Let's talk image SEO

Yeah, because it's like dialogue between characters.


Let's talk image SEO

And would we put that as the alt text?


Let's talk image SEO

Like for each panel, there's like 30 panels.


Let's talk image SEO

And each one is like some character saying this and then another character responding.


Let's talk image SEO

So what you're suggesting as a transcript, that's sort of an interesting idea, like a


Let's talk image SEO

way to consume the information in a text-based way.


Let's talk image SEO

And for Google to also know more information about what is this page?


Let's talk image SEO

It's got a bunch of images on it.


Let's talk image SEO

Yeah, I think from an SEO point of view, I would focus less on the transcript and more


Let's talk image SEO

on the context of the whole page.


Let's talk image SEO

And probably that's already given.


Let's talk image SEO

There will be a title, I don't know, that says like Webtoon about this topic in Korean.


Let's talk image SEO

And that's what people would be searching for.


Let's talk image SEO

It's not that they would be searching for a line from something that someone was saying


Let's talk image SEO

in one of the panels.


Let's talk image SEO

Right, unless it's maybe they're looking for like, oh, the specific episode from a Batman


Let's talk image SEO

comic or something that's well-known and you wanted to find you remembered the line or


Let's talk image SEO

something.


Let's talk image SEO

Maybe someone having memorized our search console webcomic.


Let's talk image SEO

I don't know, maybe someone is looking for that.


Let's talk image SEO

Maybe if we put it there, then they can find it, perhaps.


Let's talk image SEO

Well and another angle that we haven't gotten to yet is aspect ratios, like providing multiple


Let's talk image SEO

versions of an image.


Let's talk image SEO

I don't think we have that yet on our site, but I can imagine that would be something


Let's talk image SEO

we might consider for optimizing for various search features.


Let's talk image SEO

I know in our documentation we sometimes ask for that.


Let's talk image SEO

Like, oh, if you have multiple sizes or multiple different croppings of things, then you can


Let's talk image SEO

tell us which one is which.


Let's talk image SEO

So for like, maybe we would crop something differently for our blog posts.


Let's talk image SEO

How is there like a best practice for telling Google about multiple copies of something,


Let's talk image SEO

like maybe real canonical?


Let's talk image SEO

You don't have to.


Let's talk image SEO

Oh, OK.


Let's talk image SEO

I think it's something that sometimes comes up from other people as well.


Let's talk image SEO

For web pages, if you have multiple versions of the same page, like a mobile-friendly version


Let's talk image SEO

and a desktop version, you would use a real canonical and say, well, these are the same


Let's talk image SEO

thing.


Let's talk image SEO

For images, you don't have to do that.


Let's talk image SEO

Our systems try to recognize when the image is the same thing, and having multiple images


Let's talk image SEO

indexed for one thing is perfectly fine.


Let's talk image SEO

So if you're searching for a large image on a specific topic, then we should be able to


Let's talk image SEO

find that.


Let's talk image SEO

If you're searching for a small image and you've provided a small image, then you should


Let's talk image SEO

be able to find that as well.


Let's talk image SEO

So for images, the real canonical is essentially irrelevant.


Let's talk image SEO

It's really more for web pages.


Let's talk image SEO

And I don't think we even support it for images.


Let's talk image SEO

OK.


Let's talk image SEO

Like, there's no way to actually even do that.


Let's talk image SEO

People are asking about this, but functionally it's not even possible?


Let's talk image SEO

Yeah.


Let's talk image SEO

You don't even need to.


Let's talk image SEO

You don't need to.


Let's talk image SEO

Just add canonical as the alt text.


Let's talk image SEO

No.


Let's talk image SEO

I mean, I do think that we are doing this in a couple places.


Let's talk image SEO

Sometimes we add a social image for a blog post in addition to the image that's on the


Let's talk image SEO

page that we've cropped for sharing.


Let's talk image SEO

So there's an aspect ratio where it's like, oh, does it cut off?


Let's talk image SEO

Like if there's text on it or, I don't know, some part that looks a little bit weird if


Let's talk image SEO

we crop it smaller for our home page or social sharing, that kind of thing, then we provide


Let's talk image SEO

two.


Let's talk image SEO

Is it enough that the images are referenced on the same page?


Let's talk image SEO

Google knows, like, oh, OK, these are related to this piece of content.


Let's talk image SEO

That's it?


Let's talk image SEO

Like no other connecting up we need to do?


Let's talk image SEO

I mean, our systems look at the image and try to find visually similar images, and they


Let's talk image SEO

kind of connect it like that.


Let's talk image SEO

OK.


Let's talk image SEO

There's nothing special you need to do.


Let's talk image SEO

And even if we don't recognize that it's the same image, like if one is really long, the


Let's talk image SEO

other one is really tall, they're separate images.


Let's talk image SEO

They can be indexed separately.


Let's talk image SEO

That's perfectly fine.


Let's talk image SEO

Got to wrap it up.


Let's talk image SEO

I mean, the future of images, like there are so many things that I think are happening


Let's talk image SEO

like in terms of trends that images are going into.


Let's talk image SEO

I guess maybe it's more of a design trend, like dark friendly mode type things or cropping


Let's talk image SEO

things in more with rounded corners, circular images versus square, like the trends that


Let's talk image SEO

we see in UI design, I guess, then impact images.


Let's talk image SEO

Also 3D.


Let's talk image SEO


Let's talk image SEO

Yeah.


Let's talk image SEO

How do you see the future of images and SEO and what we might need to think about in experimental


Let's talk image SEO

land?


Let's talk image SEO

I don't know.


Let's talk image SEO

My feeling is images are pretty stable for the most part.


Let's talk image SEO

Some of the things that change are more almost like attributes around the image, like the


Let's talk image SEO

dark mode thing.


Let's talk image SEO

That's something where maybe at some point we would need to be able to figure out, well,


Let's talk image SEO

this is the dark mode version of this other image that we already know about.


Let's talk image SEO

But even that is kind of tricky.


Let's talk image SEO

If you're in dark mode and you're searching on Google Images, do you just want to see


Let's talk image SEO

dark mode images or do you just want to see the same images as you usually would?


Let's talk image SEO

Or like favicons, like dark friendly favicons versus providing multiple options about, like,


Let's talk image SEO

use this one in this context versus use this other one.


Let's talk image SEO

Because I think that it looks aesthetically better, I guess.


Let's talk image SEO

Maybe it's more of a brand preference.


Let's talk image SEO

I guess.


Let's talk image SEO

Yeah.


Let's talk image SEO

In 3D, I have no idea.


Let's talk image SEO

There are also moving images, but we index those as videos.


Let's talk image SEO

Oh, GIFs?


Let's talk image SEO

GIFs.


Let's talk image SEO

The WebMP stuff or WebP, that kind of thing?


Let's talk image SEO

I guess we'll figure out how we will handle the 3D image land if we ever come to that


Let's talk image SEO

in the future.


Let's talk image SEO

Well, that's it for this episode.


Let's talk image SEO

In the next episode, we'll be chatting more about SEO things we've done on our site,


Let's talk image SEO

OneZ.


Let's talk image SEO

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


Let's talk image SEO

both entertaining and insightful too.


Let's talk image SEO

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


Let's talk image SEO

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


Let's talk image SEO

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


Let's talk image SEO

Thank you and goodbye.


Let's talk image SEO

Goodbye.


Let's talk image SEO


Let’s talk redirects

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Search Off The Record, a podcast coming to you from


Let’s talk redirects

the Google Search team, discussing all things search and having some fun along the way.


Let’s talk redirects

My name is Martin, and I'm joined today by John from the Search Relations team, of which


Let’s talk redirects

I'm also part of.


Let’s talk redirects

So in today's episode, we are going to talk about redirects.


Let’s talk redirects

Hey, John, how's it going?


Let’s talk redirects

Hi, Martin.


Let’s talk redirects

So good to see you.


Let’s talk redirects

Yeah, I'm back from a vacation, having a pretty good time.


Let’s talk redirects

And I just stumbled across a pretty old tweet where someone used like a 301 redirect to


Let’s talk redirects

Whitehouse.gov.


Let’s talk redirects

And then in the toolbar, the Google toolbar, the page rank then would show what Whitehouse.gov


Let’s talk redirects

would have as page rank, and that would last until the next update.


Let’s talk redirects

So that must be from the times of batch updating probably, and definitely from the times when


Let’s talk redirects

we had the Google toolbar thing.


Let’s talk redirects

Probably a glitch in the toolbar, or was that a glitch in the page rank system?


Let’s talk redirects

So that's like a real blast from the past.


Let’s talk redirects

I don't know.


Let’s talk redirects

It's one of those things.


Let’s talk redirects

I think that was kind of weird and fun, almost like what you kind of got used to at the time.


Let’s talk redirects

So I think what happened there is you would redirect to some other site, and then our


Let’s talk redirects

systems would say, oh, these two pages are the same page, which kind of makes sense.


Let’s talk redirects

Like if you're redirecting to a different page.


Let’s talk redirects

And then any page rank that was there would be applied to both of those pages in the toolbar.


Let’s talk redirects

So I think in search, it was more like a hopeful thinking that it's like, oh, your site will


Let’s talk redirects

rank just as well as Whitehouse.


Let’s talk redirects

But at least it would show the toolbar page rank, which some people use to do shady things


Let’s talk redirects

like buying and selling links.


Let’s talk redirects

MARTIN SPLITT RODMANN


Let’s talk redirects

INSTRUCTOR


Let’s talk redirects

Or if I move all my blog posts from slash blogs to slash articles,


Let’s talk redirects

does that hurt my ranking? How do I need to do this?


Let’s talk redirects

Do I need to use a 301 or 302 and all this kind of stuff?


Let’s talk redirects

I think it might make sense to make a starting point, the HTTP redirect code,


Let’s talk redirects

because I think HTTP redirects are probably still the go-to method for this.


Let’s talk redirects

So John, is there a difference for us if you use a 301 or 302 redirect in search?


Let’s talk redirects

There's a subtle difference between the two, because 301 is kind of like a permanent redirect


Let’s talk redirects

where you're saying, oh, I'm permanently moving to a different location,


Let’s talk redirects

which means you would like to have your mail forwarded to that location.


Let’s talk redirects

And 302 is more like a temporary thing, so you go on vacation and you're like,


Let’s talk redirects

well, my mail can actually continue to go to my old location, even though I'm not there for the time being.


Let’s talk redirects

That's kind of the way of thinking about it.


Let’s talk redirects

One is a permanent move, like you're going there forever,


Let’s talk redirects

or at least as far as you can think forever. Who knows?


Let’s talk redirects

And the other one is one where you already know ahead of time,


Let’s talk redirects

like this is just a temporary change.


Let’s talk redirects

And when you say your mail gets delivered there, that's a nice picture,


Let’s talk redirects

but I guess when you say that with regarding search, that is signals being collected about a URL, no?


Let’s talk redirects

Yeah, yeah, pretty much.


Let’s talk redirects

Kind of like where should we send people?


Let’s talk redirects

If you're doing a 301 redirect, then instead of mail, you get people in the search results.


Let’s talk redirects

Should we be showing your new address, or should we show the old address,


Let’s talk redirects

because the new one is kind of a temporary thing?


Let’s talk redirects

Right. And I think it's important to understand that these redirects make huge sense,


Let’s talk redirects

not just for search, but also for users, because if something has temporarily moved,


Let’s talk redirects

and you use a 302, your browser will do this redirect at that moment,


Let’s talk redirects

but if I type in that URL into my browser again,


Let’s talk redirects

then my browser will still make the request to that URL,


Let’s talk redirects

or if I click on a bookmark, or if I use a link.


Let’s talk redirects

But if it's a 301, and it's meant to be permanent,


Let’s talk redirects

then eventually the browser will just not even make the request to the original URL.


Let’s talk redirects

It will know that that's a permanent redirect and only make a request to the new URL.


Let’s talk redirects

So 301 and 302 do have a difference in the browser of your users as well as in search.


Let’s talk redirects

So that's one thing to keep in mind, I guess.


Let’s talk redirects

Yeah, and I think the part that people kind of lose sleep over unnecessarily


Let’s talk redirects

is everything around the signals that you mentioned, kind of the page rank,


Let’s talk redirects

also the canonicalization, which kind of is the same thing.


Let’s talk redirects

And it's not that one kind of redirect is better than the other for these.


Let’s talk redirects

It's just a different thing.


Let’s talk redirects

If you're not forwarding all of your signals, then of course your old URL keeps those signals.


Let’s talk redirects

And if you are forwarding them, then the new URL gets those signals.


Let’s talk redirects

So it's not that anything is lost.


Let’s talk redirects

It's just a matter of, well, is it on the old URL or on the new URL?


Let’s talk redirects

And as a site owner, you can kind of choose and make that call.


Let’s talk redirects

It's not that you're going to lose any page rank by doing one way or the other.


Let’s talk redirects

And what is up with the other HTTP codes?


Let’s talk redirects

Because 301 and 302 are like the classical ones, but there's also 308 and 307, if I remember correctly,


Let’s talk redirects

which kind of mean the same thing.


Let’s talk redirects

I actually don't know why there's different codes for that.


Let’s talk redirects

I had to look this up recently.


Let’s talk redirects

And usually, so with a 301 and 302, what is forwarded are GET requests.


Let’s talk redirects

And with 307, 308, it also forwards POST requests.


Let’s talk redirects

So if you have some kind of an API that uses POST requests, or if you have a, I don't know,


Let’s talk redirects

I'd almost say like a broken setup that you have a form on one domain and the results are forwarded to a different one,


Let’s talk redirects

then you would kind of use the 307, 308.


Let’s talk redirects

I guess from kind of completeness point of view, if you always use them, then you're kind of like always safe.


Let’s talk redirects

But that's kind of the difference there.


Let’s talk redirects

I think for SEO, it doesn't really matter.


Let’s talk redirects

It's more like, I don't know, does it work for APIs or not?


Let’s talk redirects

And usually APIs are not something that you need to have indexed directly in search.


Let’s talk redirects

True. You only want the results of the APIs being used in rendering probably.


Let’s talk redirects

Okay, that makes sense.


Let’s talk redirects

Speaking of rendering, there's other ways of making redirects, not necessarily HTTP redirects.


Let’s talk redirects

Like for instance, you could have a meta HTTP equivalent equals refresh, I think it is, tag in your HTML.


Let’s talk redirects

Or you can use a refresh header in the HTTP response directly.


Let’s talk redirects

So those are not using HTTP response codes, but actually either HTTP headers or HTML tags.


Let’s talk redirects

Would that still work in search or is that a problem if I use those?


Let’s talk redirects

I think that would still work.


Let’s talk redirects

So there used to be something around the meta refresh type redirects where with them you would specify a time.


Let’s talk redirects

And basically what would happen is the browser would stay on the old page for a bit and then get forwarded to the new page.


Let’s talk redirects

And that could make sense, for example, if you have an interstitial kind of thing where it's like,


Let’s talk redirects

oh, we moved to a different domain kind of message that you want to show people.


Let’s talk redirects

I rarely see that nowadays, but you could.


Let’s talk redirects

And from our point of view, like you mentioned, we would render those pages and then we would see,


Let’s talk redirects

oh, it does end up on a new URL within whatever time frame we're using for rendering.


Let’s talk redirects

And then that would be enough for us to say, well, it's a kind of a redirect.


Let’s talk redirects

And we would treat that as a thing.


Let’s talk redirects

I don't know if different time periods were like a 301 or a 302,


Let’s talk redirects

but in general, people say to avoid the meta refresh type redirects because they're not that great for accessibility.


Let’s talk redirects

Because if you go to the page again and you reload it, then it's like, oh, it sticks around for a while and then suddenly does something unexpected.


Let’s talk redirects

So that seems like something where I wouldn't focus too much on the time there.


Let’s talk redirects

And instead, I keep in mind that it's kind of a, I don't know, almost like a hacky kind of way to move to a different page.


Let’s talk redirects

Yeah, there are some people who don't really have control over the server side of things.


Let’s talk redirects

And then I guess they resort to having something that lives within the content, like a meta tag in the HTML that refreshes and then redirects.


Let’s talk redirects

But if you have only control over the content, I'd probably use a JavaScript redirect instead.


Let’s talk redirects

It's a little, or it feels a little cleaner. I don't think it actually is a little cleaner.


Let’s talk redirects

People can happily tell us on Twitter what they think is the cleaner way of the two.


Let’s talk redirects

Is it the meta redirect or is it a JavaScript redirect?


Let’s talk redirects

Wait, you're saying like JavaScript for SEO?


Let’s talk redirects

Maybe. Yeah. I mean, we did that for our blog, if I remember correctly.


Let’s talk redirects

I think Gary had to use JavaScript redirects and he really, really despised that.


Let’s talk redirects

But he did it in the end and then he didn't want to talk about it afterwards.


Let’s talk redirects

Oh, so cool. So Gary was doing JavaScript kind of site migrations. Wow. So good.


Let’s talk redirects

I think he still needs counseling for that. I don't know. I'm sorry for him.


Let’s talk redirects

I see how dirty that must feel, especially for him.


Let’s talk redirects

But OK, so now we've talked about having like one URL change into another URL, for instance, moving, I don't know, everything or like a bunch of URLs, really.


Let’s talk redirects

For instance, moving everything under slash blog into slash articles.


Let’s talk redirects

What if I use redirects to move from one domain to another? Is that a thing you would do or is that not a good idea?


Let’s talk redirects

That's definitely a good idea. I mean, provided you want to change your domain name.


Let’s talk redirects

Yeah. Let's say I have a new company name and my company no longer is called Example.


Let’s talk redirects

Now it's called by Spiel and we want to move from it's like moving a restaurant, I guess.


Let’s talk redirects

It's like if I have a restaurant in a place somewhere and then I put up a sign saying we have moved to this other place, then people will know.


Let’s talk redirects

Oh, I know what to expect because it's the same place. It's just in the same restaurant. It's just in a different place.


Let’s talk redirects

Versus if I just don't have a sign redirecting people to the new address, they might be like, Martin's restaurant is gone, so we have to find a new one.


Let’s talk redirects

Oh, there's this other one. Maybe it's OK. I don't know. So is it similar if I do that with a redirect on my? OK.


Let’s talk redirects

And I would have to redirect everything, I guess.


Let’s talk redirects

Yes, exactly. Everything. So all pages, ideally one to one, redirecting them to the new site.


Let’s talk redirects

And essentially, that's kind of the recommended approach.


Let’s talk redirects

And I kind of like your example of a restaurant because you have some feelings associated with the restaurant that you already know.


Let’s talk redirects

And if you know that they just moved to a different location, then it's like, well, you can take those feelings with you and go to the new locations and go there with high expectations, I guess.


Let’s talk redirects

Whereas if you don't know anything about the other site, kind of like it's, oh, a random restaurant opened up here and it looks the same, you kind of don't have those expectations or hopes or whatever you're looking for in a restaurant.


Let’s talk redirects

Yeah, that's true. OK, so that makes sense. But what if I make things a little more complicated?


Let’s talk redirects

Let's say my company merges with another company and now one top level domain needs to serve both companies, but there's not necessarily.


Let’s talk redirects

Well, OK, I guess if there's a one to one mapping from URLs from one site to the new site, it's probably fine.


Let’s talk redirects

But what happens if there isn't?


Let’s talk redirects

I think you can't really do one to one mapping because things like a home page, like who gets a home page?


Let’s talk redirects

True. Yeah, true.


Let’s talk redirects

Good luck. Or if both people have a blogs folder, it's like, oh, yeah, with that.


Let’s talk redirects

I think especially with merging and splitting domains, which kind of happens sometimes. True, that might also happen. Yeah, the inverse where you have one thing and then you split it out into multiple things. Oh, OK.


Let’s talk redirects

Yeah. How does that work? It's complicated.


Let’s talk redirects

So that's kind of like the short answer with pure domain moves.


Let’s talk redirects

It's a lot easier for us to recognize, oh, everything is going to this other domain.


Let’s talk redirects

We can just like shuffle everything over and all the internal linkings will just be the same thing.


Let’s talk redirects

And all the structured data is all the same stuff again.


Let’s talk redirects

Whereas if you're doing a merge or split, then kind of you have to reassess the whole website first.


Let’s talk redirects

And that's something that can take quite a bit of time.


Let’s talk redirects

Like how how does the internal linking work across these different sites?


Let’s talk redirects

Which of the pages on these sites are the most important ones?


Let’s talk redirects

That's something where if you're just moving like Google kind of has a sense of what is important on a site.


Let’s talk redirects

But as soon as you merge or you split things up, it's like, I don't know, like how do you figure out what is more important now?


Let’s talk redirects

And with that, I think in search you would see, I don't know, like longer term fluctuations, which is kind of a code word for everything will go downhill and you will panic for a while.


Let’s talk redirects

And then suddenly it kind of flattens out and gets a little bit back to normal, hopefully, depending on how the new website looks.


Let’s talk redirects

But that's it's kind of like you you almost have to go through with it anyways.


Let’s talk redirects

Like if you're merging or splitting a company, it's going to be painful no matter what.


Let’s talk redirects

It's not like there is this SEO trick that makes everything easy.


Let’s talk redirects

OK, but if I'm already in muddy work or murky waters, is that a good idea to then also rework my content at the same time or should I not do that?


Let’s talk redirects

Should I just be like, OK, I'm moving, I'm trading as carefully as I can here because I'm already in trouble or?


Let’s talk redirects

Is that an opportunity to be like, well?


Let’s talk redirects

Yeah, I mean, you're not in trouble.


Let’s talk redirects

It's not it's not that Google thinks it's a bad site because you had to merge.


Let’s talk redirects

It's I don't know, like Google doesn't have a sense of that. It's more like a technical thing.


Let’s talk redirects

And whether you want to kind of complicate things by also changing the content or if you want to do that later on, that's kind of up to you.


Let’s talk redirects

Some people like to make things as make changes as small as possible so that you kind of know where the issue comes from if something goes wrong.


Let’s talk redirects

But with a site merging or site splitting, I don't know, it's almost impossible to do anything around kind of keeping things separated out because it's like you have to change the logo and the name everywhere.


Let’s talk redirects

And then the design has to change everywhere.


Let’s talk redirects

You can't just say, well, we're going to merge these two websites, but they're going to look completely separate for, I don't know, six months.


Let’s talk redirects

OK.


Let’s talk redirects

From a practical point of view, you can't really do that.


Let’s talk redirects

I mean, maybe you can if you're if you're like the boss of the new company.


Let’s talk redirects

But it seems like a really weird thing from a user point of view.


Let’s talk redirects

You go to the new website and half of it looks like this company, half looks like a different company.


Let’s talk redirects

Why did you guys merge?


Let’s talk redirects

OK. But do these do these longer term fluctuations also happen if I'm only moving part of my site to let's say like I have a blog that's really successful, but it's on a topic unrelated or less related to the rest of the website.


Let’s talk redirects

So eventually I pop it out into its own domain.


Let’s talk redirects

Does that also mean that there will be fluctuations on the original domain or is it just eventually picking up for the redirected parts on the new domain?


Let’s talk redirects

Well, I guess it depends on how relevant or how prominent the part of the content is on the domain.


Let’s talk redirects

Like if you if you're an e-commerce site and you have one product that is super successful and you say, well, I'll just pop this one product out to a separate domain, then of course, like the e-commerce site will rank differently because like suddenly the most important thing is gone and it's over on a different website.


Let’s talk redirects

So kind of like a lot of stuff will go over to the new website.


Let’s talk redirects

Some things will remain on the old website.


Let’s talk redirects

There will be effects on both sides.


Let’s talk redirects

And in practice, even if it's like not the most important thing, it will kind of settle down into a new equilibrium.


Let’s talk redirects

Okay. Interesting. All right. Fun.


Let’s talk redirects

But then there's redirects that I really don't like.


Let’s talk redirects

For instance, when I'm in Switzerland and I want to look at a German website in Germany and they're like, oh, you want this product that is only sold in Germany, which you could buy and then pick up from the other side of the border.


Let’s talk redirects

But no, we are forcefully redirecting you to the Swiss website where this product doesn't exist.


Let’s talk redirects

Is that an acceptable thing? Is there a better setup for this?


Let’s talk redirects

How do you feel about that?


Let’s talk redirects

Are you talking about the Google store?


Let’s talk redirects

No, I would never talk about the Google store on this podcast. No, not just the Google store.


Let’s talk redirects

This is one of those things that I had to get used to when I came to Switzerland.


Let’s talk redirects

You can get everything worldwide on the internet except if you're in Switzerland, they lock you out.


Let’s talk redirects

It's so annoying.


Let’s talk redirects

And content-wise, I think it's even more annoying because usually you can tell that the content exists.


Let’s talk redirects

You can find it in search. You click on a link and then it's like, oh, I'm sorry.


Let’s talk redirects

There's nothing here for you to see because you're in the wrong country.


Let’s talk redirects

And usually they don't even tell you why.


Let’s talk redirects

It's like, oh, it doesn't exist.


Let’s talk redirects

And you're like, hmm, what actually happened?


Let’s talk redirects

From a practical point of view for SEO, the thing that matters is where Googlebot is crawling from.


Let’s talk redirects

And for most content in Europe, we probably crawl from the US.


Let’s talk redirects

So if they also do this thing for people in the US where they say, oh, I'm sorry, our product is only for people in Germany.


Let’s talk redirects

You can't see anything if you're in the US.


Let’s talk redirects

Then we would not index that.


Let’s talk redirects

So from kind of a practical point of view, I try to discourage that as much as possible, not just because I'm in Switzerland,


Let’s talk redirects

but because you could inadvertently kind of be ruining your search results by also telling Googlebot, oh, there's nothing for you to see here.


Let’s talk redirects

OK, so that's not a good way of doing it.


Let’s talk redirects

I guess having some sort of menu option or having something in the content that allows you to switch countries is probably a better way to do that


Let’s talk redirects

than doing this forceful redirect.


Let’s talk redirects

Usually something like a banner or maybe even as simple as not having a checkout link where they say, well, you can't buy this product,


Let’s talk redirects

but here are the technical details and all of this, that's usually a better thing.


Let’s talk redirects

Or even with a banner where you say, well, you can't order it to addresses in Switzerland, but if you can send it to your friend in Germany, go for it.


Let’s talk redirects

Yeah, yeah, all right, that's fair.


Let’s talk redirects

And what about if you say banners, what about these interstitials?


Let’s talk redirects

Like, hey, are you this old or are you allowed to be here because you are from this other country that should not be on this shop?


Let’s talk redirects

Is an interstitial kind of like a banner or is it more like a redirect for Google search?


Let’s talk redirects

Some kinds of interstitials are technically implemented as redirects where they redirect you to this interstitial page.


Let’s talk redirects

Oh, no. OK, that's bad. Yeah.


Let’s talk redirects

And then they redirect you back once you've filled out the form.


Let’s talk redirects

And of course, Googlebot is like redirected and like, oh, there's a form here. I don't know what to do.


Let’s talk redirects

I'm so lost. Whereas every 12-year-old kid is like, oh, yes, of course, I'm 18.


Let’s talk redirects

So it feels like probably you're blocking bots more than you're blocking actual users from looking at the content.


Let’s talk redirects

But I mean, from a legal point of view, it's like you have to do what you have to do.


Let’s talk redirects

I kind of understand that. But if you do need to do this kind of thing, don't do a redirect.


Let’s talk redirects

Do something like a div on top of the content that blocks the content and then goes away.


Let’s talk redirects

Because Googlebot will still be able to render the content below the div and use that for indexing at least.


Let’s talk redirects

So that's similar to when people are trying to protect from bots, right, where they basically redirect you back,


Let’s talk redirects

do some sort of capture to determine that you are human and then redirect you back.


Let’s talk redirects

The Googlebot will fall into the same trap, I guess.


Let’s talk redirects

Exactly. I mean, you're trying to block bots and Googlebot is a bot.


Let’s talk redirects

So you might not realize that you're actually blocking good bots as well.


Let’s talk redirects

I mean, that's assuming you're OK with Googlebot crawling your page.


Let’s talk redirects

Some people say, well, I don't want any bots at all and I don't want to be listed in Google.


Let’s talk redirects

And that's totally fine. That's their decision to make.


Let’s talk redirects

Fair enough. And then last but not least are the mobile and desktop redirects.


Let’s talk redirects

Like if you are sensing a certain viewport, then the website assumes, oh, this is mobile.


Let’s talk redirects

So I'll redirect to the mobile version. There's a bunch of websites that still do that,


Let’s talk redirects

especially if they have a separate M.domain.


Let’s talk redirects

It's like, oh, your viewport is small. I'll go to M.something.com and give you a reduced version.


Let’s talk redirects

Is Googlebot happy with that? Probably not. Also, especially if there's content missing, right?


Let’s talk redirects

Yeah. I mean, with mobile first indexing, we try to index the mobile version.


Let’s talk redirects

So we would crawl with the smartphone Googlebot and see this redirect to M.


Let’s talk redirects

And we would expect that the content is equivalent. And for the most part, it is.


Let’s talk redirects

And for that kind of redirect, like from a technical point of view, a 302 redirect would be the right one,


Let’s talk redirects

because next time someone goes there, you don't really know if they want to go to the mobile version or desktop version.


Let’s talk redirects

The other important part is that you do the same from mobile to desktop.


Let’s talk redirects

So don't just redirect mobile users to the mobile version, but also redirect desktop users to the desktop version,


Let’s talk redirects

because otherwise Google will assume that everything is actually on the mobile version.


Let’s talk redirects

So that's kind of the thing to watch out for there.


Let’s talk redirects

Fun times. Fun times. One last thing. I noticed something in the URL inspection tool.


Let’s talk redirects

Uh-oh.


Let’s talk redirects

When I have a website that redirects from one URL to the other, URL inspection tool shows me a 200 OK.


Let’s talk redirects

Why is that?


Let’s talk redirects

Why is that? It's because we want to show you what we would use for indexing.


Let’s talk redirects

That's kind of the short answer. It's not like we would like to troll you,


Let’s talk redirects

because we know you're trying to look for a 301 and we're going to show you a 200.


Let’s talk redirects

Right.


Let’s talk redirects

It's more that, well, this is what Googlebot would use for indexing, which is kind of the final page.


Let’s talk redirects

True. It's also using the target URL. That makes sense. Yeah.


Let’s talk redirects

Yeah. Yeah. And we would probably also do that for JavaScript type redirects,


Let’s talk redirects

where we would try to render the page, and by rendering it, that would include whatever JavaScript redirect that you do.


Let’s talk redirects

We do. Yeah. That's true. That is true. I tested that.


Let’s talk redirects

That also seems to be behaving the same way. And now that you say it like that, it makes sense.


Let’s talk redirects

We obviously want to show what is actually ending up in the index or potentially ending up in the index.


Let’s talk redirects

And that's the target page, not the source page. That makes sense.


Let’s talk redirects

I mean, it makes sense when you know it, which is kind of, to me, also a sign that things are a bit confusing.


Let’s talk redirects

So maybe at some point we should find a way to make that a little bit clearer in Search Console to at least say, oh, by the way, we followed a redirect along the way.


Let’s talk redirects

Because especially if you're trying to diagnose your redirects and you're doing something fancy on maybe a country basis or something else,


Let’s talk redirects

and you're like, why doesn't Google see this redirect that I spent so much time on? Then once you kind of ask the right people or read the right documentation, you're like, oh, OK.


Let’s talk redirects

Yeah. Yeah, you're right about that. We should probably do something in the UI or at least give people a hint. Good point.


Let’s talk redirects

Anyway, thank you so much, John, for answering all my stupid questions about redirects. I hope that was useful and interesting to everyone out there.


Let’s talk redirects

Thanks for having me, Martin.


Let’s talk redirects

All right. In that case, everybody, that's it for this episode. I do hope that you enjoyed it and found it useful and a little bit entertaining maybe as well.


Let’s talk redirects

In the next episode, we will be talking to Jennifer Slagg as part of our Spotlight series.


Let’s talk redirects

We've been having fun with these podcast episodes, and we hope that you, the listener, have found them both entertaining and insightful, too. Feel free to drop us a note on Twitter at Google Search C or chat with us at one of the next upcoming events that we go to if you have any thoughts.


Let’s talk redirects

And of course, don't forget to like and subscribe. Thank you so much and goodbye.


Let’s talk redirects


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

If you have a website, you need to protect your users from bots.


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

Bots are trying leaked passwords, posting spam, and scraping your content.


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

The ReCAPTCHA I'm not a robot checkbox changed the way to protect your websites,


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

but its one-time verification doesn't fit every use case.


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

ReCAPTCHA v3 does away with the need for interactive tests


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

and gives you a score to let you know when you have risky traffic.


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

It never interrupts users, so you're in control of when to run risk analysis


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

and what to do with the results.


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

For instance, requiring email verification for risky logins,


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

sending a spammy post to moderation, or filtering fake friend requests.


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

Let's look at how ReCAPTCHA v3 works.


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

This is my online store.


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

I've recently noticed a lot more traffic that wasn't turning into conversions.


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

I was concerned that they might not be real customers,


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

but I didn't know where they were on my site or what they were trying to do.


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

To tackle this problem, I decided to add ReCAPTCHA v3 to each major part of my site,


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

such as when users sign in, check out, and write product reviews.


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

For each page, I added the ReCAPTCHA script tag and code snippet.


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

Doing this gave me visibility into what the bots were doing on my site.


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

I went to the ReCAPTCHA admin console to look at the scores.


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

It seems that these bots were posting lots of reviews.


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

To stop the bots, I needed to verify the ReCAPTCHA score on my server.


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

Here was a bot posting a review for a competitor's cat food.


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

Because this review received a low ReCAPTCHA score,


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

I marked it as risky and added it to a verification queue.


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

Now the bots have been turned away,


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

and my customers can trust the reviews that they see.


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

So how does this work?


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

ReCAPTCHA's adaptive risk analysis engine takes in various signals about the interaction


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

and predicts the likelihood that the request was generated by a bot.


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

It works best with context about how both humans and bots interact with your website,


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

so for best performance, include ReCAPTCHA in many places.


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

With ReCAPTCHA v3, you can keep your site safe without any user friction


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3

and get more control to stop attacks in your own way.


Introducing reCAPTCHA v3


English Google SEO office-hours from November 2022

Good day, I'm Gary and this is Google Search Office Hours for the month of November.


Today we have Alan, Dewi, John, Lizzie, and myself answering questions you've submitted.


We're still experimenting a bit with this audio-only format,


and we really welcome your feedback along the way. So take a listen and let us know how we're doing.


All right, let's get started.


Abhishek is asking, can we use multiple values in one schema markup field using comma separation?


For example, gtin equals value 1 comma value 2.


Well, as always, you should check the documentation for the particular feature


because some of the guidance might differ from feature to feature.


But in general, it's a good markup practice to specify one value per field.


In the case of gtin, there should only really be one value, since this is a unique product identifier.


If you're specifying a gtin and isbn, then use the gtin property and then the isbn property so that


we know which value applies to which property. Pierre asks, the disavow feature in Search Console


is currently unavailable for domain properties. What are the options then? Well, if you have domain


level verification in place, you can verify the prefix level without needing any additional tokens.


Verify that host and do what you need to do. Also, keep in mind that disavowing random links


that look weird or that some tool has flagged is not a good use of your time. It changes nothing.


Use the disavow tool for situations where you actually paid for links and


can't get them removed afterwards.


What to do when Google does not detect the canonical tag correctly


So, taking a step back, canonicalization is based on more than only the link rel canonical element.


When Google discovers URLs that are significantly alike, our systems try to pick one URL that best


represents the content. For that, we take into account not only the link rel canonical,


but also redirects, sitemaps, internal links, external links, and more. If you have strong


feelings about which URL should be used, then make sure that all of your signals align.


Keep in mind that canonicalization is mostly about which URL is shown, it's not something


that affects the ranking of the content. If a site has a directory covering a niche


topic which isn't searched for very often, is Google more likely to crawl and index the pages


if the content is short and so is cheaper to store it in the index?


This is an interesting question. The length of the content doesn't influence how often we crawl


and whether we index it. It also doesn't contribute to the crawl rate of a URL pattern.


Niche content can also be indexed, it's not in any way penalized, but generally content that's


popular on the internet, for example many people link to it, gets crawled and indexed easier.


Paul asked, could dynamic sorting of listings be the reason for not indexing product images?


It is unlikely that dynamic sorting of listings would be the reason for product images not being


indexed. Your product images should be referenced from your product description pages,


so we know the product the image is for. If needed, you can create a sitemap file


or provide a Google Merchant Center feed so Google can find all your product pages


without depending upon your listings page.


Sergey is asking, is there a time frame for the site migration? We're migrating a large site to


a new domain at the moment. After four months, there is still no signs of the new domain getting


cert positions of the old one. So what should we do? With a big change like this, it's totally


normal to see ranking fluctuations, especially while you're still in the middle of the migration.


There's no set time frame for when things will settle down, and also keep in mind that only


moving one section of your site is not necessarily indicative of a whole site move when it comes to


search. If you're still moving things around, you're going to continue to see fluctuations.


It's hard to say what you should do next without seeing the site itself,


and for site-specific help we definitely recommend posting in the forums so people


can see your specific situation and give more specific advice.


Flavio asks, could the use of HTTP3 even indirectly improve SEO? Perhaps because it


improves performance. Google doesn't use HTTP3 as a factor in ranking at the moment.


As far as I know, we don't use it in crawling either. In terms of performance, I suspect the


gains users see from using HTTP3 would not be enough to significantly affect the core web vitals,


which are the metrics that we use in the page experience ranking factor.


While making a faster server is always a good idea, I doubt you'd see a direct connection


with SEO only from using HTTP3, similar to how you'd be hard-pressed to finding a direct


connection to using a faster kind of RAM in your servers.


Andrea asked, why does Google keep using backlinks as a ranking factor


if link building campaigns are not allowed? Why can't Google find other ranking factors


that can't be easily manipulated like backlinks?


There are several things to unpack here. First, backlinks as a signal has a lot less


significant impact compared to when Google search first started out many years ago.


We have robust ranking signals, hundreds of them, to make sure that we are able to rank


the most relevant and useful results for all queries. Second, for link building campaigns,


which are essentially link spam according to our spam policy, we have many algorithms


capable of detecting unnatural links at scale and nullify them. This means that spammers


or SEOs spending money on links truly have no way of knowing if the money they spent


on link building is actually worth it or not, since it's really likely that they're just


wasting money building all these spammy links and they were already nullified by our systems


as soon as we see them.


Sam asks, does it matter if the vast majority of anchors for internal links are not allowed


or internal content links are the same? Well, this is fine. It's normal even. When it comes


to menus, they're usually everywhere and even products when they're linked within an


e-commerce site, they're usually linked with the same link all the time. That's perfectly


fine. There's nothing that you really need to do there in terms of SEO.


Anonymous is asking, if you add the latest website schema to your homepage, do you still


add software application or organization schema too? Google updated its schema markup documentation


by adding website schema for brand, but it does not mention what happens with organization


or software application schema. Well, it really depends. Sorry to give that answer. These


are different features. If your site is about a software application, then sure, you can


also add software application structured data. Just make sure that you nest everything so


that there's one website node on the homepage and not multiple website nodes. That's really


the key with this thing. Chris is asking, how much of an issue for Google is excessive


number of noindex pages and whether it will affect discovery and indexing of content if


the volume is too high? Good question. Noindex is a very powerful tool search engine support


to help you, the site owner, keep content out of their indexes. For this reason, it


doesn't carry any unintended effects when it comes to crawling and indexing. For example,


having many pages with noindex will not influence how Google crawls and indexes your site.


Yessa asked, if the URL doesn't contain characters of the same language used in the pages,


would that affect the site ranking? From an SEO point of view, there's no negative effect


if the URL is in a different language than the page content. Users on the other hand may care,


especially if they share the URL with other people. Kristen asked, how should content creators


respond to sites that use AI to plagiarize their content, modify it, and then outrank them in search


results? Scraping content, even with some modification, is against our spam policy. We have


many algorithms to go after such behaviors and demote site scraping content from other sites.


If you come across sites that repeatedly scrape content that perform well on search,


please feel free to report them to us with our spam report form so that we can further


improve our systems, both in detecting the spam and also ranking overall.


Ridwan is asking, is it true that Google rotates indexed pages? Because the site I'm working on is


rotating on indexed pages. Like for example, page A is indexed on Monday through Thursday,


but not indexed Friday through Sunday. Okay, so the answer is real quick, no, this is not true.


We are not rotating the index based off of days of the week.


Anton asks, should we keep an eye on the ratio between indexed and non-indexed pages in Search


Console in order to better recognize possibly wasted crawl budget on non-indexed pages?


No. There is no magic ratio to watch out for. Also, for a site that's not gigantic,


with less than a million pages perhaps, you really don't need to worry about the crawl budget


of your website. It's fine to remove unnecessary internal links, but for small to medium sized


sites, that's more of a site hygiene topic than an SEO one.


Joydev asked, how do we enable the Discover feature?


You do not need to take any action to make your content enabled for Discover.


We do that automatically. Google, however, uses different criteria to decide whether


to show your content in Discover versus search results. So getting traffic from Search


is not a guarantee that you'll get traffic from Discover.


Sam is asking another no-index related question.


Quoting, a lot of SEOs are complaining about having millions of URLs flagged as excluded


by no-index in Google Search Console, all to nonsense internal search pages linked from


spammy sites. Is this a problem for a crawl budget? No-index is there to help you keep


things out of the index and it doesn't come with unintended negative effects, as we said


previously. If you want to ensure that those pages, or their URLs more specifically, don't


end up in Google's index, continue using no-index and don't worry about crawl budget.


Lalendra is asking, would it be considered thin content if an article covering a lengthy


topic was broken down into smaller articles and interlinked?


Well, it's hard to know without looking at that content, but word count alone is not


indicative of thin content. These are two perfectly legitimate approaches. It can be


good to have a thorough article that deeply explores a topic, and it can be equally just


as good to break it up into easier to understand topics. It really depends on the topic and


the content on that page, and you know your audience best. So I would focus on what's


most helpful to your users and that you're providing sufficient value on each page for


whatever the topic might be. Michelle is asking, HTTPS reports help center documentation


says lots of 404 pages can prompt Google to stop crawling and processing URLs. How much


is a lot of 404s and can having lots of linked 404s in a website affect this?


Well, this is awkward. Thank you for this question. We fixed a typo in our documentation


that initially suggested that 404 HTTP status codes cause crawling to stop on site level.


It should have been HTTPS certificate errors instead of 404 errors. Feel free to have as


many 404 errors as you need on your site. They don't affect crawling of your website


overall. 404 pages are a very healthy part of the internet.


Iman asked, what is the current state of KeyMoments Video Markup? It seems like this snippet


is only available for YouTube videos. Is that the case? KeyMoments Video Markup is live


and used by a range of video providers. It is not specific to YouTube. If our online


documentation is not sufficient, try reaching out in the public forums.


A user called Weird Al Website asks, my new website Weird Al is not showing up in searches


when I type in the full name of the website. It confuses the term with the name of the


singer Weird Al. As someone who has grown up listening to lots of Weird Al music, I


totally sympathize with Google and with other search engines. For the most part, if people


are going to type in Weird Al with two Ls, probably they meant to reach Weird Al instead.


Essentially, when it comes to SEO for these kind of things, it's important that you pick


a site name that is not just a typo of something that's really well known because you're


going to have a really hard time differentiating yourself from there. If something looks like


a typo to our systems, we will try to treat it as a typo and we will try to guide people


to what they're probably looking for. This is something that our systems can work out


over time as we see that, well, actually, people really want to go to Weird Al and not


hear from Weird Al, but this takes a lot of time. Especially when you're talking about


someone as established as Weird Al, you're going to really have a hard time differentiating


yourself in that regard.


Anonymous is asking, is it possible to get FAQ featured snippets with just pure HTML?


As simple HTML as possible, not referring to schema markup.


Okay, so if you're talking about the FAQ rich result, right now you need FAQ schema


markup to be eligible for that enhancement in search results. Some features may be able


to automatically pick up what you're putting out on your webpage, but really you should


check the specific documentation to be sure if that's even a possibility. But for FAQ


rich result, you definitely need the markup.


Esben asks, regarding self-referring canonicals, my idea is that they provide a uniqueness


signal for deduplication, but I see conflicting views. What do you think, John?


Well, from my point of view, they do nothing. But sometimes pages get seen under other URLs


and then suddenly the canonical is no longer self-referential and actually useful. For


example, if a page is sometimes referred to with UTM tracking parameters.


Johnathan A question received was, it seems to me that


the search engines promote strong sites more and more and lowers weak resources more and


more. Don't you think there should be some percentage of randomness? Our primary purpose


is to provide the most useful results to people performing searches.


Kunal asked, why Google not taking action on copy or spun web stories? Can you check


on Discover? Thank you for the report. We are aware of these attempts and we are looking


into them. In general, sites with spammy scraped content violate our spam policy and our


algorithms do a pretty good job of demoting them in search results.


Tom asks, do moderated blog comment pages internally linked as link rel ugc get deindexed?


No, they don't. Pages can get indexed for a variety of reasons. While a link with a


rel ugc is treated differently, as is, for example, a link with the rel nofollow, this


doesn't negatively affect the destination page. If you want to prevent a page from being


indexed then make sure to use the noindex robots meta tag instead.


Abdul Raheem asked, how does Google evaluate product reviews update for non-physical products


that don't have affiliate links? Our focus is on physical products that can be purchased


but a system also at times evaluates content involved for digital products. If you are


reviewing a product, it is not required you provide an affiliate link. It's a best practice


to include useful links to other resources that may also be helpful to the reader.


Sadiq is asking, I have 10,000 plus pages on my site. Writing meta tags will take a


long time for all of them. Any shortcuts? Well, our docs on meta descriptions have


guidance on this. It can be a good idea for some sites to programmatically generate the


meta description, particularly larger database driven sites like product aggregators. However,


make sure that whatever you're generating is still good quality. The descriptions should


still be unique, specific, and relevant to each page. Don't use the same meta descriptions


over and over again. And looking at purging perhaps 10,000 pages of thin blog content,


is there a best practice for that? Well, delete the pages. There's nothing special that you


need to do. Deleting thin pages also doesn't automatically make your site more valuable.


You really have to make sure that the value exists independent of the thin or the removed pages.


I'm new to SEO and I see many websites or videos suggest that I should buy backlinks.


Are backlinks as powerful or should I focus on maximizing quality of my site?


There are always people seeking shortcuts or tricks to manipulate search ranking


or spend money to make their sites appear more authoritative to search engines.


Link spam is an example of these tricks. We no longer use links predominantly compared to 20


years ago, for example, and also launched many algorithms to nullify link spam. And you probably


should not waste your money in spamming links. That money is much needed in creating a great


website with great user experience and helpful content. Must a page have a cached copy to appear


in the search results? No. It doesn't need to have a cached page. The caching system is a bit


independent of searches indexing and ranking. It's not a signal or a hint of quality if a page


does not have a cached page. Esben Rasmussen asked, how can Google Search Console report


an unknown internal URL as the referring URL for 400 series error URLs?


The URL may be unknown because Google does not index every page. The crawler may have come across


a page, but if it was not indexed, we'd report it as unknown. Yousuf is asking,


in a WordPress website or blog, should we mark as nofollow automatically created pages such as


abc.com slash page slash one and page two and so on? If you want to restrict crawling or indexing


of certain types of pages on your site, it's probably a better idea to use robots.txt.


Disallow rules, then no following URLs pointing to those pages. If nothing else, it's much less work,


presumably, but it's also less brittle. You can't control how people link to your pages after all,


so some links might end up being aircodes follow. Bobby asks, is anything being done to improve the


metrics shown in Search Console? In particular, the performance report sometimes looks confusing.


This is actually normal. We recently published a blog post on this topic and we're going to


talk about it in a second. There's a difference when you look by query and by page, and there's


some amount of privacy filtering that happens in the per-query data. Often, the details are less


critical since trends tend to be the same, but we have a lot of documentation on that


if you want to go down the rabbit hole. Michal is asking, how do I prevent paywalled


content from appearing in search results and discover for non-paying users? I have implemented


the paywalled content markup properly, and I'm worried about unsatisfied users.


Well, that is what we recommend. Tell us what content is behind the paywall with paywalled


structured data, so you're on the right track there. If you really want to prevent the paywalled


content from appearing in search entirely, then you can choose to use the search function.


If you want to prevent the paywall from appearing in search entirely, then you can choose to no


index those pages, but that's really up to you. Usama asks, does the spam score affect my site's


ranking? Is there a way to improve the spam score for any website, perhaps outside of disavowing


the score? Well, I think that's a top secret, or maybe not so top secret, but Google does not use


third-party SEO tools to determine scores for individual pages. So, if you have a tool that


flags a spam score for your website, keep in mind that Google doesn't use it. That doesn't mean that


this tool is not useful, it just means Google doesn't use that score. So, my recommendation


is, if there's something actionable behind that, then go and do that.


Vara Praad asked, once a product is sold out and it will never return in stock, what should we do


for that product page? Should we delete the product page or redirect to a specific page?


From a search perspective, it is fine to delete the page. From a site usability perspective,


you might like to keep the page up for a while or do a redirect in case the old page was referenced


from a third-party blog or bookmarked by a customer. Thomas asks, if hreflang is used but


they're missing return tags, will hreflang still be considered for those tags or will those errors


have an effect across the website? When we look at hreflang, we take into account any valid hreflang


annotations. And when it comes to broken ones, for example, ones that don't have a link back


to those individual pages, then we will drop just that connection. So, if you have one page that has


three working hreflang annotations and one broken one, we will just ignore that one broken one,


because we can't figure out how it works, but we will continue to use the others that you have


specified on that page. And since hreflang is a per-page annotation, if you're doing this


across your website and you have some that work and some that don't work, we will take into


account the ones that work and we will just ignore the ones that don't work. There's no negative


effect from the ones that don't work other than that they don't do hreflang. That said, if you're


testing your site and you find these kinds of broken annotations, my recommendation is still


to fix them just so that you take that one worry out. And whenever you notice issues like this,


often there are simple things that you can do to just fix that. I would try to fix that,


but it's not going to have a negative effect on the other annotations that you have across your site.


Damian is asking, how do you suggest a website can implement hreflang when there is no control


over brand sites in many countries? Fantastic question, and hreflang is an important and


complicated topic. Implementing hreflang among many variations of a site can be quite challenging,


indeed. However, there's an easy way to control all the hreflang from a single location,


sitemaps. Search for sitemap cross-submits on sitemaps.org to learn how to set it up


and then add the hreflang blocks to your sitemaps instead of your HTML pages.


This can simplify the process quite a bit.


Andrew asks, can hreflang sitemaps be placed in any folder location? Yes, there's nothing special


about hreflang sitemaps. These are traditional sitemap files with additional hreflang annotations


included in them. You can position them on your site like any other sitemap file, you can use the


robots.txt file to submit them, and they can be located anywhere. If you use Search Console to


submit them, you can locate them anywhere within your verified sites. The same idea applies to


sitemaps with in-image or video annotations. Aze Kennedy asked, what is happening to a website


that is not indexed again? I would first check Google Search Console to see if there are any


errors blocking us from crawling your site. But Google doesn't index everything on the web,


so you really need to make sure your content stands out in terms of quality.


Amy asks, I have a site in 13 languages. As authors leave, the articles are dropped with


new language updates. The client gives us two options, either drop the.ix default or use the


last translated language as the.ix default. Which is better?


This is totally up to you. You can specify languages on a per-page set basis. It doesn't


have to be the same across the whole website. It's fine to have English be the default language once


and maybe Japanese to be the default another time, if you think that's what users find valuable.


Keep in mind that.ix default means that users who are not searching in one of the specified


languages would see that page, so I would focus more on what would be useful for users and less


on your internal processes. Lucy asked, why do the product review updates impact non-review content?


If you're seeing broad impact across your site, it's probably not due to your product reviews.


It may be some other update that have occurred. Anonymous is asking, what's the best way to remove


old content and stop it from being indexed? Redirect? If so, what's the best page to redirect to?


Interesting question. You can either delete altogether a page and serve 404 or 410 status


code for its location when you want to retire the page or redirect it to another page that will


still help the user in some way accomplish their goal. It's really up to you how and what you do.


Ultimately, it has to make sense for you, not search engines.


Sean B is asking, does text in images influence ranking in image search? For example,


image search for t-shirt printing. I'm not concerned with the text on the t-shirt within


the image, rather the text around the image that might include features such as the price,


the product name, the brand URL, that kind of thing. Well, Sean, text around the image is


certainly helpful when it comes to understanding the image. Google can extract info around the


image, like from the captions and image titles. So definitely make sure the image is near relevant


text and that that text is descriptive. Akshay Kumar Sharma asked, is it beneficial for the


local businesses to list their local business details in many free or paid local listing


websites? Does Google consider them for their local query results? Don't look at adding your


site to reputable local listing sites as a way to improve your SEO. Use them as a possible way


to get more traffic unrelated to search. Local searches is different.


Alfonso asks, is a query parameter added to a site URL, like for example, add to cart,


is that bad for SEO? No, it's not necessarily bad for SEO on its own. However, for very large


websites, it can play a role in terms of crawl budget if you're unnecessarily adding query


parameters to your URLs. And this is something where you have to take a judgment call for your


website and think about, is this actually a really large website? And with these extra parameters


that you're adding within your website's internal linking, are you causing the number of URLs that


could be found to explode exponentially? And if that's the case, then I would work to try to


reduce the number of parameters that you're adding to URLs. But if you're talking about a smaller to


medium sized website, then probably those parameters are something that you can look at


later on when you become a gigantic website. And with that, this was the November edition of


the Google Search SEO Office Hours. If you have thoughts about this episode, you can leave us a


comment on the YouTube video or on Twitter at Google Search C. We also have linked the form for


next month's episode if you want to ask your questions in the description below.


So check that out. And until next time, bye everyone. Good day. Thank you. Okay, over and out.


Requesting content removals under the right to be forgotten

Have you ever heard about the right to be forgotten?


Are you wondering what that is?


How to file such a request and what our decision-making process is?


The right to be forgotten is a right that was first established in May 2014 in the European Union


as the result of a ruling by the European Court of Justice.


The court found that European data protection law gives individuals the right to ask search engines like Google


to delist certain URLs from the search index for queries related to a person's name.


This means that when you type in a certain name, those pages, we call them URLs,


will no longer show in search results for this query.


However, the URLs may remain in our results for other queries.


The European Court established four main criteria which have to be considered


whilst analysing a right to be forgotten request.


These criteria are if the information in question is inaccurate, inadequate, irrelevant or excessive


and whether there is a public interest in the information remaining available in search results.


Some countries outside the European Union have also adopted similar laws.


For example, by 2021, Turkey and Serbia had also established their version of the right to be forgotten.


In this video, we will focus on the process involved in delisting content which you have not created yourself.


This is because if you are the author of the content, you can edit, delete the content


or often easily change the privacy settings yourself to prevent it showing on Google search.


For example, most social networks provide privacy controls as well as ways to take down abusive content posted by others.


You can find a list of links of the most common privacy tools under this video.


When the web page is updated, Google's cache will update itself over time to reflect the page's new content.


To speed up this process, you can request a cache removal via the Remove outdated content tool, also linked below.


So how do you file such a request to Google to delist content which you have not created yourself?


We have made it easier for you to report illegal content through our intuitive troubleshooter at g.co. legal.


This will direct you to a page listing Google's products.


After selecting Google search as the product, select the reason for removal,


personal information and then explicitly right to be forgotten.


Once you reach the form, fill out all the information as required so the team at Google can review your request.


Help us review your request more quickly and with the best chance of success by providing specific information.


Please avoid sending us the search link as we are unable to review it.


Instead, please only send us the specific page URL.


This is an example of how you find the specific page URL.


Do a Google search for the page you want to find.


Then copy the URL link by right-clicking on that URL.


Select Copy link address, Copy link or other similar options depending on the browser you are on.


Paste this URL into the URL field of the form.


If you are requesting to remove an image from Google image search,


get the image URL by clicking the image to open up a larger version.


Click the three dot share icon.


In the pop-up window, click the link to copy it.


In our form, right-click and then click paste to add the URL to the correct field.


We also recommend that you clearly describe how the content is related to you


and why you think we should delist it from Google search results.


The search query for which you'd like us to delist the pages is usually your name.


If you would like us to delist pages for a different name, for example a nickname,


please also tell us how this name is related to you.


Once you have submitted your request, you will receive an email confirming receipt of your request.


The length of time taken to respond will depend on the type of complaint you are making.


But rest assured, Google has teams of experts at work


and your request will be handled with the required consideration.


At least one of our reviewers will manually review your request.


Broadly, the reviewer will consider whether and how the information may be in the public interest


and weigh this against your rights under the law.


Important factors our reviewers look at are, for example, your role in public life,


where the information comes from, how old the content is, privacy concerns.


None of these factors are absolute.


Frequently, a case presents considerations that point in different directions


and we carefully consider those before making a decision.


To learn more about these factors, check out our other video on this topic.


Should we require more information from you, we will contact you by email.


Do remember to check your email and help us process your request by providing the information we need.


Do note that while we may be able to remove links to the content on our search results page,


only the owner of the website can remove the content from their website.


You will need to contact the website owner if you want to remove the content at its source.


If the site owner updated the webpage, you can request a cash removal via the Remove Outdated Content tool,


as mentioned earlier and in the link below.


We respect the territorial scope of the relevant laws in your location.


For example, in the European Union, we delist URLs from versions of Google search results


for countries applying European data protection law.


Consistent with the 2019 decision of the European Court of Justice,


we don't extend these delistings to services of countries that don't apply European data protection law.


If you would like to delist a page from another country's search results,


you can file a request at g.co.uk and explain why that country's law requires delisting.


For more information, check out our FAQs on this topic on our transparency report.


There you can also find a lot of information about data and anonymized examples of requests we've received.


WMConf Lightning Talks - Official trailer (new series)

Webmasters, SEOs, publishers, and web developers, listen up!


Make sure to stay tuned for our upcoming video series here on the Webmasters YouTube channel,


Webmaster Conference Lightning Talks!


We will be releasing shortened, but still information-packed talks that we normally deliver at the Webmaster Conferences around the world.


The talks will include our presentations, will be subtitled in many languages,


and will be delivered by us, the Webmaster Team.


Look forward to talks such as mine on links in JavaScript,


or mine on HTTPS,


or my structured data in Search Console Talk,


or my Google Monetized Policy Talk.


We'll be releasing the talks throughout the year, starting this month.


Subscribe to our channel,


and don't miss a single Webmaster Conference Lightning Talk.


English Google SEO office-hours from January 2023

It's January, it's 2023, it's the new year, and what do we have for you today?


It's the office hours.


And it's me, and some questions, and some answers, and let's get into it.


I'm Lizzie from the Search Relations team.


Do meta keywords still help with SEO?


Nope, it doesn't help.


If you're curious about why, there's a blog post from 2009 that goes into more detail


about why Google doesn't use meta keywords.


Hi, this is Gary from the Search team.


Kajal is asking, my brand name is Qwality, that is, Quebec, uniform, Oscar, Alpha Lima,


India, Tango, Yankee.


And when someone searches for our brand name, Google is showing the results for Qwality,


that is the correct spelling.


Why is Google doing this?


Great question.


When you search for something that we often see as a misspelling of a common word, our


algorithms learn that and will attempt to suggest the correct spelling, or even just


do a search for the correct spelling altogether.


As your brand grows, eventually our algorithms learn your brand name and perhaps stop showing


results for what our algorithms initially detected as the correct spelling.


It will take time though.


Hi, this is John from the Search Relations team in Switzerland.


Michael asks, the last mod in a sitemap XML file for news article, should that be the


date of the last article update or the last comment?


Well, since a sitemap file is all about finding the right moment to crawl a page based on


its changes, the last mod date should reflect the date when the content has significantly


changed enough to merit being recrawled.


If comments are a critical part of your page, then using that date is fine.


Ultimately, this is a decision that you can make.


For the date of the article itself, I'd recommend looking at our guidelines on using dates on


a page.


In particular, make sure that you use the dates on a page consistently and that you


use structured data, including the time zone, within the markup.


Helen is asking, do you recommend to have news sitemap and general sitemap in the same


sitemap site?


Any issue if news sitemap and general sitemap contain the same URL?


You can have just one sitemap, a traditional website map, as defined by sitemaps.org, and


then add the news extension to the URLs that need it.


Just keep in mind that you will need to remove the news extension from URLs that are older


than 30 days.


For this reason, it's usually simpler to have separate sitemap for news and for web.


Just remove the URLs altogether from the new sitemap when they become too old for news,


including the URLs in both sitemaps, while not very nice, but it will not cause any issues


for you.


Jessica asks, in the Suggest Search in Google at the bottom of the page, there's one suggestion


that is not related to our website, and after looking at the results, our website is not


to be found for that topic.


Kind of hard for me to determine exactly what you mean, but it sounds like you feel that


something showing up in search isn't quite the way that you'd expect.


Something perhaps in one of the elements of the search results page.


For these situations, we have a feedback link on the bottom for the whole search results


page as well as for many of the individual features.


If you submit your feedback there, it'll be sent to the appropriate teams.


They tend to look for ways to improve these systems for the long run for everyone.


This is more about feedback for a feature overall and less that someone will explicitly


look at your site and try to figure out why this one page is not showing up.


Claire is asking, I have a site description in my Squarespace website, but the Google


description is different.


I have re-indexed it.


How do I change it?


Something to keep in mind here is that it's not guaranteed that Google will use a particular


meta description that you write for a given page.


Snippets are actually auto-generated and can vary based off of what the user was searching


for.


Sometimes different parts of the page are more relevant for a particular search query.


We're more likely to use the description that you write if it more accurately describes


the page than what Google can pull from the page itself.


We have some best practices about how to write meta descriptions in our documentation, so


I recommend checking that out.


Mohammed asks, I bought this domain and I found out it got banned or has a spam score.


So what do I need to do?


Well, like many things, if you want to invest in a domain name, it's critical that you do


your due diligence ahead of time or that you get help from an expert.


While for many things a domain name can be reused, sometimes it comes with a little bit


of extra ballast that you have to first clean up.


This is not something that Google can do for you.


That said, I can't load your website at all when I tried it here, so perhaps the primary


issue might be a technical one instead.


Anonymous is asking, I've seen a lot of spammy backlinks from porn websites linking to our


site over the past month using the Google Search Console link tool.


We do not want these.


Is this bad for ranking and what can I do about it?


This is not something that you need to prioritize too much since Google systems are getting


better at figuring out if a link is spammy.


But if you're concerned or you've received a manual action, you can use the Disavow tool


in Search Console.


You'll need to create a list of the spammy links and then upload it to the tool.


Do a search for Disavow in Search Console for more steps on how to do this.


The next question I have here is, does Google consider keyword density for the content?


Well, no.


Google does not have a notion of optimal keyword density.


Over the years, our systems have gotten quite well at recognizing what a page is about,


even if the keywords are not mentioned at all.


That said, it is definitely best to be explicit.


Don't rely on search engines guessing what your page is about and for which queries it


should be shown.


If your homepage only mentions that you add pizzazz to places and shows some beautiful


houses, both users and search engines won't know what you're trying to offer.


If your business paints houses, then just say that.


If your business sells paints, then say that.


Think about what users might be searching for and use the same terminology.


It makes it easier to find your pages and it makes it easier for users to recognize


that they have found what they want.


Keyword density does not matter, but being explicit does matter, and contrary to the


old SEO myth, story, joke, commentary, you don't need to mention all possible variations


either.


Michael is asking, what should we do if we are saying that certain pages have meta descriptions


in SERPs displaying the exact same text as the title tag, not our custom descriptions


or snippets from the page?


Hey, Michael.


Well, first I'd check that the HTML is valid and that there's not any issue with how it's


being rendered with the URL inspection tool.


It's hard to give any more advice without seeing more context, so I'd head to the Search


Central forums where you can post some examples of the page and the search result you're seeing


for it.


The folks there can take a look and give some more specific advice on how to debug the issue


further.


Anonymous is asking, I have a staging site which is on a subdomain and unfortunately it


got indexed.


How can I remove it from search results?


Well, these things happen and it's not a reason to be worried.


First ensure that your staging site is actually returning a 404 or 410 status code so Googlebot


can update our records about that site.


And then if it's a bother that the staging site appears in search, submit a site removal


request in Search Console.


Just mind that you are going to need to verify the staging site in Search Console first.


Jimmy asks, will disavowing spammy links linking to my website help recover from an algorithmic


penalty?


So first off, I tried to evaluate whether your site really created those spammy links.


It's common for sites to have random weird links and Google has a lot of practice ignoring


those.


On the other hand, if you actively built significant spammy links yourself, then yes, cleaning


those up would make sense.


The disavow tool can help if you can't remove the links at the source.


That said, this will not position your site as it was before, but it can help our algorithms


to recognize that they can trust your site again, giving you a chance to work up from


there.


There's no low-effort magic trick that makes a site pop up back afterwards.


You really have to put in the work, just as if you did it from the start.


Clara Diepenhorst is asking, I want to implement a new name for my company while the product


and site stays mostly the same.


This new name changes my URLs.


How do I keep my credits of the old name?


Great question.


And this is again a site move question.


Site moves are always fun and scary.


The most important thing you need to do is to ensure that the old URLs are redirecting


to the new URLs.


This is the most important thing.


Once you have your new domain, make sure that you verify it in Search Console.


See if you get any red flags in the security section and other reports.


And once you're ready with the redirections, you can submit a site move request in Search


Console also.


Since it's a really big undertaking to do a site move, we have very detailed documentation


about this topic.


Try searching for something like Google site move on your favorite search engine and really


just have a read, prepare yourself.


Rob asks, my site does not show up on Google searches.


I can't get it indexed.


So Rob mentioned the URL and I took a quick look.


And it turns out that the homepage returns a 404 status code to us.


Essentially, for Google, the page does not exist at all.


Trying it out a bit more, it looks like it returns a 404 status code to all Googlebot


user agents and users can see it normally.


You can test that using a user agent switcher in Chrome in the developer tools there.


This seems to be more of a misconfiguration of your server.


So you might need help from your hosting provider to resolve it.


Google will keep trying the page and once it's resolved, it should be visible in the


search results again within maybe a week or so.


Mateus is asking, Google Search Console looks at the desktop version of some, but not all,


articles on my website, even though it has a mobile version.


How can I tell Google to look at the mobile version?


Well, we've got a list of things that you can check in our documentation on mobile first


indexing.


So I'd recommend going through that checklist and the troubleshooting section.


Most of it boils down to this.


Make sure that you're providing the same content on both versions of your site and that both


your users and Google can access both versions.


If you're still having issues, we recommend posting in the forum so folks there can take


a look at those specific pages that are not showing up as mobile-friendly.


Anthony asks, my company's social media account is no longer appearing in the search results.


Only my competitors are appearing now and we have the same name.


It looks like it's more than just two sites using the particular name that you mentioned


and this kind of situation will always be hard to find your site and it won't be clear


to us or to users which one is the so-called right one.


I mean, they're all called the same.


They're all essentially legitimate results.


If you want people to find your site by name, then you should make sure that the name is


a clear identifier and not a term that many others also use.


Lou is asking, why is my link still showing up on Google after I used the content removal


tool and it got approved?


Please help me understand this phenomenon.


Using the URL removal tool is very fast.


Usually it removes the specified URL from search results within a few hours.


If you didn't remove a URL that was approved for removal by the tool, that usually means


that you specified the wrong URL.


Try to click the actual result and see where you land.


Is it the same URL that's shown in search?


If not, submit another removal request for that particular URL.


The next question I have here is our website is a service, not a product.


The price will vary on the estimate.


How do I fix the invalid item for a service like ours when I use product structured data?


For local business like the one that you mentioned, I'd recommend looking at the local business


structured data.


This also lets you specify a price range for your services.


We have more information about this markup in the search developer documentation.


Anonymous is asking, what could be the reason for our relatively healthy and content-rich


countryside to repeatedly be de-indexed and our old 404 subdomains and subholders to be


re-indexed instead?


Well, without the site URL, it's fairly impossible to give an exact answer, but it sounds like


we just haven't visited all the URLs on those old subdomains and in subfolders.


And that's why those URLs are still surfacing in search.


If you are certain that the countryside keeps falling out of Google's index and not just,


for example, not appearing for the keywords you'd like, that could be a sign of both technical


and quality issues.


I suggest you drop by the Google Search Central forums and see if the community can identify


what's up with your site.


Alex asks, if you move a ton of content with 301 redirects, do you need to request removal


of the old URLs from the index?


Because even a decade later, Google still crawls the old URLs.


What's up?


Thank you.


No, you do not need to request re-indexing of moved URLs or request them to be removed.


This happens automatically over time.


The effect that you're seeing is that our systems are aware of your content having been


on other URLs.


So if a user explicitly looks for those old URLs, we'll try to show them.


And this can happen for many years.


It's not a sign of an issue.


There is nothing that you need to fix in a case like this.


If you check the URLs in Search Console, you'll generally see that the canonical URL has shifted


when the redirect is being used.


In short, don't worry about these old URLs showing up when you specifically search for


those old URLs.


Avani is asking, changing Search Console ownership or verification code, does it affect website


indexing?


Having your site verified in Search Console or changing the verification code and method


has no effect on indexing or ranking whatsoever.


You can use the data that Search Console gives you to improve your site and does potentially


do better in search with your site, but otherwise has no effect on search whatsoever.


Now a question from Alan, about two months ago, I added another language to my website.


I can't find the translated version through Google Search.


What could be the reason for that?


When adding another language to a website, there are things that you need to do and things


you could additionally do.


In particular, you need to have separate URLs for each language version.


This can be as little as adding a parameter to the URL like?language="German".


But you must have separate URLs that specifically lead to that language version.


Some systems automatically swap out the content on the same URL.


This does not work for search engines.


You must have separate URLs.


The other important thing is that you should have links to the language versions.


Ideally you'd link from one language version to all versions of that page.


This makes it easy for users and search engines to find that language version.


Without internal links to those pages, Google might not know that they exist.


And finally, using the hreflang annotations is a great way to tell us about connections


between pages.


I'd see this more as an extra.


It's not required.


You can find out more about sites that use multiple language versions in our developers'


documentation.


Sally is asking, does the URL depth of an image affect image ranking?


And will adding the source set and size code of an image in the HTML be good for image


ranking?


Whether an image is three levels deep or five levels deep isn't really going to matter.


What's more important is using a structure that makes sense for your site and makes it


easy for you to organize your images in some kind of logical pattern, while still making


sure that the file names are descriptive.


For example, it might make sense to have a directory called photos.


slash.dog.slash.havanese.slash.molly.png.


But if you don't have a ton of Havanese photos, then maybe just photos and then mollyhavanese.dog.png


might make sense.


As far as source set and size code goes, add those if it makes sense for your image.


We recommend these for responsive images in particular so we can understand more about


the different versions of a given image.


Hope that helps.


Anonymous is asking, is there a difference in how hreflang clusters are treated depending


on if the hreflang tag is broken or includes a noindex or a different canonical in the


clusters?


Complicated topic.


Different clusters are formed with the hreflang links that we could validate.


Validate in this context meaning the backlinks between the hreflang tags.


If an hreflang link couldn't be validated, that link will simply not appear in the cluster.


The cluster will be created regardless with the other valid links.


If one of the links is noindex, then that won't be eligible for getting into the cluster.


Nazim is asking, are site-wide footer links that refer to the designer companies or the


CMS harmful for SEO?


In general, if the links are boilerplate stuff like Made by Squarespace that come with the


website theme, this is not something that you need to worry about.


If you have control over the link, we recommend that you add nofollow to these types of links.


Also check to make sure that the anchor text is something reasonable.


For example, make sure that the link isn't gratuitously keyword rich.


For example, Made by the Best Florida SEO.


Muhammad is asking, I made a transfer request because I changed the domain name of a website


in Search Console.


What can I do to speed up this process?


This is very, very important for me.


This is a good question.


The most important thing you need to do is to ensure that your old URLs are redirecting


to your new site.


These will have the largest positive impact on your site move.


The site move request in Search Console is a nice thing to submit, but even without it,


site move should do just fine if you redirect the old URLs to the new ones and they are


working properly.


Search for something like Google site move on your favorite search engine and check out


our documentation about site moves if you want to learn more.


Milton is asking, at the moment, my site is not responsive, it has a desktop version and


an mdot site.


In the documentation, it says the treatment we need to do is something in relation to


canonical and alternate.


My question is, do I need to put the canonical in the desktop version?


The documentation doesn't make it very clear.


Thank you for your feedback, I will definitely try to make this clear in the docs.


The desktop URL is always the canonical URL and the mdot is the alternate version of that


URL.


So on the desktop version, you'll need a rel canonical that points to itself and a rel


alternate that points to the mdot version.


And then on your mdot page, you'll have only a rel canonical that points to the desktop


version of that page.


Hope that helps.


Sagar is asking, how important is Exif data from SEO perspective for an e-commerce site


or sites where images play key roles?


Well, this is an easy question.


I really like easy questions.


The answer is that Google doesn't use Exif data for anything at the moment.


The only image data or metadata that we currently use is IpTC.


And that was it for this episode.


I hope you found the questions and the answers useful.


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I hope the year has started off well for you.


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Hunting a heinous hreflang headache

Sita ous vielate ines et a burnet.


Hunting a heinous hreflang headache

Hahaha.


Hunting a heinous hreflang headache

Hello, and welcome to another episode of SEO Fairy Tales.


Hunting a heinous hreflang headache

With me today is Bastian Grimm, a co-founder and specialist


Hunting a heinous hreflang headache

at Peak Ace, which is a Berlin-based performance


Hunting a heinous hreflang headache

marketing agency.


Hunting a heinous hreflang headache

Isn't that right?


Hunting a heinous hreflang headache

That sounds about right, yes.


Hunting a heinous hreflang headache

And when you're not working, you are into cars big time,


Hunting a heinous hreflang headache

aren't you?


Hunting a heinous hreflang headache

Yeah.


Hunting a heinous hreflang headache

I spend way too much time on the racetrack these days.


Hunting a heinous hreflang headache

So yeah.


Hunting a heinous hreflang headache

Well, as long as you only spend time and not


Hunting a heinous hreflang headache

like ridiculous amounts of money on the car.


Hunting a heinous hreflang headache

You know, it goes a bit of both, I suppose.


Hunting a heinous hreflang headache

But yes.


Hunting a heinous hreflang headache

I see.


Hunting a heinous hreflang headache

You're right.


Hunting a heinous hreflang headache

We're not here to talk about cars.