today.


I don't know.


It seems like it's usually a good place


to go with regards to these general questions


like, how do I verify my site?


How do I get things started and get set up


with regards to search?


There are lots of really smart and friendly people there.


So I would tend to go there.


And I post your details there, like the URLs


that you have for your website, so that someone


can take a look and say, oh, it's


like you need to put your meta tag here,


or you need to do this in your WordPress,


or whatever you're using.


How many articles are needed for Google Discover


to find our site suitable?


I don't think there's any limit with regards to Discover.


However, the Discover content policies


are a little bit different than web search.


And what we focus on for Discover


is a little bit different than just general web search.


So I would check out the content guidelines for Discover


and see how you can perhaps tweak your content to make


it more suitable for Discover, and then keep working on that.


I think Discover is a really fascinating thing,


because it shows your website to people that are not actively


looking for it.


But on the other hand, that also means


it's really hard to create content specifically


for Discover, because you don't know


what people are not searching for where


your site could be shown.


So it's a bit like it's a tricky place.


But I think it's really cool.


Ooh, OK.


More and more questions.


Maybe I'll just switch back to questions from you


all to close things out.


AUDIENCE 1 So I've dropped you the URL in the chat.


JOHN MUELLER OK.


Cool.


I'll copy that out and take a look at that later on.


Yeah.


AUDIENCE 1 Great.


Thank you.


JOHN MUELLER Sure.


AUDIENCE 2 John, regarding Discover, first of all,


is there anything new that the Discover team is likely to come


out with anytime soon in terms of more recommendations


or maybe more insights of what people, especially people who


had traffic from Discover and now they don't,


maybe some insights into what they can do to improve?


JOHN MUELLER Yeah.


I don't have any idea of timings.


So that's always tricky to come and say,


what will happen in the future?


It's like, I really don't know what the timings are there.


I do know the Discover team cares


a lot about people who are trying to get content


visible in Discover.


And they'd like to make it a little bit easier to understand


what is happening there.


So it's certainly possible that some things will come out


that have a little bit more information or some more tips


on it on what you could be doing differently.


But I don't know what the specific plans are there


or timelines would be.


AUDIENCE 2 So you mentioned in one of the previous Hangouts


that, as I mentioned, we've been working


with a publisher that has been removed from Discover in May.


And we kept making sure that the new content that they publish


is according to your Discover policies.


And they improve the content and overall user experience


as well.


You mentioned that Google, including Discover,


requires quite a bit of time to process all of these changes.


Even if the content is indexed, we


might still need some time until Google understands that, OK,


so this is a good enough quality website


to be included in Discover again.


And you mentioned a month is, especially for large websites,


a month is a small amount of time.


What would you think is an appropriate amount of time


to wait?


I don't know.


I mean, it's tricky on the one hand with regards to bigger


quality changes on a website.


So that's really hard to say there.


And on top of that, I don't know in particular


how Discover pulls all of that information together.


So for Search, I would guess a large site a couple of months


should give us time to understand it


a little bit better.


I don't know if Discover would do anything past that


or would take longer.


OK.


So definitely a month is too little


to see a significant impact.


So I'm guessing two, three, four months and beyond.


Yeah.


Is a more appropriate time to, OK.


And I know you mentioned that with Discover,


the new content, the fresh content,


has a heavier weight in terms of how Discover


calculates everything.


So just to confirm that it's not really


required to go back months or years to update


that old content and update it.


I see it as something that's not particular to Discover itself,


but more with regards to how we understand websites.


And the kind of website that you're talking about


sounds like something where you're generally creating


new content all the time.


That means within your website, when


we understand your site structure,


we focus essentially on the newer content


and on the main category sections,


for example, of a website, which means that overall we


would automatically, for indexing, kind of focus more


on that newer content because it's just very prominently


linked within your website.


You're giving it a lot of weight.


So regardless of Discover or just Search in general,


if you're constantly creating new content,


then that's kind of where we will shift our focus over time.


So it's not the case that the old content might pull


everything, especially if the site has


been online for like five years or something like that.


It's not like these 4 and 1 1 2 years


are pulling down the last six months of new, better content.


I mean, it really depends on your website.


And that's something where if you


look at the traffic from Search and the analytics traffic,


you can probably make guesses on which parts of your site


are critical for your site.


So I could, for example, imagine a situation


where you have a news-type website where we focus on news,


but you also have a reference section somewhere.


And the reference section is really important


because it's like you're the only reference


site for that kind of content.


Then we would say, well, this reference part


is really important, but there's also a news part.


And we try to find kind of like a balance between those two


parts.


On the other hand, if it's purely a news website


and we can purely focus on the new content,


and that's really clear when we crawl and index your site,


that's clear kind of from all of the signals that we get,


then obviously we'll focus on the news part.


MIHAI APERGHISLOOO-MUNDEZ-SINGH.


For Search, I'm guessing for Discover,


these reference sections, they might not


be as relevant when calculating things.


Well, I mean, it kind of depends on what kind of things


you're focusing on.


So if you're looking at an overall quality


issue with regards to your website


and you have kind of this reference part that's


really important for your website


but is really low quality, then we


will still balance that low quality part


with your newer quality news content


and try to find some middle ground there


with regards to how we understand the quality


of your website overall.


But it really kind of depends on your website.


And it's not so trivial to just say,


oh, we will take a look at all the Search Console traffic


and impressions kind of thing.


We try to figure out what is important for the site overall.


Right, right.


OK, OK, got it.


Sure.


All right.


Any more questions from anyone?


Now a question.


Hi, John.


Hi.


I have a question.


Actually, it's regarding website schemas.


How it's important for website?


Is it really useful for increase website visibility


in search engine or have to rank higher?


It doesn't change the ranking.


It changes how we show the pages in the search results.


So it's not that you will rank higher


if you add structured data.


But if you do have structured data


that we can use for rich results types,


then we will perhaps show that in the search results.


So for example, if you add FAQ markup to your pages


and we understand we can show that for your site,


then we will show that in the search results.


And maybe that will be more visible for your website.


And maybe that will attract more users to your site overall.


But it doesn't change the ranking of those pages.


OK, OK.


Actually, I have implemented a schema


as overall all websites.


And they all are visible in search engines.


Cool.


OK.


And yeah, one more question.


Sometime overall website perform,


all keywords are in the top 10.


And after two weeks, overall website drop, keyword ranking


drop.


Then what we can, what issue?


I have no words about this.


I hope you understand.


Yeah.


It's really hard to say.


So we have a document in the Help Center


specifically for, I think, my site's ranking dropped


or my page's visibility dropped, something like that.


And it goes through a number of the issues that


could be playing a role there with regards


to maybe technical issues that you can double check


and also some tips with regards to the overall quality.


But in general, even if you have all of the technical things set


up correctly, it can happen.


And it's very normal that things will go up in ranking


and things will go down in ranking over time.


So just because a page is no longer ranking as well


as it was before doesn't necessarily


mean that there's something wrong with the page.


It might just be it's like maybe there are other pages


that we should show in search.


Maybe we just have trouble understanding


the relevance of the page, focusing the page more


on the kind of content that you want to have it visible for.


All of these things can play a bit of a role.


Oh, OK.


OK, sir.


Actually, according to all Google guidelines,


I have made a document.


And recently, last month, I have launched a new website.


It's regarding the hoverboard.


And can you imagine after one and a half months,


overall websites are ranked higher


and the keywords are in top 10.


Fresh new website.


Yeah.


And I got good traffic daily around 2,000 to 2,500.


That sounds good.


Yeah, I mean, sometimes if you get everything.


Overall, website optimized all our Google guidelines.


Cool.


Excellent.


Really.


Yeah, I mean, on the one hand, the technical things


are certainly things to watch out for.


But it's also not guaranteed that you


will be successful just because you


follow the technical guidelines.


So sometimes you also have to kind of like have


a sense of what will be important


or what areas are maybe not covered so well at the moment


that we can help cover.


So it's like, yeah, cool.


All right.


Let me just pause the recording here.


We can stick around a little bit longer if any of you want.


And yeah, I don't know.


I think this is the last Office Hours Hangout for this year.


So thank you all for joining all of these Hangouts.


Thanks for all of these questions along the way.


I hope you found these useful.


We'll certainly be doing more of these next year as well.


I think Martin is doing one for JavaScript next week,


so it's not completely closed.


I don't know how he does it, like almost over the holidays.


We'll see.


But we'll definitely have more of these lined up next year.


So wish you all happy holidays, and see you next year


in that case.


Well, Merry Christmas.


Merry Christmas.


Christmas.


See you.


Google Search: State of the Union (Google I/O'19)

search.


Search is obviously a really big thing at Google. We live and


breathe everything around websites and web search. So


that's a really big topic for us. Search used to look like


this. Screenshot is a little bit older. It feels a bit foreign


to me now. But search has been moving forward quite a bit,


evolving together with the rest of the ecosystem, constantly


adapting to modern user and publisher needs. So things are


really changing in search. And the functionality available to


developers and publishers to highlight their pages, your


pages, and the pages that you work on, that has evolved


similarly. While it's still possible to appear like this in


search, you can also do so much more now. Really cool stuff.


And with that, our tools have also made big jumps in the last


year. Again, this is an older screenshot. You might remember


this tool. And look at the progress that's been made in


search console to make it easier for you to create fantastic


websites that work really well in Google search. So today, we


take a step back and review the state of the union with an eye


on developers and publishers. So for you and the people that


you make websites for. We'll start very briefly by looking at


how modern Google search works. It's important to understand


the basics so that it's clear where these aspects fit in. And


then we'll look at different aspects that interact with


search, such as images, structured data, and of course,


search console. So, Martin, why don't you take it away with an


overview of how search works.


Awesome. Awesome. Thank you very much, John. I think that's


a good idea. Before we go into all the new cool stuff that we


have in store for you, I think it's a good idea to look at


search a little more in depth. If you think about it, it's


just this input box and it looks pretty simple, right? You


just type in your query and then you get a bunch of results.


Done. However, if you look at it from a developer's


perspective, it's a little more complex than that. There's a


lot of things that have to work together to actually make


search work. So, I mean, you know, generally speaking, as a


web developer or a publisher, you can just assume that things


will work automatically. But you can help search and not just


Google search, you can help search engines understand your


content better and make things run a lot smoother. So,


basically, what are the things that you should look at and how


do they fit together when it comes to search engines? Well,


let's start with something that you hopefully all have. If not,


then I'm not exactly sure what you're doing in the session,


but we have plenty of cool stuff for you to look at anyways.


If you have a website like this, this is interesting for you to


be in search, right? But wait a minute. So, when I say


websites, the web has evolved a lot. What do I mean when I say


website? Let's have a look at what websites are when it comes


to Google search. So, anything that we consider a website in


search has to have a URL somewhere on the web. That makes


sense. We're a web search engine, you should have some


content on the web somewhere. And this content should not just


be hidden away behind a login or something. Search works for


everyone who might not even have a login yet who might become a


customer but isn't a customer yet of yours. So, you want to


make sure that it's publicly accessible, right? Which means


not necessarily everything that is publicly accessible has to


be in search, right? You can tell us to not do that. You can


tell us to stay away. There's methods like the robots.txt or


the meta tag for no indexing. You have the possibility to opt


out of this, obviously. We are nice citizens of the web. We


don't force you into this. And also, you want to make sure


that once people actually see you in search and they come to


your site, they can actually access their content. That spans


things like being able to view this in every modern browser.


But also, look at things like performance and accessibility


as well. So, what are examples of websites? Well, you have the


classical, typical HTML page. These are perfectly fine and a


great way to have content hosted on the web. But also, things


like progressive web apps. As far as we're concerned, a


progressive web app is still a website. So, you'll be fine.


These things can be indexed just as well. Generally speaking,


web applications that are more dynamic and using JavaScript are


also websites from our perspective, right? And that


includes things like AMP, Angular, React, Vue, Ember, all


these other things, Polymer, lit HTML, whatever you use to


make websites these days is basically still a website at its


core. So, how does Google Search get involved? Well, we


have our little friend here, Googlebot. Googlebot is


basically busy continuously browsing the internet, more or


less. Right? So, crawling, crawling, crawling, all these


pages that we have and we want to index in the web.


Currently, that is over 130 trillion pages, right? So,


that's a lot of pages. So, it's pretty busy. But what if I


basically then create a new home page? It's a brand new site.


Just put it online. But Googlebot is still really busy


crawling the web. So, it doesn't really know that your


website has just come online. It's now theoretically available


to be indexed. So, how can I get my website known to Googlebot?


Well, there's a few ways. The most typical way is something


on the internet that we are already looking at and crawling


is linking to you. That tells Googlebot, hey, there's


something new that you should definitely take a look at and


crawl. Check this out. Of course, there's other ways. I'm


going to talk about them in a bit. But you can use this to


tell us. Someone can use this to tell us about your website.


But there's also things like you can submit it in Search


Console and you can use other things, other means that we're


going to talk in a second. So, now Googlebot has found this


link and now knows about this one page of your website. Let's


say it's the home page. Someone linked your home page


somewhere and we come to your home page. What Googlebot now


does is it looks through all the links that we find in this page


that hopefully leads us to the rest of your website. It's the


internal links that help us understand what else is there


on your website that we should definitely take a look at. And


I mean, this website is wild. Cars, planes, and even a boat. I


mean, come on. That's a pretty cool website. And I think this


is really important that we crawl this. And look at how


excited Googlebot is about that boat. I mean, wow. Holy shit.


And this is just the beginning of this relationship, right,


John? We are just starting here. So, basically, what you


want to do is you want to help us find all the great content


you put on the web, right? So, to sum this up, basically