I suspect we'd probably need to take a look


English Google SEO office-hours from June 11, 2021

at some of the specifics there.


So what I would recommend doing here


is posting in the Search Central Help Forum


and including the actual examples of what


it is that you have implemented, the queries that you're


looking at, and the URLs from your website


where you think there might be a problem.


So that's something where I feel like there's


so much detail in the question here,


it's really hard to kind of come up


with a simple answer that tells you what you need to do.


Because it sounds like a lot of these things are kind of OK.


Let's see, I had a server error on some of my pages.


When I checked a few pages showing the example,


they worked just fine.


I also used the validate option a few times,


but Google keeps marking the pages with an error.


It's been a month since then.


I've waited for Googlebot to index


these pages with no success.


This has affected my organic impressions and clicks.


Is there anything I can do here?


So we don't invent errors on pages.


When Googlebot checks a page and there is a server error,


then we really see a server error there.


And it might be that this is something that


is temporary on your website.


And if it's temporary, then with one of the future crawls,


we will kind of try that again.


And if the error is gone, then we


can index the page normally again.


So that's something where if you see these kind of issues come


up regularly, and in particular, if you use the validate feature


in Search Console and the validation comes back


and says there's still server errors,


then that's something I would take up with your hoster


and try to see if there's something that they can do


to diagnose this issue, to double check what might be


happening here, to give you a sense of scope of how many URLs


does this affect, actually.


Because sometimes it can be tricky,


where if Googlebot is crawling millions of pages


from your website and 100 of them have a server error,


then probably that's irrelevant because there are always


some errors somewhere.


But if Googlebot is crawling 200 pages from your website


and 100 of those are server errors,


then that's a little bit more concerning.


That's something you probably want to fix and make sure


that it doesn't happen.


So that's kind of the direction I would head there.


It's not something that Google can fix.


It's really something that you need


to fix on your side with regards to the hosting.


How are desktop and mobile rankings different


when we've already been switched to mobile-first indexing?


So mobile-first indexing is specifically


about that technical aspect of indexing the content.


And we use a mobile Googlebot to index the content.


But once that content is indexed,


the ranking side is still kind of completely separate.


And it's normal that desktop and mobile rankings are different.


Sometimes that's with regards to things like speed.


Sometimes that's with regards to things like mobile friendliness.


Sometimes that's also with regards


to the different elements that are shown in the search results


page.


So for example, if you're searching on your phone,


then maybe you want more local information


because you're on the go.


Whereas if you're searching on a desktop,


maybe you want more images or more videos


shown in the search results.


So we tend to show a different mix of different search results


types.


And because of that, it can happen


that the ranking or the visibility of individual pages


differs between mobile and desktop.


And that's essentially normal.


That's a part of how we do ranking.


It's not something where I would say


it would be tied to the technical aspect of indexing


the content.


SPEAKER 2


John, one follow up about it.


So in desktop, if there is some ranking


and the same content is in mobile also


and technical issues are also not happening,


and in mobile device, if the ranking is down,


does it clearly mean it is because of mobile friendliness


fork, which is supposed to be done, or page speed?


I mean, we don't use the page experience update.


I don't think that's rolled out yet.


So it wouldn't be from there.


But mobile friendliness is definitely a factor.


There might also be other factors


that play in there, specifically with regards


to mobile and desktop.


So yeah, I mean, these are kind of the differences that


are always a bit around with regards to mobile and desktop.


Search results, sometimes it's also


just because it's like a different device


or a different connection to the internet,


so we use different settings, essentially,


for personalization.


SPEAKER 3


OK, why I was just trying to understand


was because sometimes it does happen in our work.


And we have to focus on some specified things,


like this is because of this.


Yeah.


OK.


Thank you.


Sure.


Wow, we're kind of running low on time already.


Maybe I'll just go to one or two last live questions,


and then I can pause the recording


and we can continue on if any of you


want to stick around longer.


Let's see.


Mohamed, I think, is next.


Hi, John.


Hi.


My question is related to focus keywords


and its optimization for the title.


I just want to ask, is it mandatory to have


the focus keyword in the same order for a base title


or blog title?


Let's suppose I have a keyword app,


a keyword is focus keyword is convert app to mobile.


But we cannot put these keywords as a title.


So for the optimization, we can convert it as a convert


to Google commerce is stored on mobile app.


So here in title, focus keywords are not in the same order,


and plugins like yours does not accept it as a good practice.


So what's your suggestion?


Can we use it in a way or not?


Sometimes.


So from our point of view, we use titles primarily


to understand what the page is about


and to show in the search results.


And it's something where sometimes the order of words


in a query or the order of words on a piece of text does matter,


and sometimes it doesn't matter so much.


So that's something where sometimes it's useful,


sometimes it's not useful.


I think using tools that help you


to analyze the content on your site


and give you suggestions is a great idea.


And I don't know the Yoast plugins.


It's hard for me to say how they do it.


But I would always see these as tools


that give you information, not as a list of requirements.


And it's something where the plugin might give you


information and say, well, this is potentially not great.


And you need to look at that and say, well,


I don't care what you think.


I know better because I am the human


and you're the computer program.


And that's kind of how you need to use all of these SEO tools,


to really use them to get information.


And then the information that you use


might be slightly different.


What are you saying?


It's like, well, I know that I can't


put these keywords in this title without it looking really bad.


Or maybe you'll say, well, OK, this is a good suggestion.


I'll do that.


OK, that means we have to test as per the situations.


Sure, yeah.


I mean, it's something I would never blindly


follow any of these tools.


Even with Search Console, if it tells you


that something is an error, it doesn't


mean that you have to fix it or it doesn't


mean you have to change it.


You can look at that and say, well, it should be an error.


And that's fine.


Thank you.


Sure.


All right, let me take a break here with the recording.


Thank you all for sticking around.


Thank you for watching this on YouTube.


If you're watching it on YouTube,


maybe we'll see you in one of the future Hangouts.


And yeah, with that, hopefully we'll see each other again.


When does JavaScript SEO matter? - JavaScript SEO

There are many different kinds of content on the web.


There's HTML, images, and videos,


but also increasingly complex applications


running in the browser for things


such as email, spreadsheets, or even entire photo editing


suites.


So what does the term JavaScript site really mean?


And when do you need to pay attention to JavaScript SEO?


Traditionally, JavaScript was used


to progressively enhance a site on top of its primary content.


For example, you may add behavior or additional features


such as analytics, funky text effects that


follow the mouse cursor, or even whimsical effects


such as falling snowflakes on a web page.


We don't refer to such websites as JavaScript sites


because all their primary content is


present without JavaScript.


Try this for yourself and use the View Page Source


feature of your browser.


Alternatively, you can also turn off JavaScript in your browser,


and these sites will still work just fine


and show you all their primary content.


But then there are these websites


that use JavaScript to load and display critical content,


such as using JavaScript to dynamically load more content


when the user scrolls or when the browser is


resized.


JavaScript might also be used to do other things in response


to user actions, such as clicking or typing


on a keyboard.


The important difference from the previous examples


of using JavaScript for dynamic behavior


is that now we are using JavaScript


to modify or add critical content on the page.


This is relevant for SEO purposes,


as you want to make sure that Googlebot sees


all the content on the page, including


the parts that are being dynamically added using


JavaScript.


Last but not least, there are the so-called single-page apps.


Single-page apps usually consist of the so-called shell


and various views or routes with different content.


Some JavaScript frameworks, like React and Angular,


fall into this category as well.


For example, you might have a shell


consisting of a navigation menu and a footer that


stay the same all the time.


But in between navigation and footer,


the content can change without reloading the page.


You can use the browser's developer tools


to see the content being fetched from the network in these


cases.


Unlike the previous examples of websites using JavaScript,


single-page applications usually only


deliver the static parts, the shell,


and use JavaScript to decide which content


to fetch and display later.


So let's take a step back and recap.


If you use the view page source of your browser


and see all your content, you don't


have to worry about JavaScript SEO.


If you only see some of your content,


this content will be indexed in the first wave of indexing.


So right away, basically.


We will have a look at some tools and tips


to make sure the rest of your content


remains indexable as well.


If you're concerned with being indexed as fast as possible,


make sure the content you care about the most


is part of the markup you see in the source of your website.


If you do not see your content and use JavaScript


to load the content dynamically, that


means your single-page app will need


to wait for rendering and then indexing.


In later episodes, we will explore options


to improve this.


For instance, we can use dynamic rendering.


But don't worry.


This won't affect how your website is ranking or place


your site at a disadvantage.


In the next episode, we will go over a few important techniques


and best practices that you should keep in mind,


no matter what kind of site you have,


to make sure your site's content is discoverable in search.


So do not forget to subscribe and comment and like


this video.


And also check the helpful webmasters links


in the video description below.


English Google SEO office-hours from December 31, 2021

All right, welcome, everyone, to today's Google Search


Central SEO Office Hours Hangout.


This will be the last one of this year, hopefully.


Who knows, but most likely.


It looks like a bunch of people still manage to join in,


even though it's on the last day of the year, even people


in weird time zones.


Hi, Michael.


So cool.


A handful of questions were submitted on YouTube,


and we have a bunch of people raising their hands here


already, so maybe we'll just go and run


through the people that have their hands raised


at the moment.


Let's see, Ashwani, I think you're first.


Yeah, hi, John.


Very good morning.


Hi.


I have a question related to indexing.


As what I found, our blog, our pages


are not indexing on a regular basis,


but their tags are indexed by Google.


So I don't understand why tag index first rather than


the URL.


Why URL is not indexing first?


How do you mean tags?


Like if, suppose, I have published


a blog related to marketing, anything, marketing, SEO,


whatever it is.


And I have added a tag like SEO service, SEO updates, SEO,


whatever.


And the SEO updates, SEO service is indexed by Google,


but the same URL is not indexing by the Google.


Why?


How do you mean the tag is indexed by Google?


Do you have like the upper tag pages or?


Look, look.


For example, your website name is abc.com.


OK.


And my page is abc.com slash SEO updates.


And inside that page, I have added a tags called SEO updates,


SEO news.


So when I try to search whether this page is indexed by Google


or not, so what Google is basically saying,


like your tags are indexed.


It means it shows in archive, like your tags are indexed,


but your URL, the complete URL is not indexed.


I still don't quite understand what you mean


when the tags are indexed.


Like where do you see that?


Or how do you notice that?


Maybe the tag has a separate URL.


Is it like a tag page with a list of the posts


that are tagged like that?


No, no, no.


As Mr. Praveen said, there must be a URL for every tags,


but no.


There is no any URL for any tags.


But still, the tags are indexed by the Google.


And where do you see it, that they're indexed?


Like what kind of things do you search for?


And then you see the tag.


On the Google, like when I search site double column,


the URL name, when I put that on the Google,


it shows your URL is not indexed,


but your tag is indexed.


So here, I'm a little bit confused.


Like why Google indexing tags rather than they're not


interested to indexing my web page, my URL?


I suspect something is being mixed up.


So what I would recommend doing here


is maybe posting in the Webmaster Help


Forum with the exact URLs and the searches that you're doing,


just so that other people can take a look


and double check to see exactly what is happening


and maybe give you some input on what


you could be doing differently.


So my guess is that something like the home page


is being indexed with a link to your blog post,


or maybe you have a separate tag page where


you list all of the blog posts that have that tag


and that page is being indexed.


And from a practical point of view,


that can sometimes happen, that these are indexed


before the actual content.


That makes sense, for example, with the home page,


because we usually recrawl the home page quite often.


So we might see the home page is updated,


and a link to your article is there.


But the article itself sometimes just takes a little bit longer.


So it's not so much that we're indexing the tag itself.


It's more that there are different places


on your website that refer to the article,


and maybe that's what you're seeing.


OK, OK, I will definitely share the link in the community.


And the second question is related


to same indexing and caching.


So sometimes what I found is some of our website,


sorry, URL is indexed properly, but we


are unable to find the cache file.


OK.


So what is the issue here?


Why we are not getting the cached file?


That can happen.


That's normal in the sense that the cached pages in the search


results are handled separately from the indexing.


So it can happen that we have a page in our index


that we don't have a cached page for.


So if you look for the cached page, it'll say 404 or whatever.


But that's not a sign of a problem.


That's essentially just the way that our systems work.


OK, OK, OK.


So it is not a matter of doubting any right.


OK, OK, OK, John, thank you so much.


Thank you.


Sure.


It looks like the order got shuffled around a little bit.


But since we don't have a ton of people,


I'll just go through the order as it is.


Let's see, Frank, I think you're up next.


Yeah, good morning, everybody.


Thank you, John, for working on the 31st of December


and taking our questions.


I already asked the question on YouTube,


so I might simply read it as it is in YouTube.


I wonder if a poor translation of a new language version


can negatively affect the SEO for domains' more


established main language versions.


So let's go with an example.


Let's assume that I have an established website in French


that exists for a number of years


and has reasonable SEO success.


And then I want to add a German language


version on the same domain.


So not the distinct domain, but the same domain.


And the website owner uses automated translation,


unfortunately, for the German user interface


and the German content.


So I know that automated translation


is considered as automated generated content,


and Google doesn't like it.


So it would seem normal that Google probably


doesn't appreciate the new German version so much.


But my question mainly targets the established French version,


which has done reasonably well so far.


I wonder if this poor German language version


can influence negatively the success of the more


established French version.


So in other words, do you consider the language quality


of each language version on the same domain independently?


Or can there be some sort of negative or bad neighborhood


effect so that if one language version is of poor quality,


all the other language versions on the same domain


suffer as well?


I guess the short answer is yes.


The main issue here is less about these


being translated versions of the content,


but more that for some things, we look at the quality


of the site overall.


And when we look at the quality of the site overall,


if you have significant portions that are lower quality,


it doesn't matter so much for us why they would be lower quality


if they're just bad translations or if they're


terrible content or whatever.


But if we see that there are significant parts that


are lower quality, then we might think overall,


this website is not so fantastic as we thought.


And that can have effects in different places


across the website.


So in short, I guess if you have a very low quality translation


that's also indexed and that's also very visible in search,


then that can definitely pull down the good quality


translation as well or the good quality original content


that you also have.


So yeah.


Very good.


Can I ask one follow-up question on this maybe?


Because obviously, what I'm working in an SEO agency,


and what frequently happens is that clients will give us


what they consider the SEO text as to translate with SEO


optimization at the same time.


And then they have somebody else doing the translation of text


which don't have SEO importance of the user interface.


And unfortunately, very frequently, they


choose low-cost translation services


to do that part of the job.


And can you tell us something about how


Google assesses if something is an automated translation


or if something is of poor quality?


If the entire user interface, for example,


is of poor quality, can this be balanced out,


so to speak, by SEO text with high quality, things like that?


I don't know if we have anything that specifically looks


for low-quality translations.


So it's probably, at least the way that I understand it,


it's more a matter of us trying to understand


the quality of the website overall.


And that's usually not something where


there are individual things that we could just


point at to say, oh, if you have five misspellings on a page,


that's a sign of low quality.


It's like these things happen individually.


And all of these factors, I think, individually


are hard to say that they're a sign of something


being low quality.


But rather, we have to take everything together


and then figure out what the mix is together.


And that's also a reason why sometimes when you significantly


improve the quality of a website overall


or when things get significantly worse,


it just takes a lot of time for our systems


to figure out, oh, overall, the view of this website


is now better or worse.


So from that point of view, it's not


that we have anything specific that we could point at.


The best that I could do if you wanted individual items


is to look at the blog post we did on core updates,


I think, last year sometime or the year before that,


which has a bunch of different questions in there which you


could ask yourself about the website, which you could also


go and look at together with maybe, I don't know,


some testers or some users to get external feedback as well.


And it's not so much that we have algorithms that


try to copy that directly, but it's


kind of almost like a guiding direction where we say, well,


this is the direction we want to go.


And then we will work to make our algorithms try


to figure that out.


What we usually say to our clients


is that we, as a human user, we would


feel annoyed by the quality that you have.


And probably the search engines see it the same way.


Would you concur that this is a good way to put it?


Yeah.


I think that's a good way to look at it.


The other thing that I think is really important


is that you have objective feedback in this regard,


in that if you are working on the website


and it's like your baby, then it's


going to be hard to accept that people don't


like the color scheme or that the design looks outdated


or not professional enough, these small subjective things.


So it's really, I think, important


to have someone external, someone


who is objective to give you this kind of feedback.


And maybe even the connection between SEO agency and client


is almost too personal in that you're very devoted to that.


So maybe in these kind of situations,


it would make sense to say, well, we


will put together a small panel of people


who are not involved with your website,


and they will give us objective feedback.


And it's not that we want you to make these changes,


but objectively, people have said this is a problem


or this is an area for improvement.


Can I just say something, John?


Sure.


Or Frank, if you say those pages aren't the pages that


are being badly translated, if they're not that important,


then do you need them indexed?


Why show Google a bad version?


Why not just let users read it if they need to,


and then just no index it?


And then the overall quality is still, unless I'm wrong, John,


is that not an idea?


If you say they're not important,


if it's like the directions page or if it's the terms


and conditions that no one, that Google doesn't agree to.


Yeah, well, unfortunately, it's not only such unimportant pages


like the directions page or something.


I don't think that you would suggest to not index


the home page, for example, or other pages.


But you did say that it's only the important pages they


will pay to have you guys translate properly.


The idea would be to tell the client, OK, invest money only


in the important pages.


Well, then it gets really subjective also, I think,


because they have a bunch of product pages


which are of poor quality.


And so where do you draw the line?


What is an important product page?


What is not an important product page?


So I appreciate the input, Rob.


I will keep that in mind.


But many times, I think it's rather that the rest, which


is not SEO text, so to speak, is taken or is assigned


to a low cost translation service or even


automated translation.


And then that's the case for all the rest of the website,


unfortunately.


But it's the same types of pages.


Some can have good, some can have bad.


But the type, whether it's category or product,


can be the same.


Is that what you're saying?


Right.


Yeah, I will keep that all possibly


to the same thing in mind.


Thank you very much for the input.


Yeah, I think the aspect of not just looking


at the quantity of pages, but rather


the kind of relative importance, I


think that does help a little bit,


and especially if you have a limited translation budget,


then really focusing to make sure


that the important pages, the pages that


get a lot of traffic, that they're actually


well-translated, I think that goes a long way.


Because when we look at the quality of a website overall,


it's not that we count the pages and we


determine the quality of each page


and make kind of like an average like that.


It's more that we try to figure out, well,


how does this website represent itself externally?


And that's focused quite a bit on the pages that


are more important, the pages that get a lot of traffic.


So kind of like how Rob mentioned,


if you can make sure that the important pages are


well-translated, then even if the less important pages


are low-quality translations, you can get almost like,


I don't know, 90% of the way there.


So that, I mean, it really depends on the website itself


and the budgets and how it's organized.


If you just have one person translating or one agency


translating everything, then obviously you


can't tell them like, oh, just do a bad job on these pages.


But if you can split that up, then sometimes it


makes sense to focus on the important stuff first.


SPEAKER 1 OK, brilliant.


Thank you very much, John.


That was a very, very important input


for the end of the year.


Thank you very much.


Guten Roschenz, Neue.


SPEAKER 2 Thank you very much.


Cool, Rob, I think you were up next anyway.


So please continue.


SPEAKER 3 With our US site, we previously


had a problem with, we delivered IP-related content.


So we would detect where people were from,


and it would show them the closest products to them.


But then that resulted in us essentially


Google indexing our site as if we were exclusively


in California.


So with the newer site, we're not going to do that.


But if we ask for the user's input,


a click here to sort by closest to me,


or we ask for an action first, is that 100% safe?


Or can Google also take that action with its bot,


and we could have the same problem?


SPEAKER 1 I think it depends on how you implement it.


SPEAKER 3 Or is there a delivery system that's better,


whether it's a click, or what coding type to use,


whether it's Ajax, or whatever we do?


Yeah, so if it's a button, and it goes through a form,


that kind of thing, then almost certainly we wouldn't do that.


I don't think Googlebot clicks on anything like that.


If it's a link that we can follow,


then we might follow that link and then end up


indexing the link pages as well, which might go in that direction.


SPEAKER 3 As long as it pops up with an overlay or whatever


that is that say, allow our site to use your location.


Is that safe?


If it uses the browser permissions dialog thing,


then I don't think we ever accept any permissions.


I mean, it's something you can probably easily test.


But from my understanding, when it comes to rendering,


all of these permission dialogs are essentially


ignored and not processed.


So if it's location or pop-ups or I don't know


what they all are, those things are essentially


ignored on our side.


OK, thanks.


Cool.


Praveen.


Hi, John.


So the question is about the pages that are not indexed,


basically.


So the thing is we have a site where


there are some hundred pages that are not indexed.


They are tagged with meta robots not indexed tag.


But they are accessible to the users.


They can access those pages.


Now, the thing is there are a lot of good authority


sites in the industry that are actually linking back


to these pages that are actually not indexed.


So though we are getting referral traffic and all


this stuff, but from SEO benefit,


link benefit point of view, we are not getting anything,


because obviously, they are not indexed.


So the question was if we set 301 redirect for Google


board on these URLs to some relevant pages,


will that be against Google guidelines?


Because users can still access those pages.


But for Google board, there will be a 301 redirect.


That seems kind of borderline.


I don't know.


I mean, it also feels like the kind of thing


where you might just use a rel canonical


and leave it at that to kind of point at the page


that you do want to have indexed.


Because if you're doing this kind of redirect specifically


for Google bot, then I think on the one hand,


from a technical point of view, it's very easy to get that wrong


and to have something mess up.


And I mean, from a user point of view,


I don't think it would be a big issue,


because we would probably only index the target page anyway.


So it's not that a user would click


on a link in the search results and end up


on one page that looks very different from what


they clicked on.


So on the one hand, there, I think


it feels like there are easier solutions to this


with a rel canonical to do essentially the same thing.


But I don't think it would be super problematic.


So.


SPEAKER 2 Yeah, we thought about canonical too.


But then we thought Google might ignore it,


because the two pages might not be exactly the same.


So there could be an issue, because one page is more


dependent on JavaScript thing, and other is more HTML.


JOHN MUELLER I don't know.


From my point of view, I would prefer


to try to use a rel canonical as much as possible,


just to make sure that you don't have


to set up any separate infrastructure


to cloak to Googlebot and all of the problems associated


with that.


Because it feels like you have to put a lot of work


in to make that work the way that you want it.


And the other approach is just so much simpler and so much


easier and less error prone.


So I would try to stick with that.


SPEAKER 2 Yeah.


So from options perspective, we got both.


But just wanted to confirm, if we go with 301,


will it be against Google guidelines?


JOHN MUELLER No, it won't be against Google guidelines.


Because what would be problematic


is if this page were indexable, and you


redirected kind of depending on the user agent,


then that could be seen as a kind of a sneaky redirect.


But since we're indexing the target page,


then it doesn't really matter what


you do on the pages that lead up to that page,


provided that they're not indexed.


SPEAKER 2 Sure.


Sure.


Got it.


Thank you.


And very happy new year.


Thanks.


You too.


Let's see.


Sanjay.


Hi.


My question is related to hidden text.


If a text block is available in source code, but for user,


there is no way to see that content,


consider that text in its index?


Maybe.


I mean, if it's in normal HTML on the page


and it's just hidden, then it's possible that we pick that up


and use it for indexing.


I don't think it's a great idea to do it like that on purpose,


but it can happen.


And it is something to keep in mind,


especially if you're trying to avoid indexing


some specific kind of text.


So for example, one thing that I saw recently


is someone had an error message in the part of the page that


was actually hidden.


And it was only shown if there was actually


an error on the page, but it was always on the page.


And our systems picked that up and thought, well,


this page is an error page.


We can ignore it.


So from that point of view, it's something


where if you want it indexed, then make sure it's


visible and indexable.


If you don't want it indexed, then make


sure it's not indexable and not actually on the page at all.


Actually, the situation is that on our product category pages,


on desktop, it is visible only for one or two lines,


and on mobile devices, it only five or six words


appears for users.


And there is no Read More button as well.


Is there any situation that Google


might penalize also for cloaking or something like that?


I don't think so.


I mean, it sounds like it's also text that's


related to your product anyway.


So from that point of view, it's not very misleading.


It's, I think, just suboptimal from your side.


Adding a Read More button or some kind of a link


to expand the description sounds like a simple solution to that.


I wouldn't worry that Google will penalize the website


for something like that.


So my primary question was, will Google


consider that text in its text?


Yes.


So yes, it will consider it.


OK, thank you.


Cool.


Let's see.


Alin.


Hi, John.


Happy New Year's to you in advance.


Thanks for taking my call.


So we have a situation where we have a news website that's


one of the leading financial publications in the country.


They've done well always.


And there is another sister website, completely unrelated,


but again, it's a smaller site, smaller traffic,


a smaller number of stories daily,


smaller number of stories overall.


The bigger website, the financial publication,


over time, we suspected that previous stakeholders, they


did some nefarious activities.


We think it's penalized, but there's no way for us


to know that it's been penalized.


But lately, what we noticed was that the other website


sometimes takes stories from the financial publication


with attribution.


And on the lesser website, on Google News,


it always seems to end up ranking higher.


And we realized that the smaller website with a lower page


rank potentially is ranking higher.


We figured that something is afoot or something is amiss,


and we don't know how to go about it.


I've disavowed a lot of links, over 3,000 links,


a lot of domains as well.


We realized a lot of traffic is coming from Blogspot.


Some of them were shady.


We realized there was about 200, 300 URLs


that were marketing related.


We blocked those about six to eight months ago.


We still are not able to rank higher.


In fact, what happens is on Google News,


we'll have a story, we'll be the exclusive,


we'll be the first one, the whole E thing,


we'll be trustworthy, we're exclusive,


we'll rank very high.


And as soon as even this lesser website or other websites


publish the same story, even if they do a spin on our take


or if they have a genuine story or a copy of


or extrapolating from our story, when they do that,


they suddenly start ranking higher.


And we immediately start disappearing into oblivion.


And now I'm tasked with improving the SEO.


The editors are frustrated.


We put a story, it's original.


And I'm kind of feeling out of options on what to do.


And the second part of the question is,


the disavow list, there's two ways to get the list.


One is on these SEO tools, the paid tools.


They come up with a lot of URLs


that don't show up in the search console.


So we're looking at those lists,


adding them to our disavow list and adding them.


Should we be looking at both sides or not?


And what are my options?


And if there's any recommended reading or any,


how should I go about this?


Thank you.


Yeah, I think you posted on YouTube as well


with the domain, right?


So I took a quick look at the domain beforehand,


and I don't see any kind of manual action


or penalty associated with that domain.


I also don't see any issue with regards


to the links for that domain.


So my suspicion is you probably don't need


to put a lot of time into the disavow work,


and probably even just focusing on search console links,


if you actually find something really problematic there,


would be enough.


So that's kind of, I think from the overall point of view


there, I don't see anything really holding back


this website in search.


The main thing I did notice though,


is that you have geo-targeting set up


in search console for Pakistan.


I don't know if that's by design,


if that's something that you're trying to do.


If you want to make a general English speaking news website,


then probably it makes sense


to turn off the geo-targeting there.


So that might be something that can help you.


The other thing I think that I just realized


in listening to your question,


is that you're focusing very much on Google News.


And while Google News does a lot of things


similar to Google Search,


I don't know if it does everything in the same way.


And in particular, with regards to the ranking there,


I don't know if there might be like separate things


that Google News would do


that doesn't apply to Google Search.


So what I would also do there is try to contact


someone on the Google News side


in the Help Center for Google News publishers.


I believe there's a form that you can use to contact


the folks on the Google News side


and to try to get some input from them as well.


So that's kind of the direction I would take there.


I think when it comes to search the geo-targeting,


if you want to target countries other than Pakistan,


kind of like a general English speaking news website,


then I would definitely turn that off


because that can have an effect there


in that it really focuses on Pakistan


and then slightly focuses less on other countries.


All right, I'll do that. Thanks very much.


Just a quick question.


How soon would these settings take effect?


Let's say I make it international now,


how soon can I expect to see the results or the impact?


I don't know.


My guess is it'll be anywhere from a week or two


to maybe a month or two.


So that's kind of the timeframe that I suspect it takes


for something like the geo-targeting setting to change.


With regards to a news website,


I suspect it'll be a little bit faster than usual


just because with a news website


we would focus on the newer content


and with the newer content


we would see the setting very quickly.


So probably more on the shorter side for news website,


but I don't know all of the systems that are involved


with geo-targeting settings changes.


Okay, and one follow-up as well.


We are considering doing the Instant API


where we update you.


The documentation says that that's relevant for jobs,


but someone also on the same community,


I think there was another question


and they're looking if it can be used for news.


Is it okay to use for news?


We have been using it.


And the second part is sometimes when we do use it,


we publish a story, then we unpublish it,


and then we republish it during the editing phase,


and then we finally publish it.


So is that a concern?


And is that API relevant for news?


It's not really relevant for news.


It is really meant for job-based content.


And I believe it's also quite limited


in terms of how many URLs you can send there by default.


So I would not assume that that changes anything for news.


We did notice, oddly enough, that when we did it,


we indexed a bit faster than if we just waited


for the crawler to come around based on the site map.


I mean, this is anecdotal, but we did notice it.


A minute or two, which is kind of strange.


But again, if it hits the limit on the number of queries


per day or the API limits, I guess it wouldn't really work


for large numbers.


Yeah.


I think what you would definitely see


is that we will crawl the URL very quickly


because we need to pick up the structured data


to understand if this is actually a job posting or not.


So the crawling side, you should probably see a change,


but I don't expect to see a change on the indexing side


for that.


But it's also something where, from our point of view,


it's not that we would penalize a site for doing this wrong.


So no.


OK, well, that answers it.


Thanks very much.


Thank you.


Thanks, John.


All right.


Stein, I think.


Hi, John.


Hi.


I did a website migration three months ago to a new domain.


I just cloned the whole website.


I had all internal and external links updated,


and they're redirected to the new one.


I had AMP enabled on the old one.


And my old AMP articles are always


ranked in Google Top Stories.


So now my new one is not.


I have AMP disabled right now on my new domain


because I didn't like it, and it gives too much trouble.


I don't want to use it anymore.


But AMP is not needed to include in Top Stories right now.


So my question is why my new domain is not


I want to add to that that I rank on the Google page


on my main keywords on top, like number two.


And also my articles are shown in Google News App


and on Google Discovery.


So I have quite a strong authority on my main keyword.


So I don't understand why I'm not


displayed in Google Top Stories.


Can you explain that?


I don't know.


It's hard to say.


I think if you're doing a domain migration


and switching off AMP at the same time,


then especially with something like Top Stories,


that might be a little bit confusing.


But it sounds like otherwise things


are being picked up well.


So probably you're on the right track there.


The thing with Top Stories in particular


is it's an organic search feature.


And it's not something that the site just


gets because they deserve it.


But it's more that we try to figure out


what we should be showing in a Top Stories section.


And sometimes that can be more.


Sometimes that can be less.


Sometimes that includes content from, I don't know,


individual sites or individual types of articles.


And sometimes less so.


What I would consider doing here is, on the one hand,


giving it a little bit more time.


The other thing is to double check things


around the page experience setting.


Because like we mentioned in the blog post,


when we turned that off, we essentially said, well,


with pages with a very good page experience score,


they can essentially appear in Top Stories as well.


So it's not the case that we would take any kind of page


and show it in a Top Stories.


But rather, we would use kind of like a page experience score,


almost like as a kind of a ranking factor


to determine what we would show within the Top Stories


section.


So in my site vitality, so all my URLs are in the green.


So there's not like 99.4% of my, I have good, 99.4% of good URLs.


So there's all green there with no specific marks or whatever.


So that's all in place.


OK.


And in that case, your site already has field data as well?


Yeah.


I'm qualified.


Everything seems fine.


Like I said, on the main keyword,


I get just a number two.


So I have a very strong authority on my main keywords.


So that's why I just don't get it.


My suspicion is maybe it just takes longer.


Because it's a new domain?


Maybe that's a thing?


Maybe with like the domain migration,


it just takes a little bit longer


to kind of get settled in there.


It sounds like everything else is kind of OK.


And especially if you're being shown in Google News


and Discover as well, then it's like things


are essentially set up well.


So my guess is it's more a matter of time.


The thing also with Top Stories in particular


is I'm not aware of anything manual on our side


where we would control that, where we would say, oh.


Is that an automatic process?


Yes.


OK.


So how do I need to imagine that there's


something like a superpower bar that's


like going from left to right?


Yes, ping.


OK, we display it now.


How is that working?


I mean, it's tricky with regards to things around quality


signals because they just take a lot of time to collect.


And they take a lot of time for us to be fairly certain


that we can trust them.


And I suspect it's just something around those lines.


OK, so your advice is just keep doing what you do.


And I'm writing new content every day.


So maybe in a couple of months, it will be fixed probably?


I would say if you don't see any change within a month,


then let me know and send me the URL.


And I can double check with the team here.


But especially if you're saying that migration took place,


like, I don't know, three months ago.


September 8, to be exact.


And especially if you moved away from AMP,


then it feels like something that just


takes a little bit of time.


So how do I send the URL if nothing has changed?


What's the best thing to do?


You can drop the link here in the chat,


or you can send me a note on Twitter.


OK, OK, no problem.


OK, thank you.


One other short question.


So I'll write about streaming services.


I always wrote about one specific streaming services,


but now I added a second one.


But now all of a sudden, Google is adding a keyword in my URLs


when it's like, I think it's too short.


Maybe Google thinks it's too short.


And it adds my main keyword in articles


from the second streaming services.


So that don't make sense at all.


So now you see an article about streaming services A,


and it puts the keywords from streaming service B beside it.


Because for a long period of time,


I only wrote about streaming service A. You understand?


I don't understand what you mean.


Is it like the title?


Yeah, I'm talking about titles, yeah.


Title, OK.


It adds keywords.


It adds keywords from streaming services B to the article title


from streaming services A.


OK.


Randomly.


So Google's probably used to, you only


write about streaming services A. So it's very confusing.


So I can send it to you, but it don't look good in a service.


It's quite confusing.


Yeah, if you can drop a link here in the chat,


then I can pick that up afterwards.


Yeah, yeah, yeah, I will do that.


Thank you, John.


Thanks.


You too.


Bye-bye.


Bye.


Let me run through some of the submitted questions


very briefly, and then we can get more to live questions


as well and anything else.


We'll see.


It looks like a bunch of the questions


were already submitted, so probably similar.


The first one I have here is, I am currently


improving the website quality after I


have multiple pages getting discovered but not indexed.


I wonder in what time frame I can expect Google


to pick up quality changes.


We talked about this briefly before,


and essentially making bigger quality changes on a website


takes quite a bit of time for Google systems to pick that up.


So I would assume that this is something


more along the lines of several months and not several days.


So that's kind of the time frame that I would aim for here.


And because it takes such a while


to get quality changes picked up,


my recommendation would be not to make small changes


and wait and see if it's good enough,


but rather really make sure that if you're


making significant quality changes,


make sure that it's really good quality changes


and not that you're going to have to go back and improve


that again.


Because if it takes a few months,


you don't want to wait a few months and then decide,


oh, yeah, I actually need to change some other pages too.


Really make sure that you have everything covered.


The translations part we've talked about.


Then a question about e-commerce, I guess.


SPEAKER 2


Yes.


So that would rather hint towards, well,


if you think now that the poor quality of the translation


is the cause of maybe the entire site going down in the search


results, then I understand that you would rather advocate,


well, if you now go back and retranslate text,


do it the right way for the entire site,


and do not do penny-pinching efforts where you say, OK,


we will concentrate on the 12 main pages,


and then we might see if that works or not.


Rather, really do good work for the entire site.


That correct?


SPEAKER 1 I think if you're in a situation


where your site dropped invisibility


and you think it's because the overall quality,


then I would definitely go and try to do as much as possible.


If you're in a situation where you're expanding a website


and adding translations, then it feels like something


where you could say, we will initially focus


on the more important ones.


But if it's really a matter of things dropped


and you really need to fix this, then I


would try to fix it across the board now.


SPEAKER 2 OK, great.


Thank you very much.


SPEAKER 1 Sure.


Then back to the e-commerce question.


I sell handmade shoes.


They're all produced for a specific age


range within the same material, technique, et cetera,


but only the design is different.


Would it be counted as duplicate content by Google


if I write one and only high quality product


description for all, or is it better


to have unique descriptions for each one, which reduces


the quality of the content?


I don't know if unique descriptions would reduce


the quality of the content.


So from that point of view, I would argue


that you can have both unique descriptions


and high quality descriptions.


So that last part I would ignore.


But the general question with regards to duplicate content


is we would probably see this as duplicate content,


but we would not demote a website


because of duplicate content.


So from a practical point of view, what would happen


is if someone is searching for a piece of text that


is within this duplicated description on your pages,


then we would recognize that this piece of text


is found on a bunch of pages on your website,


and we would try to just pick maybe one or two pages


from your website to show.


So it's not that we would demote your website


or kind of penalize the website in any way


because it has duplicate content.


It's more from a practical point of view,


we recognize you have this content


on a lot of your pages.


So if someone is searching specifically for that content,


it doesn't make sense for us to show all of those pages.


And that's kind of reasonable when people are searching


for a piece of content.


They don't need to find all of the pages within your website


that have that piece of content.


The thing I think to kind of watch out for here


is if you don't have anything in the textual content


at all that covers the visual elements of your product,


then it makes it very hard for us to actually show these


properly in the search results.


So for example, if you mentioned you have handmade shoes,


if you have blue shoes and red shoes,


and you never mention which color these shoes are in,


then if someone is searching for blue shoes,


we might think, well, your pages are not


that relevant because you don't mention the word blue anywhere


on your pages.


So that's kind of the angle I would take here


is it's fine to have parts of the description duplicated,


but I would definitely make sure that you at least have


something in there that really has text


about the visual elements that are


unique to those individual products that you're selling.


So that's kind of the direction I would go.


Let's see.


I have a question about a notification


from Search Console.


It's about my author archive pages


that are missing a field URL.


I would like to noindex my author archive pages.


Will it solve a problem, or will it


have an impact on my site appearing in search?


The author archive pages don't have any keywords anyway.


Are they important for EAT?


Will my EAT score go down if I noindex the author archive


pages?


So we don't have an EAT score.


So from that point of view, you don't have to worry about that.


In general, the notification you receive in Search Console


is probably about structured data


that you're using on these pages.


And if you don't want those pages indexed,


then by noindexing those pages, you


will remove that notification as well.


If you're using some kind of a plugin on your site


that generates the structured data there,


then maybe you can disable it for those author pages.


And it'll be fixed as well.


Or maybe you can fix the fields that the structured data


provides.


And that will also solve the problem.


My guess is that the structured data


that you're using on these pages is not critical for your site.


It's not something that we would show in the search results


directly anyway.


So from that point of view, probably


you're fine with either removing the structured data


from those pages, noindexing those pages


if they're not critical for your site.


All of that would be fine.


I think I would see this slightly differently if I knew


that this was a site that really focused a lot on the authority


and kind of the knowledge and the name of the authors,


where if people are actively searching


for the name of the author, then your collection of content


by that author might be actually useful to have


in the search results.


So for those kind of sites, I think


it would be useful to keep that indexed.


But then you would probably already


want to keep that indexed because they're getting traffic


from search.


So if you're not seeing any traffic at all


to these author pages, and they're just random people who


are writing for your blog or something like that,


then probably noindexing them would be fine.


Is linking pagination pages sequentially showing only


the next and previous better than showing more number


of pages on a paginated page?


I don't think any of these approaches


are really better or worse in the sense


that for the longest time, we didn't have


any guidance on pagination.


And it seemed to just work well for search.


So it felt like something where we don't actually


have to tell people what exactly to do.


The important thing, I think, about pagination


to keep in mind is that these are essentially


just links between pages.


And for the most part, our systems


don't go in and try to figure out,


oh, this is a paginated set of pages,


so I will do something special here.


But rather, they see links to other pages.


And you can have one page that links


to the next page and the previous page, which


is just like other pages and links.


Or you can have one page that links to a bunch of next pages


if you have a set of next pages.


And both of those are reasonable approaches


to take in that we can crawl and find all of those pages.


If you link sequentially, what will generally


happen is the first page of your set


will have a lot stronger signals in the sense


that your main content links to the first page.


And then it incrementally drops and drops and drops


as it goes through the pagination set.


So you're focusing more on the first pages of the set,


whereas if you link to a bunch of different pages immediately,


then you're spreading it out a lot faster.


But I think overall, these almost like SEO tweaks,


they don't play a big role for most sites in the sense


that we can find all of these pages anyway.


We can find them and follow the links on those pages as well.


It's not something that you need to do in any particular way.


A quick follow-up on this.


So we have about thousands of authors.


And each author, some of them might have hundreds of pages.


Now, when a new story comes in, page 2


changes because everything gets sort of cascading down.


In that case, does Google recrawl everything?


And we know that the links on the deeper pages


have already been indexed.


Is there any guidelines around that?


Or should we just expect Google to recrawl


because everybody gets reshuffled every day


across hundreds?


Yeah.


I think in practice, what you'll notice


is that we will crawl the first page of the set


a little bit more often than the other pages.


And we'll probably recrawl the other pages from time to time,


but we won't recrawl them immediately.


So probably you would see that also


if you look at the log files for your site


and kind of follow along what happens


when a new article is posted and it's listed on these pages.


How does the crawling of the pagination actually change?


And my guess is 90% of the crawling


will be on the first pages of those sets.


So it would be all right to put a no crawl on,


let's say, after page number 100 because it's


accessible.


Cool.


I think we're kind of at time.


I have one more hand raised, and then I


can pause the recording for YouTube,


and we can continue chatting a bit if any of you want to.


Shyam, I think.


Hi, John.


Thank you for taking.


So my question is around the performance aspect.


I know the page experience in Google Search Console


and the core web vitals information


is from the Chrome UX data set.


But when I look at mobile browsers specifically


and the mobile browser shares, like for you


as the Safari and other browsers have a share of 60%,


does that mean still it's only the other 40% field


data which is used for the core web vitals and page experience,


or does Google do something else to account


for the other browsers page experience and core web


vitals too?


I don't know all the details with regards to Chrome,


but my understanding is that this is really just based


on the field data that we see, which


is based on the Chrome User Experience Report


data, which is a subset of the Chrome users.


So there are also specific requirements


with regards to the settings that are enabled for the user


if they're sending performance data back or not,


which are also required there.


And from that point of view, it's not all Chrome users,


but also just a subset of the Chrome users.


For the most part, I think it's still representative


because browsers tend to be very similar


with regards to their qualities.


And if anything, the more high end devices,


which sometimes the iOS devices are,


tend to be a little bit faster.


So it's something where it's not that I think we're


skewing our data in a bad way.


So that's at least as far as I understand it.


I don't know all of the details with regards to Chrome User


Experience Report data, but it would surprise me


if there were approximations that were kind of applied there


to say, oh, well, we will just make it so many percent more


because we think that other users might be like that.


I think it's really just based on the data


that we've collected.


SPEAKER 2


Let me pause the recording here.


It's been great having you all here.


And even on the last day of the year,


I don't think I will make more of these office hours


this year.


But next year, you can count on it.


We will definitely have more then.


So let me pause the recording here


and wish you all a fantastic new year.


And if you're watching this on YouTube,


feel free to join in in one of the future episodes


where we can talk about your questions as well.


English Google SEO office-hours from October 29, 2021

All right.


Welcome, everyone, to today's Google Search Central SEO


Office Hours Hangout.


My name is John Mueller.


I'm a search advocate at Google in Switzerland.


And part of what we do are these Office Hour sessions


where people can join in and ask their questions


around the web search and their website.


We have a bunch of things submitted on YouTube,


which we can go through.


But if any of you want to get started, feel free to jump in.


Oh, man.


So quiet today.


Fine.


OK.


I hope I don't get out of question.


I do have a question.


I just didn't want to go first and dominate anyone's time.


Go for it.


Would you mind taking a look at our new site, John,


theexperiencegifts.com.


My question is that we have a landing page now


because that's a global site.


So we have on the main home landing page,


we have links to the US, UK, South Africa, Germany soon.


And in the US, it seems to be being picked up


as our main home landing page rather than the forward slash


US.


And so what tags or what kind of indexing


would you suggest on that main experiencegifts.com landing


page so that Google starts to learn that it's really just


a doorway to the other countries?


There's nothing on there really other than the links


to the other countries.


We've set up the country tags in Webmaster Tools


for the other individual country sites.


So I'm not sure what more we could do.


The hreflang would probably be the right approach there.


And what is important is that that default page


is set as an x-default.


X-default.


Yeah.


So the idea being there that we understand that it's


a part of your set of pages.


Whereas if you don't specify an x-default there


because you say, oh, it's different from these other


pages because the other pages have content


and this one is just kind of like a doorway,


then we'll treat it as a separate page.


You want to say, oh, well, we could show a content page


or this main page thing.


And then we might show the main page thing.


So we put the x-default tag on the directory landing page


or on the US home page?


On the directory page.


Kind of that default page that applies


if none of the specific country versions apply.


OK.


All right, fine.


Thanks.


Cool.


All right.


If there are no other questions before we start,


I'll just go through the YouTube questions.


And feel free to jump in if anything pops up.


And of course, raise your hands if you'd


like to ask questions later on as well.


Let's see.


First question I have here is about the podcast knowledge


panels.


I would love to know more about the podcast knowledge


panels and the move behind making them happen.


Are Google podcasts going to be one


of the focuses moving forward?


So I don't actually know anything specific


about the podcast knowledge panels.


But usually what happens with these kind of things


is we recognize that there's maybe a type of content


or a specific type of entities that


are getting more and more popular


or that have been popular, I guess, in the case of podcasts.


And we recognize it makes sense to kind of package


these in a special way.


And because of that, we might take something and create


something like a knowledge panel for it


and try to put it together like that.


With regards to Google podcasts and these knowledge panels,


in general, we try not to treat any Google products or services


special in this regard.


But rather, if we see that this matches really well


to something like a knowledge panel that we have,


then we'll try to integrate that there.


But that's similar to any other products or services


that we find outside.


So I don't think there's, at least as far as I know,


I don't think there is any secret strategy


to try to get Google podcasts listed


in all of these different places.


But it's something that sometimes is just a good fit.


Let's see.


Next question.


Can no index pages affect Google's evaluation


of quality website at a site level?


That is, as it's used in core updates.


99% of the pages of this website are relatively lower quality


and not indexed.


So 300,000 no index and 3,000 index pages.


So I think, first of all, the amount of low quality pages


that you're kind of like saying yourself are low quality pages,


that feels kind of tricky or problematic to me,


just independently of anything with regards


to Google core updates.


If you find that you have so many pages on your website that


are really low quality in the sense


that they're not good pages, they


don't have any useful content on them,


then it feels like an opportunity for something


to clean up there.


Because even if we don't index these pages,


users might go to those pages.


And if that's what they build the perception of your site on


and you know that these are bad pages,


then that feels like a recipe for people just not coming


back.


So kind of outside of anything specific to SEO,


that feels like something that would be worth cleaning up.


Sometimes people see things as being lower quality just


because of technical reasons.


For example, if you have category pages


and you can filter them and sort them in different ways,


you might say, well, this is lower quality because it's not


actual content.


From my point of view, that's more a matter


of just technically not interesting content.


It doesn't mean that it's actually a bad page.


So that might be kind of a misunderstanding there.


But going back to the question itself with regards


to the core updates and Google's understanding of quality


of a website overall, we don't take these pages into account.


So we really focus on the content


that we have indexed for a website.


And that's kind of the basis that we


have with regards to all of our quality updates


and all of our quality algorithms


and understanding of the website itself.


On the one hand, because that's what we're showing in search,


so if there's something on your website


that we're not showing in search and we're not


using it to promise anything to users who are searching,


then from our point of view, that's kind of up to you


what you do with that.


The other point I think is a little bit more


practical in the sense that if we don't have these pages


indexed, then we don't have any data for these pages.


Then we can't aggregate any of that data for our systems


across your website.


So from that point of view, if these pages are no indexed,


we don't take them into account.


Then a question about authors.


A question regarding author.url and structured data.


On our About Us page, we have different paragraphs


for every author.


Would it be OK to make anchor links


for each author on this page and use this anchor links


for the author URL property, or does it


have to be a dedicated page for every author?


I don't think we have any guidelines specifically


around that.


So this is something where it's less


a matter of their technical requirements for how


you link your authors and more a matter of, well, it


has to work well for users.


So that's kind of the focus that I would use there.


So if this is a page that works well where it makes sense


that authors can or people can find information


about the authors on your website, then that seems fine.


The one thing I might caution here a little bit


is that sometimes for individual authors,


it makes sense for us to understand a little bit better


how that author fits in overall.


And for that, often these authors


link their different profiles together,


or they take one author profile that they


use across the whole web.


And for that kind of scenario, I think


it does make sense to have individual URLs


for each other.


But if this is purely within your website


and purely for informational reasons for users,


then probably that would be perfectly fine like that.


Is the country code top-level domain a ranking factor,


especially for local businesses?


I would say kind of on a very rough basis, I would say yes.


We do use the country code top-level domain


as a factor in geotargeting.


So in particular, if someone is looking for something local


and we know that the website is focused on that local market,


then we will try to promote that website in the search results.


And we use the top-level domain if it's a country code


top-level domain.


And if it's not a country code top-level domain,


then we'll check the Search Console settings


to see if there is any country specified there


for international targeting.


And if you have a generic top-level domain like that,


then setting that in Search Console,


if you want to focus on a specific country,


definitely makes sense.


And like I mentioned, we use this


for queries where we can tell that the user is


looking for something local.


So an example that I've used in the past


is if you're searching for something like a washing


machine repair manual, then you're probably not


Whereas if you're just searching for washing machine repair,


then you probably are looking for something local.


So those are kind of the different scenarios there.


And from that point of view, it's


something where sometimes it makes sense


to look at your website and think about, well,


do I need to target these local queries,


or am I more looking for something


to cover the broad range of people


who are searching globally?


And both of those can be useful strategies.


It's more a matter of you picking a strategy


and then executing on that.


It's been a while since the product review


update launched in the US, but I haven't heard anything


about other regions.


Can updates like this be part of the core updates


and therefore be live theoretically?


I think changes like this that we tend to announce


individually tend not to be part of the core updates,


so I wouldn't tie that to any particular core update.


But it's very possible that this has


rolled out in other regions.


Usually, we tend to announce bigger updates


when they launch.


And when they launch in just individual regions,


we'll try to mention that just to make sure that people


are aware of where they launch.


But usually, the goal is really to roll this out globally


as much as possible for pretty much any update that we do.


And with that in mind, it's something


where my estimation is that these kind of updates


have started rolling out in other regions as well,


other languages as well.


So I would not assume that just because you haven't heard


any specific announcement saying, oh, this is also


live in Switzerland, that it's not live in Switzerland.


Usually, we just start somewhere,


and we let you know where we started,


but it expands over time.


There are very few changes where we explicitly


call out individual countries and languages when


they launch as well.


In the summer, Google released an update


in title generation for web pages.


Could you tell us what factors this new algorithm decides


which titles should be changed?


We tried using the new documentation on this,


but nothing seems to work.


The update affected some of our pages.


Most of the time, it's a category page.


Its title is cut, and the brand and domain name is added.


We've noticed some other sites in the search results


have this problem.


At the same time, we see that our main rival in the search


results has the same titles they've been using


since before the update.


So I think we have some information in the last blog


post that we did about these title changes.


So I would definitely check that out.


One of the, I think, bigger changes here that happened


is that the titles are no longer tied to the individual query.


So it's something that is really on a per-page basis.


On the one hand, this means it doesn't adapt dynamically.


So it's a little bit easier to test.


And on the other hand, it also means


that it's easier for you to try different things out


in the sense that you can change things on your pages.


And then you could use the Submit to Indexing tool


and see what happens in Google search results.


What does it look like now?


And because of that, it's something


where I would recommend, if you're


seeing weird titles on your pages,


just to try different approaches out and see


what works best for your website,


for your kind of content.


And based on that, then expand that to the rest


of your website.


So that's kind of the direction I would take there


to essentially just try it out and try different approaches


out.


And because it's really static on a per-page basis,


it is something that is a lot easier to kind of experiment


with a little bit and to see, well,


what are the different options that I can do here?


How can I show maybe my company name or my website's name?


How can I show the title that is relevant here?


All of those different things.


And from that point of view, I just try things out.


It's definitely not the case that we


have any manual lists on our side where we say,


oh, well, your competitor is on the good list for titles.


We'll show nice titles for them, and you'll get the messy titles.


It's all algorithmic.


So it's not something that is kind of manually held back


for individual sites or pushed into individual sites.


How does it affect the search rankings


when page and search titles don't match?


Often, we experience that the page title has been shortened


and our company name added to the search results title.


We do add our company name to the end sometimes.


But the concern is that this is to all our page titles


and will limit how much we can write in the title.


So the question is, really, is it better to have shortened


titles that can be displayed in the search results,


or is it better to keep the page titles we have already


and let Google choose a different title?


I don't think there is any explicit what


is better from our side.


One of the things I think is worthwhile to keep


in mind is we do use titles as a tiny factor in our rankings


as well.


So it's something where I wouldn't necessarily


make titles on your pages that are totally irrelevant,


but you can try different things out,


kind of like I mentioned before.


And it's not a critical issue if the title that we


show in the search results, we call these title links


nowadays.


So if that doesn't match what is on your page,


from our point of view, that's perfectly fine.


And we use what you have on your page when it comes to search.


So from that point of view, it's like you


can put the things in your title tag on your pages.


And maybe we'll show that.


Maybe we'll tweak that a little bit.


But essentially, your page is what we use


as a basis for the rankings.


And with regards to the company name or not,


I think that's a little bit up to you and a little bit also


in our algorithms as well in that we do see that users like


to have an understanding of the bigger picture of where


does this page fit.


And sometimes a company name or a brand name for the website


makes sense to show there.


Some people choose to put it in the beginning or in the end.


Some people have different kinds of separators that they use.


From my point of view, I think that's


more a matter of personal taste and decoration


rather than anything related to how ranking would work.


Let's see.


Question on the disavow tool.


Does using the disavow tool raise a flag in the algorithm


and trigger a soft penalty on a website


for possibly engaging in link building in the past?


We've used this tool to remove hundreds


of spammy links and our site collapsed a few days later.


Should we remove the disavow file?


And how long will it take for a site


to return to normal traffic and ranking?


Or is there a permanent black mark


against this website for using the disavow tool?


Good question.


No, there is not any kind of penalty or black flag or mark


or anything associated with using the disavow tool.


From our point of view, this is purely a technical tool


that you can use if you have any links that


are pointing at your website that you


don't want to be taken into account by Google systems.


And it doesn't mean that you created those links.


It can be something that you found


where you're really worried that Google might get the wrong


picture for your website.


It's essentially up to you.


It's essentially a technical tool


that helps you to kind of manage the external associations


with your website with regards to Google search.


In most cases, if you're just seeing random links coming


to your website, you don't need to use the disavow tool.


But if you see something where you're saying,


well, I definitely didn't do this.


And if someone from Google manually


were to look at my website, they might assume that I did this.


Then it might make sense to use the disavow tool.


But from that point of view, it doesn't mean that you did it


or it's not a kind of a sign that, oh, you're


admitting that you were doing link games in the past.


From our point of view, it's really purely a technical tool.


And also, in general, with regards to pretty much,


I'd say, like most manual actions in general,


if the manual action is resolved and if the issue is cleaned up,


then we're treating your site as we


would treat any other website.


It's not that we have kind of a memory in our systems that


would say, oh, well, this website had a manual action


in the past.


Therefore, it might be shady in the future as well.


From our point of view, if you've cleaned up an issue,


then you've cleaned up that issue.


With some kinds of issues, it does take a little bit longer


for things to settle down just because we


have to reprocess everything associated with the website.


And that takes a bit of time.


But it's not the case that there is any kind of grudge


in our algorithms that's holding back aside.


With regards to this particular case, where you're saying


you submitted a disavow file and then the ranking dropped


or the visibility dropped, especially a few days later,


I would assume that that is not related.


So in particular, with the disavow file, what happens


is we take that file into account when we reprocess


the links kind of pointing to your website.


And this is a process that happens incrementally


over a period of time where I would expect it would have


an effect over the course of, I don't know,


maybe three, four, five, six months, kind of step by step


going in that direction.


So if you're saying that you saw an effect within a couple


of days and it was a really strong effect,


then I would assume that this effect is completely unrelated


to the disavow file.


That said, it sounds like you still


haven't figured out what might be causing this.


So that might be worthwhile to maybe jump


in on another of these Hangouts at some point.


And maybe we can go through some of the different options that


might be kind of affecting your website there.


It's really hard to say because it's definitely not


based on the disavow file.


But what else could it be?


There's like so many different options.


I'm working on a Tanzanian website.


Users search in two languages, in English and Swahili.


We would like to publish the same content in both languages


for better UX.


Would that cause any duplicate content issues in the search


results in general show a mix of English and Swahili content?


How would we best use a canonical tag and hreflang?


So the good news is anything that is translated


is completely different content.


So it's definitely not something where


we would say this is duplicate content just because it's


a translated version of a piece of content.


From our point of view, duplicate content


is really if the words and everything match


and are really duplicates.


And then in cases like that, we might pick one of these pages


and show, and we might not show the other one.


But if they're translated, they're


completely different words, different pages, essentially.


So it's definitely not something we would


consider duplicate content.


The ideal configuration here is to use hreflang


between these pages on a per-page basis.


And this is something that I would assume


is almost optional in a case like this.


So it's something where I would, before you go off and do


a lot of implementation work for hreflang,


especially for a larger website, it's a lot of work.


I would double check if you're actually seeing any issues


that users with the wrong language


are going to the wrong page or user


with a specific language are going to the wrong page.


And you can kind of see that in Search Console in the performance


report when you look at the queries that


reach your website, especially if you're looking at the top


queries.


You can, based on your knowledge,


estimate which language that query is in


and then look at the pages that were shown in the search


results or that were visited from there.


And based on that, you can make an estimation


of is Google showing the right pages in the search results.


And if Google is already showing the right pages in the search


results, then I think you can probably save yourself


the effort with hreflang.


But if we're showing the wrong pages in the search results,


then definitely the hreflang annotations would help here.


Usually, this is something that is more an issue on almost,


I'd say, generic queries where people


are searching for your company, for example.


Then just based on someone searching for a company name,


we might not really know which language


this user is searching for.


And then we might show the wrong version of the page.


So it might make sense, especially


if you're setting these annotations manually,


to, first of all, double check is it a problem at all.


And if it is a problem, does it just affect individual pages?


And if it does just affect individual pages,


then put the hreflang annotations there,


which might be for your home page or your main category


page, you add those annotations.


And for everything else, probably it's working.


It might be working well.


So in particular, if someone is looking for something somewhat


broad or generic, like, I don't know, for example,


blue running shoes, then obviously in English,


they'll be typing in blue running shoes.


And then we can match that to your blue running shoes


pages in English.


If they're searching in Swahili, I don't know what the term is.


But I imagine it's a different term.


And because it's a different term,


we can automatically match that to your existing Swahili pages.


So for many cases, you might not need


to do anything special here.


But I would kind of double check.


Let's see.


Does writing comprehensive articles


covering a specific subject build trust with Google?


I don't think we have any measure or metric or anything


like that where we'd say you have built trust with Google


and you've built that based on writing comprehensive articles.


I would see this kind of, I don't know,


work as being focused a little bit more on the user side.


So does this build trust with your users?


Do users appreciate this kind of content, that kind of thing?


And hopefully users appreciate that kind of content


if you're actually writing something comprehensive


and useful for them.


The important part, I think, here is really


to figure out which users you want to target


and to make sure that your content actually


speaks in their language.


So for example, if you have technical content


and you write a really detailed technical article about that,


if your users are looking for something that is more general


or more, I don't know, simplified,


that explains the basic topics a little bit better,


then maybe that highly specialized technical article


is not the best thing for them.


Whereas if your users are really kind


of the specialized technical people


and they want to find all of this kind of highly technical


content, then maybe that is the right match.


So that's something where you almost


need to think about which users do I want to target


and what kind of content are they looking for?


How can I write it in a way that matches what they search for


and what they would like to find?


And then based on that, you can kind of build out your website.


So don't just blindly go in and say, oh, I


would like to have my website rank for rental cars.


Therefore, I will write long comprehensive content


on rental cars because probably that's not


what users are looking for.


You almost need to figure out your users first


and then work on your content.


Let's see, we keep coming across sites that scrape our content


and republish it on their websites,


sometimes including a link to the original article


and sometimes not.


How does Google handle this?


Is DMCA takedown necessary for every case?


What happens if Google indexes the scraped content first?


Would this then be seen as the original?


Yeah, I think this is always a bit tricky


because it's kind of a mix of search and almost legal topics


here.


And it's something that just happens quite a lot


in that some sites don't care about things like copyright,


and they just take content from other people


and republish that.


So the way we handle it is kind of nuanced


and includes lots of different things.


The first thing I would consider as a site owner,


if you're seeing this with your content,


is to think about whether or not this


is a critical issue for your website at the moment,


and kind of on a case-by-case basis.


And if it is a critical issue, then I


would recommend trying to see if there are legal things that you


can do to kind of help resolve this, even outside of anything


SEO-related.


And that could be the DMCA.


I can't give you advice on legal topics,


so that makes it a little bit trickier for me to say,


like, you should use the DMCA or not.


But in many cases, the DMCA process


would be appropriate here and could be something


that you could use here.


So I would, on the one hand, read up on that process,


on the other hand, get local legal advice as well,


so that you're sure that you're doing the right things when it


comes to the legal side of things.


On Google's side, in the search results,


I think there are a few things that come into play here.


On the one hand, sometimes copies


are also relevant in the sense that, like, say, if I'm,


let me see, how can I frame this?


In the sense that, especially when it's not


a pure one-to-one copy of something,


but rather you're taking in a section of a page


and writing about this content, we see that sometimes,


for example, when we publish blog posts,


that other sites will take our blog posts


and include either the whole blog post or large sections


of it, but they'll also add lots of commentary


and try to explain, well, what does Google actually mean here?


Or what is Google saying between the lines?


Or maybe giving some more simple examples


of how this could apply here, and essentially building out


a bigger picture.


And on the one hand, they're taking our content


and copying it.


But on the other hand, they're creating something newer,


bigger, based on that content.


So in the search results, if someone


were to search for that content, I


would expect to see these kind of other pages ranking


as well, because they're providing a slightly different


value than just what our pages are providing.


And we do see this happening.


And sometimes these pages rank above ours,


and that's all fine, I think.


With regards to indexing the scraped content first or not,


I think that's something that is kind of tricky to do there,


because what we've seen in the past,


especially when I was looking at this, I don't know,


maybe like 10 years ago, a little bit more,


what I noticed there is that oftentimes,


spammers or scrapers will be technically very well worse,


and they'll be able to get content indexed almost faster


than the original source.


And then if we were to purely focus on,


like, who got this into Google systems first,


then it can be that we're accidentally


kind of favoring those who are technically


better at publishing content and sending it


into Google versus those who are publishing the content


naturally.


So from that point of view, I think


just purely focusing on the publish date


doesn't make much sense.


What I've seen in our systems over the years


is that we tend to look at the bigger picture for a lot


of things when it comes to websites.


And if we see that a website is regularly copying content


from other sources, then it's a lot easier for us to say,


well, this website isn't providing


a lot of unique value on its own,


and we can treat it appropriately based on that.


So that's something where usually the ranking side kind


of settles down there a little bit.


I feel that was kind of a confusing answer.


I don't know.


So I think stepping back, the first thing


with these kind of problems I think I would always do


is first figure out, is it actually a problem for you?


And if you do see that is a problem for individual pages,


then consider if there is a legal solution


that you can apply here.


Because if you can solve this by having the content removed,


for example, then you don't really


have to worry about the SEO side of things.


Then the third one, I think, is sometimes it's


OK for copies to also appear in the search results


or some kinds of copies, I guess.


But essentially, it depends quite a bit


on the individual use cases there.


And I think also maybe as a last step,


if you're seeing that this is really causing problems,


then submitting spam reports to us


is also a good way to let us know


about these kind of issues.


Maybe that's a little bit clearer.


OK, let's see.


Does presence in social media channels influence SEO?


For example, more followers, likes, shares, social media


links equals better page rank.


No.


So for the most part, we don't take into account


the social media activity when it comes to rankings.


The one exception I think that could kind of play a role here


is that we don't special case social media sites,


but we do sometimes see them as normal web pages.


And if they're normal web pages and they


have actual content on them and links to other pages,


then we can see them as any other kind of web page.


So for example, if you have, let's say,


a social media profile somewhere and it


links to individual pages from your website,


then we can see that profile as a normal web page.


And if those links are normal HTML links that we can follow,


then we can treat those as normal HTML links


that we can follow.


Also, that profile page, if it's a normal HTML page,


it can be something that can be indexed as well.


It can rank in the search results


normally like anything else.


So it's not a matter of us doing anything


special for social media sites or those social media profiles,


but rather, well, in many cases, these profiles and these pages


are normal HTML pages as well.


And we can process those HTML pages just


like any other HTML page.


But we wouldn't go in there and say, oh, this profile


has so many likes.


Therefore, we will rank the pages


that are associated with this profile higher.


It's more that, well, this is an HTML page


and it has some content.


And maybe it's associated with other HTML pages


and linked together.


And based on this better understanding


of this group of pages, we can rank those pages individually.


But it's not based on the social media metrics.


Is the Penguin penalty still relevant at all


or less relevant?


Spammy, toxic backlinks are more or less


ignored by the ranking algorithms these days.


I'd say it's a mix of both.


So for the most part, when we can recognize


that something is problematic and kind of a spammy link,


we will try to ignore it.


If our systems recognize that they can't isolate and ignore


these links across a website, if we see a very strong pattern


there, then it can happen that our algorithms say,


well, we really have kind of lost trust with this website.


And at the moment, based on the bigger picture on the web,


we kind of need to be more on almost a conservative side


when it comes to understanding this website's content


and ranking it in the search results.


And then you can see kind of a drop in the visibility there.


But for the most part, the web is pretty messy.


And we recognize that we have to ignore


a lot of the links out there.


So for the most part, I think that's fine.


Usually, you would only see this kind of a drop


if it's really a strong and a clear pattern that's


associated with the website.


I work for Travelgate.


And we're wondering why we don't appear in the search results,


find results on Box for certain search terms.


Is there a way to better our chances


for appearing in this box?


Or is it settled outside of SEO?


Any information on how the content in this box


ends up there or is decided would be much appreciated.


So I think these are the little links that we sometimes


show in the search results where we recognize


that a website has more content on a specific topic.


And then we start to show this that you can also


search on these websites for these topics.


My understanding is that this is purely algorithmic.


And especially if you're seeing this happening for certain


search terms, then you're already kind of seeing


that algorithm in play.


And this is something where we try


to understand what kind of content


you have on your website and how we can link to that.


Probably, if you're already seeing this for certain terms,


we've figured out how we can link to that on your website.


So that's a good thing.


That means the structure of your website


is at least understandable to our systems


that we know which parts to link to if people are looking


for more information.


But it's not the case that you can, I don't know,


just create more content or put the keywords more on your pages


and then we'll start showing these links for other topics


as well.


It's really something that our algorithms


have to figure out and learn over time with regards


to these individual websites.


At what point should we start worrying about page speed


if it's in the red zone?


Faster sites increase conversion rates,


but we can spend tons of money on little sites that might not


deliver much in the first place.


Yeah, I don't know.


At what point should you start considering page speed?


I do think it's something that pretty much all sites should


consider and think about.


One of the nice parts of everything around Core Web


Vitals, I think, is that because of these very public metrics,


a lot of the platforms have also started


to think about speed a lot more.


That means if you're using a common CMS or popular themes


on a website, then almost by default,


the speed will have increased as well.


And every now and then, someone will do a study


and look at the different CMSs and the different hosting


platforms and say, oh, Wix has done a lot of work,


and their metrics have improved by this overall.


And that means if you're using one of these platforms,


then even if you don't do anything on your website,


you're also profiting from all of the work


that people are putting into the platforms themselves.


And we see that across the board for pretty much all platforms


and CMSs.


And I would assume if you have especially smaller business


websites where you tend to use the more default setups


on a website, where you tend to use more default CMSs


and hosting platforms, that you would automatically


profit from this general shift to a little bit faster.


So from that point of view, it's something where sometimes you


don't need to do a ton of work, provided you're actually


using a commonly used platform.


With regards to when you should start thinking about speed,


I do think that's tricky because while speed is a ranking


factor, it's not the only ranking factor,


and relevance is really deep when it comes to ranking.


So it's hard to say, when do you focus


on this particular part of ranking with Google?


But I would see it similar to a question like,


when should you focus on usability on a website?


Or when should you focus on making your images


so that they can appear well in Google Images?


All of these things are individual elements


of appearing in search.


And when you should focus on any of these individual items


is kind of up to you.


And the nice part about search is you don't


have to do everything perfect.


You can pick and choose.


And you can say, well, I will focus on speed at the moment


and make sure that the images appear well


and make sure that all of my headings


are aligned, all of these things maybe,


and other people will focus on different aspects.


And we still kind of have to find


a way to show those top 10 rankings or whatever,


however many we have at the moment in the search results.


So I would leave it a little bit up to you.


One of the things also, I think, to keep in mind, especially


for very small websites, local websites in particular,


is that oftentimes they don't rank


for these competitive generic terms anyway, which


means they tend to rank more for things where their website is


really only relevant.


And that could be for local businesses,


like if you're searching for this business


type in this city, if we have 20 business websites that


are like that, then you're automatically in those top 20


anyway.


So it's not the case that your website would disappear


from there if your website is slow.


Similarly, if someone is searching for your business


name explicitly because your local business name,


they know you exist and they just


want to check the opening hours or whatever,


then your website will automatically


be relevant for those queries anyway.


So it's not something where suddenly this website


disappears just because it's not fast enough.


And similarly, I would also be cautious with regards


to the positive effects with regards to speed.


If you're focusing on these kind of local queries,


then just by having a faster website,


you're not going to get much more traffic than you already


are if, for example, most of your traffic


is based on people searching for your business name.


If they're not more people searching for your business


name, then they're not more people


that would be able to find your website like that.


So kind of the expectations, I think,


especially for smaller local businesses


is something that is a bit tricky to manage there.


Of course, if you're working on a larger website that


is active globally where you're trying


to rank in more competitive queries,


then that is something where you might see more visible changes


in the search results over time.


I've been talking for a while.


Let's see.


Ritu, you have your hand raised.


RITU NAGASWAMY-MURTHY-OBSON


A little bit.


Now it is fine?


It's better.


Perfect.


So I have a few questions this week


related to page experience.


My first question related to page experience.


So we have some page experience issues


coming like in Search Console.


Still, we have no core web issues,


no mobile usability issue.


But that is showing page experience


having no video adverts, video person video adverts.