And the variable for the Ajax call is like a URL,


English Google Webmaster Central office-hours from April 28, 2020

I guess, that doesn't exist.


It's not a page.


It just responds with a JSON response.


And those URLs are being indexed by Google.


So they were appearing in Search Console.


Initially, we had a bug where when there was no data,


so for category pages that didn't have enough content,


let's say, they were producing a 500 error instead


of the JSON response.


So that's when we noticed that these


were being picked up by Google.


So the 500 errors are fixed now, but the URLs


are still being indexed.


So I don't know what the best way to handle these URLs are,


or if we should even do anything to them.


Would it be best to just let them be indexed?


Because I'm not sure how that affects


the rendering of the page.


If we let them be indexed, is it the case


that then Google can see additional articles that


are being loaded with the call?


Is it the case that we should try


to prevent those URLs from being indexed and crawled at all


for the sake of crawl budget or whatever?


Yeah, I'm just not really sure what the best way to handle it


is.


OK.


So I think there are probably those two aspects that


are important there.


On the one hand, the rendering, which


is something where I would not block them in a way


that they would block rendering just so that you really


have your pages rendered completely.


So as much as possible, we can get to all of your content.


So don't block those JSON requests


with something like a robots.txt,


because that would prevent us from actually loading


the content.


That's the one thing.


The other thing is with regards to indexing,


where one way that you could block those from being indexed


is to use an xrobots tag HTTP header, which


is something that you specify in the response on the server


side where you say, this file, here's the content,


but please don't index it.


That's something that you could do.


Sorry, if we go that route, will it not noindex the main page?


No.


No, OK.


That's what people were talking about too.


I was a little unclear about that.


Someone said they did that with the robots noindex


in the xrobots header.


And it prevented the parent page from being indexed.


No, that shouldn't be happening.


If you see something like that happening, that wouldn't be


a bug, and that would be something


that we'd want to fix.


So that definitely shouldn't be happening.


The other thing that I think is also worth mentioning here


is that probably it doesn't matter


if these pages are indexed, because most likely,


the content in those JSON files will be content


that you have in the rendered version of your page already.


And the rendered version of your page is a normal HTML page.


And we can understand that page really well.


So if someone searches for words in that content,


we will show your HTML page.


We won't show the JSON file.


So technically, it'll be indexed.


And theoretically, you could do a query


and make that appear in search.


But for all practical purposes, it doesn't matter at all.


So it's something where I'd say you


can use the xRobots tag to block it from being indexed.


But it's not critical.


It's a nice way to clean things up,


but it's not going to make or break anything for your website.


And also, in crawl budget, it doesn't make a difference.


Because if you put it in robots.txt


and disallow us from crawling, then we


can't fetch that content anymore,


and then we're not seeing the content in the JSON file.


So yeah, as long as it's not ranking on anything


that you care for, it doesn't make a difference.


I have a question on the crawler budget.


Can I?


Sure.


So we are the news publisher, and we


are filing 350 stories every day, every 350 stories.


And suddenly, some big news came,


and we filed 500 to 1,000 stories on that day.


So after the 350 story, that will crawlable on same day


or not?


What is the best practice for that?


Probably it doesn't matter.


So I'm, yeah, so if you look at your server logs, I guess,


so I don't know your website, but I'm


guessing you see that we do multiple thousands of requests


every day from your website.


So if you have 300 articles or 500 articles,


that difference is so small compared


to those several thousands of pages


that we request every day.


So from that point of view, I don't


think that would make a big difference.


I think it would be different if you went from 300 articles


on one day to 30,000 articles on the next day.


That's something where it's like, OK,


there's a significant difference,


and then we might have trouble keeping up.


But just from a practical point of view,


I think that would be hard.


OK, I have one more question.


We are the news publisher, and we have the brand name.


So if people search our brand name in search,


then suddenly we see our website, then website news


article appearing on top of our brand in Google.


The first, if I search my brand name,


the news article of third website,


which is also publisher.


We both are the publisher.


So the third party URL, above them, our brand name.


And we are the bigger than that website.


So it's very difficult to how we can handle this,


because we are the bigger brand.


We are the double than which publisher ranked above than us.


OK, so I tweeted this to you, and you responded.


And I'm not feeling I question over there.


So this is the best platform to ask you and your help.


Yeah, so I think it would be useful to have


some screenshots of what exactly you're seeing,


because it's hard for me to understand.


But it's also something where what we would not do


is make any kind of manual adjustments


for those kind of cases.


So it's very possible that in some situations,


if you search for maybe a company name,


that a news article about that company will rank above it.


It's certainly possible.


I think seeing that regularly or always with different news


articles about a company, that would be kind of awkward,


especially if it's a reasonable company.


But seeing it once or twice, I think


that would be kind of expected.


It started after the COVID-19 coverage.


OK.


And only for the applicable for only COVID-19 live blog.


That publisher published live blog on COVID,


and that live blog appear above than us, even on brand name.


Only we are using brand name, our brand name,


in her article above than us.


OK, that sounds like something would


be useful to get some examples.


If you can post maybe some details in the chat,


or if you can send them to me on Twitter,


then I'd love to take a look at that and pass that on.


That would be very cool.


Yeah, that would be cool.


Cool, thank you.


Sure.


John, can I ask you a quick question?


What's the difference between no refer and no follow?


Because I see that sometimes when I look at different coding


of things, and is there one that's


preferable in certain circumstances?


So they do different things.


The no follow is essentially something


that we use, or search engines use,


to not pass signals from one URL to the next one with a link.


And the no refer is something that browsers


use to block the refer from being shown on the other page.


So usually, if you click on a link that


goes to a different website, it would say,


this user came from that referring website.


And the no refer attribute basically just says,


don't say anything about where you came from.


And usually, that makes sense for cases


where maybe the URL itself is something that


is perhaps private data.


For example, you could imagine a social network where


the URLs have a long ID.


And if you go to that ID directly,


you can see the content, even if it's not for you directly.


So you might want to have cases like that


where someone clicks on a link, not include that kind of URL


itself.


So that's something where some people choose to do that.


I think some CMSs have some defaults as well


with regards to how they mark up the different links.


I don't know if no refer is one of those things


that people just use.


There's also no opener, which is another attribute


that a lot of CMSs use.


I forgot what that one does.


I don't know if it prevents it from opening


in a new tab or something weird like that.


I don't know.


SPEAKER 1 OK, thank you.


Sure.


SPEAKER 2 Hey, I have another question.


So this is just a question about the FAFSA navigation.


So a big website, I prefixed what I did.


It's that I blocked all the FAFSA navigation in robot.txt.


But recently, I read in the Webmaster blog,


they say that it's actually not necessary to best


prefix because some of the higher level


FAFSA navigation might be useful to be indexed,


and also that don't consolidate the authority of those pages.


So if I want to change the robot.txt role right now,


there will be a bunch of URLs suddenly being crawlable.


How hard it will be to hurt my crawl budget?


And should I care about crawl budget


since Google are so powerful now today?


And also, should I only let higher level


parameter to be crawl, or should I just open all of them


to be crawl and then canonicalize them?


Yeah, so I think with crawl budget in general,


most sites don't need to worry about this.


It's something where I would say just


to give an order of magnitude, if it's


less than tens of millions of pages,


probably you don't need to worry about crawl budget.


If it's more than that, then it's really something


where if you're suddenly duplicating or triplicating


all of the URLs on your website, then that


makes it a lot harder for us to crawl things.


But if it's a couple hundred thousand pages


and suddenly there are twice as many,


then we can usually just deal with that.


With regards to faceted navigation,


if you were to unblock that in robots.txt,


I think you would see a rise in the amount of crawling


that we would do, at least temporarily,


until we figured out how these parameters actually work.


And that's something where, depending on the site,


you might see that affecting the rest of the crawling


as well for a period of time, where I'd say, I don't know,


maybe a couple of weeks, something around that time.


So that's kind of where I'd say, if you


want to make that kind of a significant change,


then maybe pick a time where crawling from search


is not as critical for your website.


So if you have maybe a season where there is less traffic


from search, where you have fewer new products,


fewer new articles, then that would be a good time


to change that around.


Whereas if everything is under fire


and your website is already running at its limits,


then that's probably a bad time to make


significant changes like that.


SPEAKER 2


Yeah.


To canonicalize or use no index, that's


essentially what we would recommend.


SPEAKER 3


Sure.


All right, I need to jump off to another meeting.


It's been great having you all here.


Thank you all for joining in.


It's so cool to have so many people in.


SPEAKER 2 John, one more question, please.


SPEAKER 3 Thank you.


One really quick one.


SPEAKER 3 We have a new website called lalontop.com.


Earlier, that website appearing in Google's top browser.


But since three to four months, the website


is not appearing in Google's top browser on any of the keywords.


So just want to know what we have to do for that


and what is the next process.


And I didn't get any information regarding how to come back


in top story browsers.


So please help.


SPEAKER 1 I don't have any kind of magic tricks


for top stories.


So that's something where it's an organic feature,


and we use normal ranking algorithms in there.


So what I would recommend doing in a case like this


is going to the Webmaster Help Forum


and getting as much input from other people as possible


and thinking about what makes sense,


what doesn't make sense for your particular case.


OK.


It's not that I have like something I can do.


Cool.


All right.


I really need to jump off.


Thank you all for sticking around.


I have the next ones lined up for Friday and Thursday


if you speak German so we can stay in touch then.


Thank you.


Stay safe.


Why we need to talk about audits

Do you just send a PDF audit to the devs?


Why we need to talk about audits

Or should you open up a conversation with them?


Why we need to talk about audits

Is it just between devs and SEOs?


Why we need to talk about audits

Or should you involve the key stakeholders into the conversation as well?


Why we need to talk about audits

Should technical SEOs know how to code?


Why we need to talk about audits

Or maybe they should focus on bridging the gap between the devs and the search engines.


Why we need to talk about audits

With me today is Bartosz Goralowicz.


Why we need to talk about audits

He's the CEO of Onely, a technical SEO agency based in Poland.


Why we need to talk about audits

And he and his agency does a lot of work around JavaScript SEO with lots of interesting experiments


Why we need to talk about audits

around the topic.


Why we need to talk about audits

He also has got a fantastic video setup at home and a beautiful ukulele, along with other


Why we need to talk about audits

musical instruments that he doesn't know how to play.


Why we need to talk about audits

And the host of this series is Martin Shplet.


Why we need to talk about audits

He's a developer advocate at Google.


Why we need to talk about audits

He does a lot of magic tricks.


Why we need to talk about audits

Unfortunately, none of those will make your rank higher.


Why we need to talk about audits

So Bartosz, there is a thing that I want to talk to you about.


Why we need to talk about audits

And that is that I do hear and I do observe that SEOs are often struggling to actually


Why we need to talk about audits

get developers to do stuff.


Why we need to talk about audits

Is that an experience that you share?


Why we need to talk about audits

You make recommendations, you give them input, and then it just doesn't happen?


Why we need to talk about audits

Or is that not something that you would say is a particular problem?


Why we need to talk about audits

I think that you might have touched a very sensitive topic in the SEO industry.


Why we need to talk about audits

And I know where you're coming from with that.


Why we need to talk about audits

So in general, this is a problem.


Why we need to talk about audits

Some agencies solved this problem and kind of went past it.


Why we need to talk about audits

We cannot complain at all for our relationship with devs.


Why we need to talk about audits

At the same time, there are so many ways that things are done in the web development and


Why we need to talk about audits

SEO space that don't help.


Why we need to talk about audits

For example, PDF audits.


Why we need to talk about audits

One of the things, just to name, I think, the elephant in the room.


Why we need to talk about audits

So if you're going to create a PDF audit explaining how to fix common vitals, not knowing their


Why we need to talk about audits

stack, not knowing their technology, not knowing their resources, how many devs are there in


Why we need to talk about audits

the team?


Why we need to talk about audits

Is it a Shopify based platform or is it a custom CMS?


Why we need to talk about audits

In our experience, when you create a PDF audit and the dev is going to run into a problem,


Why we need to talk about audits

they'll skip that because there's no kind of fallback into what has to be done.


Why we need to talk about audits

So yeah, this can be unpacked so many ways.


Why we need to talk about audits

But I know exactly what you mean.


Why we need to talk about audits

So I am coming from the developer background, right?


Why we need to talk about audits

And I have worked with SEOs on both sides, both as a Google Developer Advocate, basically


Why we need to talk about audits

helping SEOs to do the right things and identify problems and solve problems, and also from


Why we need to talk about audits

the perspective of a developer working in the team.


Why we need to talk about audits

And the thing with the PDF report really struck a chord with me because I remember being a


Why we need to talk about audits

developer.


Why we need to talk about audits

I had so many different things on my plate already.


Why we need to talk about audits

And then out of the blue, in the middle of a sprint, someone from the SEO department


Why we need to talk about audits

descended upon me and said, Martin, here is a PDF with all the things that are wrong.


Why we need to talk about audits

Bye.


Why we need to talk about audits

And then they just flew off.


Why we need to talk about audits

And I'm like, OK.


Why we need to talk about audits

It says we're using JavaScript, which is very accurate because what we are actually building


Why we need to talk about audits

right now is a VR application that runs on your phone in the browser.


Why we need to talk about audits

You will have to use JavaScript to that.


Why we need to talk about audits

And the recommendation is to not use JavaScript.


Why we need to talk about audits

So that's not really a thing we can do because then we don't have VR capabilities.


Why we need to talk about audits

And because then that's our product, we kind of have to build our product to have our product


Why we need to talk about audits

with the technologies that enable the features of our product.


Why we need to talk about audits

So a lot of these things are so unhelpful and so not reflective of the circumstances


Why we need to talk about audits

that I, as a developer, work in.


Why we need to talk about audits

So you work for Google.


Why we need to talk about audits

So I can ask you, before we get into how to solve this problem, let me ask you a question.


Why we need to talk about audits

Is Google OK with JavaScript?


Why we need to talk about audits

Yeah.


Why we need to talk about audits

We are OK with JavaScript.


Why we need to talk about audits

So if I have a news website that's 100% CSR, you're going to be OK with that?


Why we need to talk about audits

We're going to be OK with it.


Why we need to talk about audits

It might take a little longer than you would like us sometimes because we have to actually


Why we need to talk about audits

render everything.


Why we need to talk about audits

And if you are rendering specifically badly designed, then that might take us a while.


Why we need to talk about audits

But in general, if you're doing things right and if you're doing things following the best


Why we need to talk about audits

practices and making sure that you test your setup, we would be fine with that.


Why we need to talk about audits

So I don't want to argue with that statement.


Why we need to talk about audits

Obviously, this is not this kind of video.


Why we need to talk about audits

But just what I'm trying to say, there are so many complexities in all these fronts.


Why we need to talk about audits

So we have clients coming in with a news website that's 100% JavaScript.


Why we need to talk about audits

And there's this kind of demon in the industry that all the SEOs would say that JavaScript


Why we need to talk about audits

is evil and that JavaScript is so bad.


Why we need to talk about audits

But on the other side of things, there is Google saying we're OK with JavaScript.


Why we need to talk about audits

And there is this kind of reality when there are a lot of websites packed with JavaScript.


Why we need to talk about audits

And Google is not picking them up properly.


Why we need to talk about audits

They're not getting rendered properly.


Why we need to talk about audits

All these other problems.


Why we need to talk about audits

So then we have a call with a dev team of our client.


Why we need to talk about audits

But Martin said that JavaScript is OK.


Why we need to talk about audits

Why do you want us to do server-side rendering?


Why we need to talk about audits

How do you answer?


Why we need to talk about audits

You know what I mean.


Why we need to talk about audits

This makes us look like SEO wizards.


Why we need to talk about audits

And then, so these are the problems that require a lot of knowledge.


Why we need to talk about audits

We don't struggle with them as much anymore because we have so much research.


Why we need to talk about audits

We have our experiments, whatever.


Why we need to talk about audits

But if you think about that to a level when he or she can handle those questions, it's


Why we need to talk about audits

going to take years.


Why we need to talk about audits

And it is for us.


Why we need to talk about audits

It slows down growth.


Why we need to talk about audits

And at the same time, if we're going to look at the whole Internet, asking all of the SEO


Why we need to talk about audits

agencies to be as advanced as we are when we only do technical SEO and we specialize


Why we need to talk about audits

in JavaScript SEO, it's difficult.


Why we need to talk about audits

And so this is a crack.


Why we need to talk about audits

I don't have any solutions and I'm not blaming Google or anything like that.


Why we need to talk about audits

I'm just saying that this is a change that's happening, but it requires time.


Why we need to talk about audits

So there are some, maybe more than some moments when this basically requires a goodwill from


Why we need to talk about audits

both ends.


Why we need to talk about audits

So if devs want to understand that and we want to explain that, we'll make it happen.


Why we need to talk about audits

I think there are lots of touch points where you can actually create this understanding


Why we need to talk about audits

and this cooperation.


Why we need to talk about audits

Because as you said, there's lots of complexities and lots of background and lots of considerations.


Why we need to talk about audits

So if you are asking me, and this is also tricky for us Googlers, because if you're


Why we need to talk about audits

asking me a question like, is JavaScript OK, then in general, yes, is it the best idea?


Why we need to talk about audits

No, not necessarily.


Why we need to talk about audits

If you can do it without JavaScript, do it without JavaScript.


Why we need to talk about audits

Server-side rendering is a recommendation that we give out as well.


Why we need to talk about audits

We need to make that more prominent in our docs.


Why we need to talk about audits

I've taken that point.


Why we need to talk about audits

But I really like the point where you said, so SEOs have this challenge that when you


Why we need to talk about audits

get a new SEO to join your team, they need to spend so much time on actually getting


Why we need to talk about audits

the knowledge that they need to work.


Why we need to talk about audits

Developers have the exact same challenge.


Why we need to talk about audits

Because the entire industry, the entire ecosystem just keeps moving and keeps changing.


Why we need to talk about audits

So someone who becomes a developer today is seeing everyone else working with so many


Why we need to talk about audits

tools and so many things.


Why we need to talk about audits

And there is a tendency to skip the understanding.


Why we need to talk about audits

Because most developers who have been around a couple of years have started with some tool,


Why we need to talk about audits

learned the things that this tool does well and these things that this tool does not so


Why we need to talk about audits

well.


Why we need to talk about audits

And then they might be like, oh, you're building a news website.


Why we need to talk about audits

I think in that case, with the interactivity that you described to me, we might be able


Why we need to talk about audits

to just do this better with server-side rendering.


Why we need to talk about audits

Whereas if you want a highly engaging social network, you might actually want to use client-side


Why we need to talk about audits

rendering for all the interactivity that is embedded.


Why we need to talk about audits

And that is not necessarily impairing your performance in search.


Why we need to talk about audits

So they learn these tools, and they learn the trade-offs, and then they make better


Why we need to talk about audits

decisions as they grow.


Why we need to talk about audits

But then people come in and might skip the entire learning process and go like, oh, everyone


Why we need to talk about audits

uses this framework.


Why we need to talk about audits

So I'll build everything in this framework.


Why we need to talk about audits

Because if everyone uses it, it must be fantastic, without understanding the decision-making


Why we need to talk about audits

process behind it.


Why we need to talk about audits

And I think what is then exacerbated is the problem that if an SEO who cargo-cults recommended


Why we need to talk about audits

recommendations that they read or heard somewhere without understanding the background and the


Why we need to talk about audits

complexities they are encompassing to a developer who does the same thing, then there must be


Why we need to talk about audits

a clash.


Why we need to talk about audits

Because now they are running into territory where they think they know what they're doing


Why we need to talk about audits

when they actually don't really know what they're doing.


Why we need to talk about audits

Would you say that that might be a challenge that we're seeing playing out?


Why we need to talk about audits

So let me unpack that one by one.


Why we need to talk about audits

There are a few statements within that.


Why we need to talk about audits

So for example, the way you describe the news website, you and I know you for a few years,


Why we need to talk about audits

I know you're not going to take that the wrong way.


Why we need to talk about audits

So most of our clients wouldn't understand what you said.


Why we need to talk about audits

So if you're talking to the key stakeholders, I'm assuming maybe not CEO, but, you know,


Why we need to talk about audits

CMO, someone who's making that decision along the lines, you will have this conversation.


Why we need to talk about audits

This is one of the problems that we were doing back in the days when you would hop on a call


Why we need to talk about audits

with five people from our client's company and we would start talking to a dev and you


Why we need to talk about audits

would lose everyone else.


Why we need to talk about audits

So simplifying that as much as possible, it has to happen.


Why we need to talk about audits

So then everyone is kind of included in this conversation.


Why we need to talk about audits

But secondly, what you mentioned about dev teams, that this is so dynamic.


Why we need to talk about audits

This is also how SEO looks like.


Why we need to talk about audits

Like maybe some SEO agencies didn't realize that.


Why we need to talk about audits

I don't think too many.


Why we need to talk about audits

So if someone is coming to us with a question, can you do a JavaScript SEO, web performance


Why we need to talk about audits

and a little bit of content marketing?


Why we need to talk about audits

So this is extremely difficult to pack in one agency and do all these things well.


Why we need to talk about audits

So I think that we slowly need to normalize using a technical SEO agency for one thing


Why we need to talk about audits

and using a content marketing agency for something else and just trying to branch out.


Why we need to talk about audits

So then everyone understands their goals.


Why we need to talk about audits

And then onboarding that one person is easier because that junior SEO, she only has to learn


Why we need to talk about audits

like JavaScript SEO, web performance, whatever, crawler budget, understand those technical


Why we need to talk about audits

aspects.


Why we need to talk about audits

At the same time, some agencies want those people to also do link building and all these


Why we need to talk about audits

other aspects.


Why we need to talk about audits

So just like with devs, it got so complex.


Why we need to talk about audits

Sometimes I'm looking at job offers for devs and like, what does it even mean?


Why we need to talk about audits

So basically one job offer is an entire IT department.


Why we need to talk about audits

I love it.


Why we need to talk about audits

And basically you need to divide organizations into aware in the web space and those that


Why we need to talk about audits

are not aware.


Why we need to talk about audits

And then if we're going to, so if someone is aware of how SEO works, like it looks like


Why we need to talk about audits

how, what's the difference between CSR and SSR, I'm assuming a lot of even high level


Why we need to talk about audits

people in some organizations, like for example, Germany is very, is pushing a lot of people


Why we need to talk about audits

in the management position to know a lot about development, which I love, like talking to


Why we need to talk about audits

companies from Germany, most of the time they're just so aware of that.


Why we need to talk about audits

Some other companies would come to you and say, so if we're going to fix this problem


Why we need to talk about audits

with rendering or with web performance, how much traffic can we expect and when?


Why we need to talk about audits

And that's the main topic of discussion.


Why we need to talk about audits

And this is something I'm having daily two, three times a day that I have to answer that.


Why we need to talk about audits

And this is usually showing me that, you know, and there are so many ways to answer this


Why we need to talk about audits

question.


Why we need to talk about audits

Like I never do that the same way, but anyhow this is showing me that maybe they need a


Why we need to talk about audits

little bit more help understanding what has to be done and why it's done.


Why we need to talk about audits

Sometimes it's, you know, it's just beyond our scope of work.


Why we need to talk about audits

Let's call that.


Why we need to talk about audits

We cannot push them.


Why we need to talk about audits

Moving forward.


Why we need to talk about audits

So now that we have that, let's assume we have someone that's aware of or willing to


Why we need to talk about audits

learn about why we're doing that about, you know, that why is kind of important here,


Why we need to talk about audits

because if they only do that for traffic and that's the only KPI they look at, it's very


Why we need to talk about audits

difficult sometimes not to skip a lot of important metrics.


Why we need to talk about audits

If you look at that, you can have a ton of traffic and this is still going to be a terrible


Why we need to talk about audits

website in theory.


Why we need to talk about audits

So are you saying that sometimes you literally have to rethink an organization's KPIs?


Why we need to talk about audits

Yeah, very often we would have like, just to give you an example, we have a call with


Why we need to talk about audits

a massive company and they would be asking us, what do we have to do to run for the term


Why we need to talk about audits

houses?


Why we need to talk about audits

And, you know, just this question lets you unpack so many problems with the whole organization.


Why we need to talk about audits

And then we usually, you know, you don't want to offend anyone.


Why we need to talk about audits

You don't want to get, you know, their ego involved in that, but at the same time, you


Why we need to talk about audits

want to explain that.


Why we need to talk about audits

And so that's one.


Why we need to talk about audits

Let's assume we have the stakeholders sold on the idea of what we want to do.


Why we need to talk about audits

They understand that that's amazing.


Why we need to talk about audits

That's usually when things start to go well.


Why we need to talk about audits

That is great because that also unlocks the possibility to basically have them on board


Why we need to talk about audits

with whatever the dev team will be doing about it.


Why we need to talk about audits

These things have basically been invisible to me, but as a developer, I just noticed


Why we need to talk about audits

that one, like the stakeholders, the key stakeholders in the company that have influence for the


Why we need to talk about audits

dev team told me to do one thing and then SEOs or marketing told me to do another thing.


Why we need to talk about audits

And then usually I picked the organization goals because that's what I was measured by.


Why we need to talk about audits

So you are saying by bringing in the key stakeholders and making sure that they understand what


Why we need to talk about audits

they need to look for and adjusting their KPIs, you unlock the key to actually getting


Why we need to talk about audits

the development team on board with what you're trying to accomplish.


Why we need to talk about audits

Yes and no.


Why we need to talk about audits

So usually we don't really, like us, as a technical SEO agency, we don't struggle that


Why we need to talk about audits

much to get devs on board.


Why we need to talk about audits

This is not that big of a deal with us.


Why we need to talk about audits

The problem is for the stakeholders to understand what we want to do with them because sometimes


Why we need to talk about audits

it's like, you know, this is this technical agency and this is our dev team.


Why we need to talk about audits

Let them, you know, have fun with this project.


Why we need to talk about audits

And like almost literally, that's how that might look in some cases.


Why we need to talk about audits

And this is usually a problem.


Why we need to talk about audits

But then if we know, okay, we want to get here and this is the umbrella term, we want


Why we need to talk about audits

to have amazing web performance.


Why we need to talk about audits

You want to get rendered, indexed quickly, whatever.


Why we need to talk about audits

And they know that this is, I don't even imagine how this could go wrong because the whole


Why we need to talk about audits

organization is just roaming in one direction.


Why we need to talk about audits

And this is our holy grail and this is happening very, very often.


Why we need to talk about audits

How do you get that to happen?


Why we need to talk about audits

Because I have been in so many organizations where that did not happen.


Why we need to talk about audits

This is a very simple answer.


Why we need to talk about audits

We did it wrong so many times.


Why we need to talk about audits

So we tried for years because when we started back in, I think, 2013, 14-ish, we wanted


Why we need to talk about audits

to focus only on the technical aspects, me and my team.


Why we need to talk about audits

People would make fun of us.


Why we need to talk about audits

They would be like, okay, there are white head SEOs and there are people who have traffic.


Why we need to talk about audits

And you know, all these kind of amazing jokes going our way that, you know, you cannot really...


Why we need to talk about audits

That was a nice one.


Why we need to talk about audits

I can create a stand up show for you with just the feedback we would get from the SEO


Why we need to talk about audits

community back in the day with basically moving to a technical side of things only.


Why we need to talk about audits

This was very...


Why we need to talk about audits

Bonus episode right there.


Why we need to talk about audits

This was very weird for a second.


Why we need to talk about audits

Usually we start with stakeholders.


Why we need to talk about audits

Just I'm going to condense it really quick.


Why we need to talk about audits

We talk to the stakeholders.


Why we need to talk about audits

We hop on the call before creating any offers or anything.


Why we need to talk about audits

We hop on the call, talk about like, what's the KPI?


Why we need to talk about audits

What's the problem?


Why we need to talk about audits

What are the challenges?


Why we need to talk about audits

Why are we even doing that?


Why we need to talk about audits

Like why is so important?


Why we need to talk about audits

Why do you want to fix that?


Why we need to talk about audits

Because if traffic is the only metric, we still will work with them, but we know how


Why we need to talk about audits

this might go.


Why we need to talk about audits

So we're going to start with that.


Why we need to talk about audits

Then after the call, we look into the website, we create a statement of work.


Why we need to talk about audits

So we tell them, okay, this is what we're going to do.


Why we need to talk about audits

This is the list of problems we're seeing with your website.


Why we need to talk about audits

This is how we want to fix it.


Why we need to talk about audits

Prioritize.


Why we need to talk about audits

So first month we solve all of the most terrible aspects like internal 404s or I know 10 seconds


Why we need to talk about audits

to load a page or whatever.


Why we need to talk about audits

So and with that, it's extremely transparent because we tell them, okay, this project is


Why we need to talk about audits

going to take four months.


Why we need to talk about audits

We're going to hop in and now this is actually a spoiler alert.


Why we need to talk about audits

We're going to hop in into a PM.


Why we need to talk about audits

So like Jira or Trello with your dev team and we're going to make it happen.


Why we need to talk about audits

Okay.


Why we need to talk about audits

So you meet the dev team where they are anyway.


Why we need to talk about audits

So and we adjust to whatever solution that they go with.


Why we need to talk about audits

So if they work in sprints, we try to join that.


Why we need to talk about audits

Like however this is, we had to kind of morph into this team that joins them without any


Why we need to talk about audits

interruptions.


Why we need to talk about audits

So this is the only way.


Why we need to talk about audits

We are aware that like in a medium or large company, the dev team is seriously the most


Why we need to talk about audits

important part of the business.


Why we need to talk about audits

So then we tell them, okay, this has to be fixed, but we have to understand their tech


Why we need to talk about audits

stack.


Why we need to talk about audits

We have to understand all these boring aspects.


Why we need to talk about audits

Like boring, like we loved it, but most like usually during that call with stakeholders,


Why we need to talk about audits

they don't really want to talk about that or they don't know.


Why we need to talk about audits

Like very often stakeholders have no idea what kind of tech stack they are running.


Why we need to talk about audits

To be fair, they should not have to, right?


Why we need to talk about audits

Like that's something.


Why we need to talk about audits

Unless it's like the CTO, I don't think the CEO needs to know which tech stack they're


Why we need to talk about audits

on as long as they know what their core business is, how it works, and what's the vision, what's


Why we need to talk about audits

the mission of the organization.


Why we need to talk about audits

I think that's exactly what you have a development team for, to define these things based on


Why we need to talk about audits

requirements coming from elsewhere.


Why we need to talk about audits

One more conversation we have to schedule, but let's move forward with that.


Why we need to talk about audits

Then we hop into like Jira, Trello, whatever.


Why we need to talk about audits

We give them tasks and they come back to us.


Why we need to talk about audits

We cannot really do that.


Why we need to talk about audits

We have a custom solution around this one that doesn't allow whatever.


Why we need to talk about audits

So then, and again, we have a team that's extremely technical.


Why we need to talk about audits

This is something we were building for a few years and they hop on the call.


Why we need to talk about audits

We either sometimes when they really don't get that, and this is an edge case, we write


Why we need to talk about audits

this snippet of code just to show them how to optimize that CSS or whatever.


Why we need to talk about audits

But most of the time we just go and talk to them and they would like devs in our, like


Why we need to talk about audits

in my opinion, they're very hardworking people and they would tell us like, we cannot do


Why we need to talk about audits

this.


Why we need to talk about audits

We cannot do that.


Why we need to talk about audits

We have so many limitations and we try to work within those limitations.


Why we need to talk about audits

If we hit the wall, we go back to stakeholders and say, maybe, maybe we could try to, and


Why we need to talk about audits

you know, devs appreciate that because someone is really, it's not only them coming to stakeholders


Why we need to talk about audits

for budget, for more resources, whatever, but we're going to come in and say, okay guys,


Why we need to talk about audits

this is, this is going to be difficult with so many, so many places where you cut corners.


Why we need to talk about audits

So you would say that you would also have to somehow support developers to get the right


Why we need to talk about audits

resources and to get the right environment to work in sometimes.


Why we need to talk about audits

That's important.


Why we need to talk about audits

Sometimes, yeah.


Why we need to talk about audits

Sometimes you think this is going to be, this is going to sound funny, but sometimes we


Why we need to talk about audits

have, we have clients who have like 50 devs in, and not in, you know, not in a country


Why we need to talk about audits

where they would be cheaper, but 50 devs in a very high earning city somewhere in the


Why we need to talk about audits

world.


Why we need to talk about audits

And they would, they would listen to us rather than to them because they were like, okay,


Why we need to talk about audits

we're paying your invoice.


Why we need to talk about audits

We don't know what that, we want to get the most bang for our buck.


Why we need to talk about audits

So because of that, and they would tell that openly, we want to really move this project


Why we need to talk about audits

forward.


Why we need to talk about audits

And that's why they would change things around in the dev team.


Why we need to talk about audits

And I guess you have to know that out of all people, sometimes when you work in a team,


Why we need to talk about audits

you come to your manager and you say, okay, this is a problem every day.


Why we need to talk about audits

They won't listen to you until someone from the outside is going to come in and it's like,


Why we need to talk about audits

like, dude,


Why we need to talk about audits

I've been there.


Why we need to talk about audits

I've done that.


Why we need to talk about audits

I've been on both sides of this.


Why we need to talk about audits

I've been the consultant that came in and basically just sat down with the development


Why we need to talk about audits

team, listened to them for a day and then presented what I heard to the stakeholders.


Why we need to talk about audits

And they're like, oh, these are really valuable insights.


Why we need to talk about audits

And I always thought like, I'm billing you for this, but you could have just listened


Why we need to talk about audits

to your developers.


Why we need to talk about audits

Exactly.


Why we need to talk about audits

And just every single dev listening to or watching this video series right now is going


Why we need to talk about audits

to have the story of this kind.


Why we need to talk about audits

And we also have...


Why we need to talk about audits

I've been on the developer side of that too.


Why we need to talk about audits

It's like, hey, we need to do this.


Why we need to talk about audits

Oh, I don't think so.


Why we need to talk about audits

And then I was like, okay.


Why we need to talk about audits

And then the consultant came in and said the same thing.


Why we need to talk about audits

I'm like,


Why we need to talk about audits

So, and also just to elaborate on this story, we have like usually once a quarter, we have


Why we need to talk about audits

someone reaching out to us, usually the dev teams we know saying like, we need an audit


Why we need to talk about audits

around Coronavitals, but don't go too deep.


Why we need to talk about audits

We just want them to hear what we told them from someone else.


Why we need to talk about audits

And they're willing to spend the budget just to have, you know, a backup document just


Why we need to talk about audits

to say we need to fix this.


Why we need to talk about audits

But that is so smart.


Why we need to talk about audits

I really like that because so many developers are like, oh, I don't want to work with these


Why we need to talk about audits

people because they just tell them what we told them already.


Why we need to talk about audits

And they charge them for it.


Why we need to talk about audits

Why don't developers more often leverage these external voices like they do in your case?


Why we need to talk about audits

Where it's like, Vardor, I need this audit.


Why we need to talk about audits

I know the result of the audit, but please like tell them what we already told them because


Why we need to talk about audits

they don't listen.


Why we need to talk about audits

Every single time this is happening, I've always...


Why we need to talk about audits

That is smart.


Why we need to talk about audits

I like that.


Why we need to talk about audits

If there's any SEO agency listening to that or SEO, like someone frustrated with dev teams,


Why we need to talk about audits

100% honest, we don't struggle with devs.


Why we need to talk about audits

Like talking to them openly, speaking their language, and you might have to get a little


Why we need to talk about audits

bit technical or maybe just have one or two people in your team who can get the message


Why we need to talk about audits

across.


Why we need to talk about audits

Oh, and just to add on to your last point, and that goes to all the SEOs out there listening,


Why we need to talk about audits

struggling with developers, lose your ego.


Why we need to talk about audits

It is not a problem to ask developers questions.


Why we need to talk about audits

Like if you are thinking that you need to know everything, no, you don't.


Why we need to talk about audits

You're not a developer.


Why we need to talk about audits

It's okay.


Why we need to talk about audits

Developers don't know about SEO.


Why we need to talk about audits

You don't have to know everything about development.


Why we need to talk about audits

So if you don't understand why they can't do what you asked them to do, remember that


Why we need to talk about audits

developers are intrinsically motivated for solving problems.


Why we need to talk about audits

That's what they love.


Why we need to talk about audits

That's what they want to do.


Why we need to talk about audits

If you give them something to solve, they'll be excited to solve it.


Why we need to talk about audits

And then they hit the limitations, the limits of what they can do in the tech stack and


Why we need to talk about audits

the environment that they're in.


Why we need to talk about audits

And then they tell you, I can't do that because XYZ.


Why we need to talk about audits

If you don't understand XYZ, that is okay.


Why we need to talk about audits

Ask clarifying questions until you get there because you, and I think Bartosz said that


Why we need to talk about audits

really nicely, you may have to simplify that message that comes from the developers so


Why we need to talk about audits

that other people who are not developers in the organization that you work with understand


Why we need to talk about audits

why it doesn't work.


Why we need to talk about audits

Let me just build on that.


Why we need to talk about audits

And this is something that all the SEOs are going to love.


Why we need to talk about audits

We had that vision years back that we have to learn all of the frameworks.


Why we need to talk about audits

We have to know front and back and whatever.


Why we need to talk about audits

It was so stressful.


Why we need to talk about audits

I was learning all these, I was trying to know it all, but this is something to leave


Why we need to talk about audits

it to devs.


Why we need to talk about audits

What we have to do as technical SEOs.


Why we need to talk about audits

We have to have in-depth, massive understanding how rendering works, how a browser works,


Why we need to talk about audits

how Google is rendering, what they render, what they do, rules around that.


Why we need to talk about audits

Chrome DevTools, this has to be your go-to place and you need to understand what's happening.


Why we need to talk about audits

And once you understand that, you add a little bit of documentation from different frameworks,


Why we need to talk about audits

from different technologies, but don't learn how to write all of this code.


Why we need to talk about audits

Obviously basics are okay, but basics, this is what they pay you to do.


Why we need to talk about audits

They don't want you to know what they know.


Why we need to talk about audits

So you have to know, like this is complex enough.


Why we need to talk about audits

Understanding how a browser works step-by-step, this is something you can do for the rest


Why we need to talk about audits

of your life.


Why we need to talk about audits

Never have enough of learning.


Why we need to talk about audits

Just wanted to add, like now we were talking from the SEO standpoint with the ego.


Why we need to talk about audits

If you own a company, if you run a dev team, go through a lot of agencies, talk to them,


Why we need to talk about audits

hop on a call with them, ask them questions, see if you understand what they're trying


Why we need to talk about audits

to do.


Why we need to talk about audits

If you're talking to an agency that's going to tell you nothing about the scope of work,


Why we need to talk about audits

what they're going to do, how they're going to do that, this would raise a red flag.


Why we need to talk about audits

If you go with your car to have it fixed and they won't tell you what they did, I would


Why we need to talk about audits

be worried to drive this car.


Why we need to talk about audits

So basically go through that.


Why we need to talk about audits

Talk to as many people as soon as you feel the vibe, okay, these guys, they understand


Why we need to talk about audits

what we want to accomplish and get this conversation.


Why we need to talk about audits

And the same the other way.


Why we need to talk about audits

It's absolutely true.


Why we need to talk about audits

Developers really don't like it when someone comes like, hey, you need to do this.


Why we need to talk about audits

And then they ask you why, and then they don't get a proper answer.


Why we need to talk about audits

You can do the same thing with developers.


Why we need to talk about audits

If you say like, hey, I want you to implement the canonicals.


Why we need to talk about audits

And then they say, we can't do that.


Why we need to talk about audits

Then ask them why.


Why we need to talk about audits

If they say our solution doesn't allow it, then it's like, why does it not allow you


Why we need to talk about audits

to add anything to the head?


Why we need to talk about audits

Oh, it does, but not the canonical.


Why we need to talk about audits

Why not the canonical?


Why we need to talk about audits

It might be just a knowledge gap on their side, or it might be an actual hard technical


Why we need to talk about audits

limitation of the environment and the stack and the platform they're working with.


Why we need to talk about audits

But they need to be able to explain this to you in simple terms.


Why we need to talk about audits

If they're like, oh, it's algorithmically impossible.


Why we need to talk about audits

That's just a developer's way of saying bugger off.


Why we need to talk about audits

Ask questions.


Why we need to talk about audits

Don't think like, oh, they said something that I don't understand, so I must stop questioning


Why we need to talk about audits

here.


Why we need to talk about audits

No.


Why we need to talk about audits

Just address it in simple terms so that you understand what they mean.


Why we need to talk about audits

They haven't done the work themselves either, so hold them accountable.


Why we need to talk about audits

But be ready to be held accountable too.


Why we need to talk about audits

Yeah, just wanted to hop on.


Why we need to talk about audits

We don't know stuff very, very often.


Why we need to talk about audits

We have five calls per day with five different stacks.


Why we need to talk about audits

We never heard about it.


Why we need to talk about audits

So if we don't know something, we're very open about it.


Why we need to talk about audits

We have no idea what we have for Womp, PWA recently.


Why we need to talk about audits

I never heard of Womp.


Why we need to talk about audits

We just went and read the documentation, came back, scheduled a call.


Why we need to talk about audits

They're like, now we can talk the same language.


Why we need to talk about audits

Again, this is an ego thing.


Why we need to talk about audits

You don't assume that you need to know stuff.


Why we need to talk about audits

I'm very open about things I don't know.


Why we need to talk about audits

There's just tons of them.


Why we need to talk about audits

So same here.


Why we need to talk about audits

Yeah.


Why we need to talk about audits

I mean, even I was asked recently at a Core Web Vitals session, I was asked questions


Why we need to talk about audits

that I don't know the answer to.


Why we need to talk about audits

I won't give you a random non-answer or try to meddle my way through.


Why we need to talk about audits

I just say, I don't know, but I can check.


Why we need to talk about audits

And one thing that I feel is a deal breaker between devs and the SEOs a lot of times,


Why we need to talk about audits

and we back in the day were guilty of that as well, is devs will ask you a question of


Why we need to talk about audits

why shouldn't we just point canonicals to a page that's most important so it's


Why we need to talk about audits

called church called like we, we, we, you know, push that most important page with different


Why we need to talk about audits

canonical because this is just like a link, you know, they would have all these ideas


Why we need to talk about audits

as well, like both SEOs and devs, how to cheat a search engine.


Why we need to talk about audits

Like SEOs, you have to, you know, explain that step by step, but if we're talking about


Why we need to talk about audits

SEOs and devs, we need to leave all of the conspiracy theories or urban legends behind,


Why we need to talk about audits

just fall back on documentation.


Why we need to talk about audits

And that's it because as soon as open the door into, if we point some canonicals here,


Why we need to talk about audits

or if we do this, or if we do that, some, you know, some things might happen.


Why we need to talk about audits

We heard about that.


Why we need to talk about audits

We tested that.


Why we need to talk about audits

This is going to put you in the shoes of those, you know, snake, snake oil salesman.


Why we need to talk about audits

So be technical.


Why we need to talk about audits

If you're talking to devs, be technical, drop all of those.


Why we need to talk about audits

Even if you, if you deeply believe this is the case, I think this opens the door to,


Why we need to talk about audits

to what we as SEOs want to run away from.


Why we need to talk about audits

Another thing is if you are not very technical, that is perfectly okay.


Why we need to talk about audits

But then don't try to find solutions because you are in a territory where you are not necessarily


Why we need to talk about audits

experienced in.


Why we need to talk about audits

And if you are not just, basically present the problem and then work with the development


Why we need to talk about audits

team to solve that, don't try to come up with a solution because it's likely that your solution


Why we need to talk about audits

will not work in the tech stack or the environment that your development team works in.


Why we need to talk about audits

And then if you are getting attached to that solution, you're like, but why can't we just


Why we need to talk about audits

do it like this?


Why we need to talk about audits

It might not get through to the development team the right way.


Why we need to talk about audits

And it might feel like you are just obsessed with something rather than actually trying


Why we need to talk about audits

to solve the problem.


Why we need to talk about audits

And that's what the development teams need to do.


Why we need to talk about audits

So you want to be on their side and you want to, it's okay to go the way together, like


Why we need to talk about audits

basically to research options, to experiment with things together, but trying to like come


Why we need to talk about audits

with the turnkey solution to development teams usually backfires.


Why we need to talk about audits

Just one thing that I hope is going to clean the air a little bit.


Why we need to talk about audits

Technical SEO is fairly new.


Why we need to talk about audits

It's maybe three, four, five years old.


Why we need to talk about audits

Like obviously some will argue that this was, you know, I was doing technical SEO in 1993,


Why we need to talk about audits

but it's fairly new as in a way that this is getting so popular, it's getting so needed,


Why we need to talk about audits

it's almost essential.


Why we need to talk about audits

So this is a brand new field.


Why we need to talk about audits

And if you look at that and drop all of the history, this is going to get really exciting


Why we need to talk about audits

because now I would assume that devs and SEOs will only get closer throughout the next few


Why we need to talk about audits

years because obviously we're all seeing that need for technical SEO.


Why we need to talk about audits

I think that would clear the air and for all of those who are like scared and confused


Why we need to talk about audits

now on the SEO side, don't be, you get to choose if you want to get into technical SEO


Why we need to talk about audits

or not.


Why we need to talk about audits

Technical SEO is a field in its own.


Why we need to talk about audits

It is complex.


Why we need to talk about audits

It is big, it is broad, it is new, it is fresh, but I think content still is an important


Why we need to talk about audits

field and all the other things, all the other aspects inside SEO will not become irrelevant


Why we need to talk about audits

or anything.


Why we need to talk about audits

It will continue to be a broad field.


Why we need to talk about audits

You get to pick your niche, but if you want to go technical, do it right.


Why we need to talk about audits

I think that's a very, very nice way of looking at it.


Why we need to talk about audits

Go technical.


Why we need to talk about audits

Awesome.


Why we need to talk about audits

Thank you so much Bartosz for joining me for this conversation.


Why we need to talk about audits

I think this was really interesting and insightful and I hope to see more from you guys and also


Why we need to talk about audits

to hear what the community is saying to these things as well.


Why we need to talk about audits

Looking forward, stay safe, stay healthy everybody.


Why we need to talk about audits

Thank you so much.


Why we need to talk about audits


English Google SEO office-hours from June 11, 2021

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


SEO Office Hours Hangout.


Maybe we should call these not office hours anymore,


since we're not at the office.


But anyway, it's a hangout for SEO.


Thank you all for joining.


I am John Mueller.


I am a search advocate on the Google Search Relations team.


And part of what we do are these not office hours hangouts,


where people can join in and ask their questions around search.


Bunch of questions were submitted already on YouTube.


So we can go through some of those.


But as always, I try to find some people who


are willing to jump in and ask the first couple of questions.


And it looks like a bunch of people


already raised their hands.


So maybe we'll just run through some of those


and then go through some of the submitted questions as well.


All right, Ratnesh, I think.


RATNEESH KALIWALA KUMAR KUMAR, NIRENI MANI


MALIK MAKUMAR Good morning.


Thank you, John.


So I have a very common question discussed many times.


In fact, a lot of companies are also.


So the question is on link-building practices.


So we approached many companies and big, big, big companies.


So they say that, OK, they will charge thousands of dollars


or $10,000 to get the link, do follow link,


no follow link from the home page or from the news sites


and stuff like that.


And they also talked a lot of stuff about links,


like we should get a high authority, do follow link,


So we do not know what we should do now.


And they also showcased that, OK, see,


this is a site which is ranking high on the Google.


And they have taken our service, and they have paid us.


So if you pay us, then your site will also rank,


because we are going to put your site backlink


with a good article on the home page or X, Y, Z.


So we do not know, OK, I don't think


that it is wise to put money in such practices or not.


Like, what are your opinion?


What are your final wordings?


And one more thing, there are a lot of people over YouTube,


and they're writing a lot of blogs also.


These are the best link building practices.


You do this, you do this, and you do like that.


And they are charging a lot of money,


but we don't want to engage in such stuff like that.


So we just want to know, OK, what we should do now.


What you should do now.


I think that's a super complicated question,


because there's no one answer for everyone.


So I think, first of all, like you probably


recognized, artificially building links,


dropping links on other sites, buying links, all of that


is against the Webmaster Guidelines.


And we take action on that algorithmically.


We take action on that manually.


And the actions that we take include


demoting the site that is buying the links, demoting the site


that is selling the links.


Sometimes we also take more subtle action


in that we just ignore all of those links.


For example, if we recognize that a site is regularly


selling links, but they also have other things around that,


then we often go in and say, OK, we will ignore


all links on this website.


And that basically means a lot of these sites


are things where people still sell links, because if they


can sell it and they find a seller,


then of course they'll try to do that.


But those links have absolutely no effect.


So that seems like a big waste of time from my point of view.


That said, I do think there are ways


that you can approach the topic of links in a way that


is less black hat where you're buying links from other sites,


but where you're actually actively creating content


that you know will attract links and then going out


and reaching out to other sites and saying,


hey, we have this interesting content.


Don't you want to take a look at it?


And encouraging them to link to your site,


but without this exchange of value, exchange of money,


all of that.


And that's something where some people are very experienced


in doing that, and they can really


guide you to find those topic areas that are


interesting for other people.


Where if you're selling refrigerators,


then obviously a category page of refrigerators


is not going to be very interesting for other people.


But if you can create a survey around refrigerators that


is somehow fascinating to others,


then that's something that's a lot more interesting for people


where they say, oh, here's this really cool survey


about refrigerators.


Did you know that they were like this,


or they were invented like this, or whatever?


That's the kind of thing where you're creating something


that other people find interesting


that other people want to link to.


And from my point of view, that's the kind of link building


that I have less of an issue with because you're


creating something, other people are linking to it because


of what you've created.


But it's not that other people are linking to your content


because you're giving them money to do that,


or because you have these back door


relationships with the other side.


So that's the direction I would take there.


And just random SEO companies that


promise you to rank higher just by buying links from them,


that's something I would really shy away from.


Like with anything in business, if it


seems like a shortcut that doesn't really


have any long-term value, then probably it


doesn't have any long-term value.


So that's something that I would definitely stay away from.


The other thing also with a lot of these paid link situations


is it's very easy to run into a situation where you go off


and buy links for a longer time.


And then at some point, the web spam team or the algorithm


takes an action on your website, and cleaning that up


is super hard.


And that's something where I would recommend


trying to avoid this situation where you're building all


of this risk for your business when


you could be building something that is useful for your business.


ASHISH KALSI, SANDHINI, SANDHINI, SANDHINI, SANDHINI.


I got your good answers, and the things are clear to me, John.


And thanks a lot for such a wonderful answer.


Thanks.


All right, Aakash.


Hi, John.


Hi.


So my question is regarding Pigeonated.


A few weeks back, we had a talk regarding


rel next and rel p.u.


So we have actually come up with a new solution.


We are trying to use a class reference and the reference


links.


OK.


So how do you mean?


I can't hear you.


I think you're muted.


We have a talk about it a couple of weeks back.


So it's like I've posted something in the chat box.


You can have a look at it.


So we are actually planning to use rel next or rel p.u.


instead of a class for previous and next hreflang text, which


can help in order to navigate bots


to the different pages of the website for Pigeonated


especially.


Yeah, I don't think we would use the link rel


previous rel next for search.


So it might be that it works well for accessibility reasons.


But for search, we really need those normal a links


or a elements.


I don't know what they're actually called.


The normal HTML links on the page.


Cool.


This might be helpful, right?


Yeah.


Thank you so much.


Let's see.


All right.


Andrew.


Yeah, hello, John.


Hello, everyone.


Hi.


So after CLS was updated in early June,


well, it changed earlier, but we can see the numbers now.


Well, the metric dropped significantly on our site.


But Google claimed it won't be noticeable.


But here we are seeing these bad changes for our site.


Can you comment on that, please?


How do you mean the CLS dropped?


I mean, we can see that more pages on our site now are bad.


OK.


Like 90% more.


And you think it's from the CLS change?


Yeah, I can see it on Google Search Console.


Yeah.


I don't know.


This is probably the kind of thing


where you'd need to contact some of the folks


from the Chrome side with regards to that change.


Yeah, I tried.


I tried.


But it didn't happen.


But so from my understanding, the change with CLS


is basically that there's a defined window now.


And that's something where you would only


see positive effects there.


So I thought.


Yeah, so I suspect, especially if you're


seeing changes that are significantly


worse for your website, then I would


try to look for other issues than the CLS change.


You can also kind of double check the CLS change


in that you take an older version of Chrome


and run the, what is it, Lighthouse within Chrome


to test kind of the before and after situation.


But I would be really surprised if a normal website saw


a negative change for that.


Because it's really specifically for that use case


where you have a single page app.


And in the past, we would just take that as one large session.


And now we would split that up into separate sessions.


And that essentially just makes it


so that it's a lot harder to actually get


higher numbers in CLS.


So that feels like something where


for a normal website that is not a single page app,


you would not see any change anyway.


Might be a bug, because I see it, well, in Search Console.


And it says it CLS.


Yeah.


I mean, it is always possible that it can be a bug.


So that's kind of a bug.


So your condition is, well, to try to contact people


from Chrome.


I would definitely do that with the folks from Chrome.


Because they have the most experience


in debugging issues around CLS.


And they can dive in a little bit more


to understand what specifically is


about this metric on your website that is kind


of negatively affected here.


I think there is two or three people.


I don't know the names offhand, who


did a presentation around CLS at Google IO recently.


I will just try to ping those on Twitter.


OK.


Thanks.


Yes.


And also, I have another question.


What are the latest recommendations on pagination?


I mean, do you need to bug them?


Or what are the recommendations?


Recommendations on pagination.


So it's something where we thought


we would need to put some bigger recommendations out there.


But we noticed that essentially it just


works for most websites.


There are kind of those two approaches that you can take.


On the one hand, you can allow the paginated pages


to be crawled and indexed.


The other approach that people sometimes take


is to block the paginated pages from being indexed.


And the difference there depends mostly


on the rest of your site structure.


So if we can find all of the kind of detail pages


that are linked from the paginated pages


using other crawling within the website,


then we don't need to see all of those paginated pages.


Then it's fine to block everything from, I don't know,


page two onwards.


But if we need to go through those paginated pages


to find your detail pages, then obviously we


need to be able to crawl and index those pages.


So that's something where sometimes you can test this out


in a tool like Screaming Frog or any of the other kind of


crawling tools where you can kind of, I mean,


one way you could test this is to submit a custom robots text


file when you're crawling that locally and use that


to block the paginated pages and then compare


the end results of the crawl.


Is the crawler still able to find all of your detail pages


or not?


And if the crawler can still find all of your detail pages


and you're OK with the site structure


with those kind of extra paginated pages blocked,


then that's something you might want to consider.


SPEAKER 2


OK, and if pages are in a sitemap?


We use a sitemap to help us to additionally find pages,


but they don't replace it.


So I would not have pages only in the sitemap.


I would always make sure there's kind of internal linking


going through those pages.


SPEAKER 1 Yeah, OK.


That helps.


Thank you.


SPEAKER 2 Sure.


All right, Promotash.


SPEAKER 3 Hi, John.


SPEAKER 2 Hi.


SPEAKER 3 Hi.


Hi.


So John, I have one question.


Like, do Google search algos check the broken HTML


or spelling mistakes or grammatical mistakes?


Take into account in the search ranking,


the tag is broken or spelling mistake


or there is a grammatical mistake?


So yeah, I mean, those are kind of different situations.


For the most part, we don't care about HTML


if it's broken or not.


Most of the web does not have valid HTML,


and we have to live with it.


The main exceptions that I know of with broken HTML


is if it's really broken in a very bad way, in the sense


that if we can't recognize that a page is mobile friendly


or if we can't recognize that this is a title or a heading,


then obviously we can't do a lot of things with the HTML.


That's kind of the one case there.


And usually those kind of broken pages


are very broken in the browser too.


So if you look at the page and they don't even load properly,


then probably you need to fix that.


However, if you look at the page and it looks normally


in the browser, then even if there's broken HTML,


probably that's OK.


With regards to spelling errors, grammatical errors,


I think that's something that's a bit more of almost


like a gray zone in that on the one hand,


we have to be able to recognize what a page is about.


And if we can't recognize that because there's


so many errors on the page in the text,


then that makes it harder.


The other aspect is also that we try


to find really high quality content on the web.


And sometimes it can appear that a page is lower quality content


because it has a lot of grammatical and technical


mistakes in the text.


So that's something where from my point of view,


if you're aware of these kind of issues,


I would just fix that.


So I would almost say like spelling and grammar


is probably for most websites a higher priority


than broken HTML.


But it's really hard to compare because they're


very different things in that one is more


of a technical issue, the HTML side,


and the other is more almost like a quality issue and something


that users tend to see.


So it's kind of different things.


And John, I have one more question.


I hope the Google Algo update is coming soon,


like next week or so.


Which one?


Maybe it is coming next week, mid-June, something.


Which update?


Search Algo page experience.


Page experience, OK.


So with page experience update, the ranking of a site,


suppose there are around 10 or 15 websites,


they are all competing in the same domain, obviously.


So they are not far behind.


But the top three or four websites


load in under three seconds.


The sites at, suppose, 8, 9, or 10 positions


are loading under one second or 500, 600 milliseconds.


So will we see some sweat in the first page or no?


How do you see?


Like the weight of page experience.


I don't know.


There is no fixed weight.


So that kind of makes it tricky in that we


do care about relevance a lot when it comes to search.


And page experience, like a lot of other factors,


it wouldn't override any of the relevant aspects.


So if all of these pages are equally relevant,


like if everything else is kind of the same,


then maybe you would see some changes there.


But if some of these pages are just


really strong for these queries, then probably that


will not shift a lot.


The other thing is with the page experience update,


we kind of differentiate between the different levels


of the scoring for the individual metrics


between bad, needs improvement, and good.


And usually, the change for ranking


starts to happen around needs improvement until good.


And if you're within the good range


and you're a little bit better or a little bit slower,


but you're still in the good range, then for us,


that's kind of equivalent.


Like if a page loads quickly enough,


then that's quickly enough.


And having one page load a couple of hundred milliseconds


faster than another one that is also good,


that wouldn't change anything for us.


So that's something where going from bad to good,


that's where you'll see a change.


But going from good to really good,


that's not something that you would see.


So kind of like with those metrics that you said,


what was it, I think like three seconds and one second.


AUDIENCE 1 Yeah.


Yeah.


The first site actually loads in more than three seconds


at position one.


But the sites ranking below are in the good range.


So maybe the site at top might be shifted to second or third,


but the below positions will remain same


if all are within the good range.


It's really hard to predict.


So I think, especially with some of the more competitive


queries, sometimes the difference


is very big between the individual ranking items.


And it can happen that a site is a very strong,


number one site.


And even if it's a bit slower, then it


would still be like a number one site.


So that's kind of tricky.


It's something which is very obvious when you're searching,


for example, for a company name, where if someone is searching


for your company's name, then you


want your website to be shown.


And users expect to find it.


Even if your company's website is slow,


then we wouldn't just show some random blogger's website


instead of your company website just because it's


a little bit faster.


So relevance still plays a fairly strong role there.


But it really depends on the individual queries


and how the sites are performing within those queries.


So I would keep an eye on it.


I mean, it sounds like an interesting situation


from your side.


Yeah.


John, if I get your email, I don't know how to mail you.


Like, I could send my comparisons.


Suppose my site loads under 500 milliseconds.


OK, so I have competitors.


They're a much bigger company.


So in other aspects, I cannot compete with them.


Like, I cannot write, like, copywriter.


I cannot engage 50 or 100 copywriters a day or publish


100 articles a day.


But my product is as competitive as them.


OK.


And we test my site with Google.


Test my site with Google.


I have subscribed to it.


And I take all the opinions about it.


So I have moved my site from a normal HTML output


to AMP to AMP PWA.


So it is now really very fast at the moment.


So my competitors are around three to four times


their speed is more.


Like, some are in the good reach.


But other, mostly they rank within 4 to 4.5 seconds


over all the competitors.


So while I test my site with Google


and I add my competitors, so my rank is at 1


and everybody comes below it.


So I don't know.


Like, at least I think we need few words like I might win.


Because it's a because when Google started for speed,


then I dedicated myself to speed means.


We have the quality product.


We have the contents and everything.


Now the competition is among the last 15 websites or 10.


Like, that is the space.


I think it's always hard.


Because there are so many things that


go into play with regards to determining relevance.


And especially if there are some really strong competitors


in that space, then I would intuitively


expect that to kind of be that they


would continue to be showing.


Like, if, for example, I had a small bookstore locally


and it was a really fast website,


then I wouldn't expect my website suddenly


to rank above the big online bookstores


just because it's faster.


But it's kind of like how you mentioned,


maybe there are queries where things are less competitive,


where you're almost on an equal field with them.


And then suddenly speed is the aspect that kind of shifts


your site above them.


So that's something I wouldn't discount.


That seems like an option, but yeah.


It's really hard to say, though.


John, just one doubt.


My customer support team forwards them to me.


Like, we have a problem.


They think that we are a different website.


They are emailing us.


Like, our recurring payments are from your company.


So sometimes they give you a negative feedback.


Then on, suppose, review.io or any review website,


like SiteJaver or another website.


Then again, you have to tell them,


you are not my customer.


Our site's name is similar.


You are a different website.


And should Google take action against websites


which are like cheating customers


and they have genuine people have


many feedbacks about websites.


But still, they are ranking very high.


But they have a feedback score of like 2, 2.1, 1,


means below 3.


There are many websites which are below 3,


but they are selling products.


And should Google take into account of some review


websites, like we have many TrustPilot or SiteJaver,


or there are many websites that are genuine review websites


where people put in their reviews.


Bad review websites are also in ranking in the top three.


Then the customers are always misguided.


And they will come to us.


And again, we have to guide them this is not our website.


You can check it.


There is a similar website name that is this or something.


Now, I don't know, I think it's like they're both directions


that can happen, especially with regards to reviews,


any kind of user-generated content.


Sometimes it's useful.


Sometimes it's not so useful.


So it's good to be kind of cautious there.


Cool.


OK, Maurice.


I'll unmute myself.


Hi, John.


I've got a couple of questions.


One of them is I do enterprise SEO for some largest brands,


very big brands.


And we had someone who was impersonating Instagram,


sort of a brand official.


So when you search on Google, you get brand Instagram.


Stop it, phone.


We've reported them via Facebook, and they're down.


But how long does the fact that an Instagram account


has been removed take you to disappear from the search


results?


Because they're ranking for brand Instagram.


And there's also a people also act.


Does brand have an Instagram?


And it's still linking to this now non-working Instagram


account.


So I'm not sure.


How long would we expect it to take for that to be updated?


I mean, it's hard to say for how long it


takes for things to be updated in our index, essentially.


And some things we recrawl and reprocess fairly quickly.


So it's gone in a couple of days.


Other things due to the fact that we


have a lot of things to do.


So it's gone in a couple of days, other things do take a bit


longer.


So that's something where the site owner could


take action on that.


In this case, that would have to be someone from Instagram.


But I don't know how feasible that


is to get someone from Instagram to submit a removal request


in Search Console.


Maybe you can try.


But otherwise, that would just need to take its time


to be reprocessed.


You can also use the removal tool


if you're not the site owner.


So if the page is returning a 404,


you can use the removal tool to tell Google that actually


this page is gone now.


And what happens there is we check the page a couple


of times to make sure that it's really not indexable.


And then after, I think, a couple of days or maybe a week,


we remove the page from the search results.


So that might be an option to try out.


That would remove that individual page


from the search results.


It wouldn't change the people also ask box, for example.


That's something that essentially needs more time


to be updated in the search results


based on the information that we have


from crawling and indexing because it's


more indirect information there.


The other thing where I don't know if it's relevant here


or not is if you don't have an Instagram account yourself


for that site, then of course, when


people search for that company plus Instagram,


we end up showing whatever we have.


And if you don't have content that we can show from your side,


then we will dig until we find something that we can show.


And probably that's not that super useful for users.


SPEAKER 2 Yeah, we do have many official accounts


each for each country.


There was one other thing is we're in the beverage industry.


And I wanted to know how does a safe search work?


Because for example, some of our brands trigger safe search


and some don't.


And we've done this for competitors, say Jim Beam


doesn't, but Johnny Walker might.


So is there a way of getting a review of what's,


this is obviously all alcohol stuff,


so they're all age gated.


But is there guidelines on what isn't to trigger safe search?


Because it seems to be a bit random


between different brands, both ours and the competitors


as well.


Yeah, my understanding of how we handle safe search


is it wouldn't trigger on things like that.


It would trigger on things like adult content, where,


I mean, potentially some of these adult beverages


might have adult style imagery on the pages.


Maybe that could be triggering it.


But I don't think we will be triggering on things


like it's an adult beverage, therefore we


will put it into safe search.


Because that's not really the goal of safe search.


So that, to me, would feel a little bit weird


if just because of adult orientation of the content,


we would put it into safe search.


I don't know, we wouldn't put casino sites into safe search,


for example.


Now, it's interesting, maybe it is,


but they do tend to use dance and other stuff.


And I know they do, we do stuff with people


like Anita, cross-promos.


OK, well, I'll have to have a look and maybe see and look


whether it's just sort of the content.


OK.


But that's an interesting take.


OK, thanks.


John, can I just jump in on that?


We've never had a problem with that at all.


So you know our sites.


So we sell everything from skydiving, bungee jumping,


et cetera.


And we've never had any issues with the wine tasting,


whiskey tasting, even including clay pigeon shooting


with weapons and alcohol and not at the same time.


And so we've never noticed any kind of problems with those.


Those pages rank and index alongside all the others


with the same sort of metrics.


So I don't, Maurice, I don't think


it will be the safe search, which as far as I understand,


is running all the time anyway.


It's not an algorithm that is on and off.


It's always filtered anyway.


So you would probably see it across the board


rather than on specific instances.


We've done A-B tests, like running filtered, non-filtered.


And the non-safe search, if you turn it off, we get it.


It's just that some of our brand managers


have found the problem where they search for their brand


and it's not position one.


So another thing that might be playing in,


I don't know if this is the case,


but there are specific meta tags that you


can put on your pages, which we have specifically


for adult content imagery, where you're


specifying this page is for a certain age group.


I forgot what they're actually called.


But we have them documented, I think,


on the safe search documentation and also in the images best


practices guide.


And it might be that you have these meta tags on your pages


to say, oh, this is an adult beverage.


And we look at the meta tag and say, oh, you're saying


it's adult content, therefore we'll use safe search filter.


So that might be something to double check too.


OK, I don't remember saying them, but I'll have a look.


OK?


Cool.


All right.


Maybe I'll just go through some of the submitted questions


and then come back to all of you.


It's like so many raised hands.


I also have a bit more time afterwards.


So if any of you want to stick around longer,


we can take a look there.


Let's see.


Some of these questions I have answers for.


Some of them I don't really have great answers for.


Since the first question here is probably one


I don't have an awesome answer for,


we see quite a domination of white label sites


in our market, which is essentially


someone hosting their content on a newspaper website's content.


I'd like to ask why Google doesn't take action


against those competitors in terms of ranking adjustment.


In our case, it's quite clear that the reason why


certain pages are ranking in the first positions


of high volume commercial queries


are that they're hosted on authoritative website, often


notorious online newspaper brands,


that have nothing to do with our competitors' core business.


So I don't know.


We see this question every now and then come up.


And we do try to focus on this a little bit in our algorithms.


But I think one aspect that some of these websites


are kind of losing out on is that by mixing


this kind of content together with their news content,


it makes it a lot harder for us to understand


how to treat their actual news content.


So from our point of view, it seems


like kind of an iffy or temporary strategy


to try to host a lot of unrelated content


on your website just in the hope that it also attracts traffic.


But in general, what I would recommend


doing in cases like this where you see this happening


is to send us some examples where we can take a look at it


and really recognize that the quality of the search results


for this specific query is bad.


And by examples, I mean things that are commonly


used by users when they search and where


it's very clear that the top search results are not


really that awesome for users.


That's the kind of thing we can bring back to the search


quality team, and they'll try to find solutions


for that kind of in an algorithmic way.


So it wouldn't be the case that we would pass this on,


and then the search quality team would click a red button,


and suddenly these sites would disappear from the internet.


But we would try to find an algorithmic solution


to make sure that the ranking for these kind of queries


is improved so that users have a better experience in search.


And sending us examples that kind of show where


we could be doing a better job, that helps a lot more


than to say, oh, there are lots of white label sites out there,


and I don't like them.


So send us something explicit where


we can pass that on to the team.


When citing scientific references on medical pages,


should we ideally do it in the body text


or at the bottom of the page?


I see some pages have a text box appear


when hovering over link reference,


and say it's trustworthy.


Is that recommended?


You can reference other sites in any kind of way that you like.


There's no specific formats that we recommend or require.


Essentially, if you want to link to other kind of content


to give references or more context for your own content,


then I would just make sure that it's linked in a way


that we can pick it up as a link.


So in particular, if you're using fancy JavaScript that


only triggers and shows a link, if you're hovering


over something, then potentially we


wouldn't see that because Googlebot doesn't hover


over links or doesn't hover over elements on a page.


But if it's a normal HTML link that's


embedded in the page somewhere, be it in the body


or in the footer or wherever, then that's


something we can potentially pick up


and use to better understand your content,


better understand the other content,


and kind of the relationship, the context in between.


SPEAKER 2


Say Lena is starting to work on her web project,


and she's starting to do the citations a little bit


different and starting with page one and then moving on.


Would Google then recompute the ranking for page one


as soon as it's done?


Or would Google see, OK, the whole project


is now improved for like 1% and respect the whole thing?


Or is it page per page that you consider?


How do you mean?


Just changing the link from the body to the footer,


or changing the linking completely on the page?


I don't know, maybe she'll invite authority persons


to give a few comments on a post.


And would Google then say, OK, well, the rest of the project


is not as brilliant, but this page is.


Therefore, this single page will be ranked higher in comparison


to the rest of her web project.


Or would Google just rather consider the whole internet


side as one thing?


I think we would probably see a mix.


So on the one hand, we do index things page by page.


We rank things page by page.


But there are some signals that we can't reliably


collect on a per page basis, where


we do need to have a bit of a better


understanding of the overall site.


And quality kind of falls into that category.


So in a case where you're significantly


improving the quality of one page of a website,


then that does help that one page


to improve a bit in ranking.


But kind of the overall effect of the whole website's quality,


that's something that takes a bit of time,


and where we really have to see that, OK, overall, all


of these things have changed.


So kind of like more than just that one page.


And then we can kind of see that website as a whole


as being a little bit better with regards to quality.


So that's something like a one example


that we've sometimes seen is when a website used to have


a lot of adult content on it.


For example, maybe you have a forum,


and people post lots of really weird things there.


And you start cleaning that up.


Then over time, we will recognize


that, OK, these individual pages don't


need to be filtered by SafeSearch,


but the overall website still does.


And over time, we'll see that actually the majority


of the website doesn't need to be filtered by SafeSearch


anymore.


So we can kind of turn that off for the whole website.


And that's kind of the shift I think


that you'd like to head, doing that on a per page basis


and waiting to see what happens when you make one


change on a page.


That probably doesn't make sense,


but you probably see incremental changes over time.


And then at some point, the overall quality algorithms


will say, oh, overall, the website


is significantly better.


And then you'll see a bigger jump.


Excellent.


Thank you.


Sure.


John?


Yes.


May I add something to the question about the references


for medical websites?


We have recently worked on a pharmacy store


here in our country.


And we came to the conclusion that it's,


as an addition to what you said, it's important the resources


to be up to date.


It's kind of the things that is really mandatory.


And the second thing that usually someone


should have in mind is the top targets around the links


of these references should be good enough


because we might have a problem with the mobile friendliness


at some point.


And yes, and Nick, you have something to add also?


Yeah, and not medical-related website,


but we started years ago one project based on React.


And the JavaScript is not rendering well.


So Google can't find all links.


So be sure that Google can find all backlinks


or external links about that.


Yeah.


I think that kind of goes into the direction of we


need to be able to see those HTML links.


And if you're doing something super fancy with regards


to links on a page, then maybe we don't see them.


And if you want Google to see them,


then double check that we can actually do that.


Cool.


A few months back, you mentioned the possibility


of giving badges in the search results


to sites tested green across the board for Core Web Vitals.


We haven't heard about them since then.


What's the status?


I don't know.


I noticed in our kind of communications


around Core Web Vitals and page experience


that the badges have silently kind of disappeared


from the mentions.


So it's possible that we did some experiments


and saw that they weren't as useful as we thought.


Or maybe it's something where the team still


needs to figure out some details and kind of improve things


there before we can roll those out broadly.


I think the important part with any kind of element


in the search results is that it's really useful for users


and it's understandable for users.


And especially speed and performance


is something that is sometimes really hard to convey


to users in a way that they understand


what it means with a symbol in the search results.


So with AMP, I think that was kind of useful


because they were slightly different pages


and they were handled slightly differently.


But if it's just that a site is fast or slow,


what kind of symbol do you put in the search results that


makes it clear for users that it's fast or it's slow?


So that's something where, I don't know,


maybe we still need to figure something out,


but I don't have any kind of updated news on that.


There's a news site that doesn't show up


in the News tab of the search results using a site query


command.


I don't have any insights into Google News.


I can't really help with regards to that.


Let's see.


My site is a publisher that has multiple languages


and serves content to multiple countries.


Currently, we're having an issue with an international


indexation of affiliate linked recommendation shopping


content, where English language articles designated


for countries are not showing in those countries,


especially in Discover.


They have hreflang on them that point to themselves.


With the country code added, we designate the country


in the HTML tag.


Wow, that's a really complicated question.