JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

It had lots of JavaScript files in it.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

We combined all the JavaScript files


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

as a server request on page load.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

PageSpeed Insights shows me that there could be 60%


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

of JavaScript saved for tested pages.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Ah, be careful with that because generally, maybe, I


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

don't know, depending a little bit on how these libraries look


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

like and how you combine them, it


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

might be possible that 60% is actually unused.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

But especially if this JavaScript


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

triggers on interactions, then you might actually remove


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

things or it might undercount.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

So there might be actually only 20% or only 10%


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

are actually unused.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

The other missing 50% that is reported as unused


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

only trigger and only execute when there's


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

some sort of user interaction.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

So I would be very careful with these statements coming


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

from the tools because the tools don't really


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

interact with the page.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

So we use the same JavaScript file for each subpage.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Should we create JavaScript?


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Maybe.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Maybe at least not for each subpage,


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

but for each subpage type.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

So for instance, if you know that some JavaScript is


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

used in a contact form, then that JavaScript should probably


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

only be used and loaded in a bundle that is for contact,


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

for pages with contact forms.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

If there's JavaScript that is only triggering for product


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

pages, then maybe you should only use them on product pages


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

and so on and so forth.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

So basically, try to group things by features


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

that you have on the page.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

And if you can create bundles for each of these type of page,


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

then that is definitely a potential improvement.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Try and measure.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Your mileage may vary is my answer for that one.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Or is it even better to have inline JavaScript?


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Not really.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Inline JavaScript has the downside


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

that it can't be easily cached away.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

So we are caching heavily.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

So if it's in a JavaScript file, we would probably only


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

retrieve it every so often.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Whereas if it's in the HTML, we have


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

to download all of that JavaScript over and over again.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

And same with browsers for users.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

So that wouldn't inline large amounts of JavaScript.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

It's small amounts of JavaScript maybe.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Eugene has a question regarding canonicals.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

May I tell Google somehow, hey, please


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

don't use alternate canonical writing?


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

No, you may not.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Because if that existed, then people would use it,


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

would use it incorrectly, and we are back to square one.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

The reason why canonical is not a directive, but a signal


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

or a suggestion, if you wish, is that a lot of people


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

are using it incorrectly.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

And sounds harsh, but we can't trust people


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

to not use things incorrectly, unfortunately.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

So nah.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Instead of escape fragments, is it OK to use AMP pages


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

for users that will access the website from Google


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

and the ones that will access the website from?


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

I guess that might work.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Still feels like it's not a bad idea


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

to get rid of the fragment URLs altogether.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

But if you can't, which I would understand,


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

because that's a substantial change maybe in your stack,


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

then that would potentially be a workaround.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

I don't know how well it would work,


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

but I would try that out for sure.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Carl is asking how to collect enough data for devices


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

in Google Search Console for COVID vitals.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

How many users must visit a page?


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

I'm working for small business.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Will I ever see anything there in Google Search Console?


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

We don't really have any specific numbers.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

It also comes with smearing so that we don't get weird data


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

or we accidentally de-anonymize it or de-pseudonymize anyone.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

If it's a small business, it's unlikely


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

that you will see much.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

But it doesn't really necessarily


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

matter because you're probably not really in a niche


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

where there's so much competition and so much data


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

available for your competitors that it really


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

wouldn't matter much for your specific case then.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

If it's about products, couldn't they also use JSON-LD markup?


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Yeah, I guess so.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Giacomo has questions.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Playing with the Chrome user experience data set and API,


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

there are three form factors, desktop, phone, and tablet.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Is mobile data an aggregation of tablet and phone or just phone?


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Ooh.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

I don't know the answer to that question.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

That's a really good question.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

I'll have to ask someone about this.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

I don't know is the answer.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

It's a really good question.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

I was actually surprised that we are still gathering


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

third form factor, but OK.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Is the mobile-friendly test Google


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

does in the crawling rendering using process done on the render


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

tree and layout information or during the rendering


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

in the Chrome instance?


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

I'm pretty sure it's done on the render tree plus layout


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

information afterwards.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Can I use AMP for a large dynamic website,


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

or is it applicable only for news?


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

You can use AMP on a large dynamic website.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

That's perfectly fine.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

It doesn't have a ranking, though.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

AMP is not a ranking factor.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

If it's fast, it might at least give you that.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

So that would be potentially nice.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

I guess.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Parag is having a question, has raised their hands.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Yeah.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Hey, Martin.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Hi.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Can you hear me properly?


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Yes.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

I hope you are doing great today.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

I am.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Thank you very much.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Likewise, I hope that you are doing fantastic today.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Yeah, absolutely.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

So my question is, my website is a very large website.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

I mean, it has millions of pages.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

So my website is a mobile-responsive website.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

But my website is not a, is my website affected


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

by mobile-first index updates?


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Or should I worry, or should I not


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

worry about mobile-first index if my website is responsive


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

and it works properly in mobile and any other devices?


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

If it is responsive and it works well on mobile,


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

I wouldn't be worried about the mobile-first indexing.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

OK.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

So I'll not worry about mobile-first index updates


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

on my website if my website is responsive.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Then is it affecting ranking, Google search engine ranking,


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

where mobile-first index, if my computer used AMP pages


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

for their website and their pages are loading faster,


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

so they will appear in first rank or first five


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

ranks in search engine result page, where my website is not


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

optimized for AMP.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

So my website is below their pages.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Is there any scenario happen with me or my website?


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

So AMP doesn't really matter for that.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

But if it's faster, then page speed is a ranking factor.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

And all other things being considered equal,


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

which they probably aren't, they might see an advantage


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

because their website is faster.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Again, not because of AMP, but because their website


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

is faster.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

OK, fine.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Maybe.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Thank you.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Thank you, Madhav.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

You're welcome.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

You're very much welcome.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Yeah.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

All right.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Bye-bye.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Do we have any?


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

No.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

OK, so I think we have finally.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Did I miss anything in the chat?


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

I don't think I did.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Those have been fantastic questions and lots of them.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

And I'm really, really happy to see so many people here


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

in the Hangout, 17 people in one go.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

That's amazing.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

If we do not have any further questions,


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

I would wrap things up.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

But I'll give you another, I don't know,


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

10 seconds to either ping us in the chat


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

or to raise your hand if you have any further questions.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

If not, then I would like to thank you all for.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Oh, here we go.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Did you have time?


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

No, I did not have time yet to check for the most common


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

JavaScript error.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

The thing is, with the most common JavaScript error,


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

I could figure that one out.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

But it requires a hell lot of actual digging


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

in the database.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

And my SQL foo is too weak for it.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

I know that I tried to find that out in 2018 already.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

And I created a query that was running three hours.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

And I was querying a few billion records.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

And I was like, oh, oh no.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

And then I stopped the query before someone came over


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

and said, Martin, you are wrecking a database.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

So I need to find someone who can actually


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

help me do the right thing inside our systems


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

to actually get the data out.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

I'm sure there is a way.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

I just don't know that way.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

So I'm hoping for some time from someone


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

who knows more than I do about our internal systems.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

But I didn't have the time for it yet, unfortunately.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

That's really, really, yeah, Giacomo, nah, sorry.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

That I can't do.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Awesome.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

In which case, I'd like to say thank you all so, so much.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

I'll wrap this up in a moment and upload the recording


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

to our YouTube channel.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

For everyone watching this later on,


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

go check out the Community tab for the thread


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

on the next one on June 9.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

And maybe I see some of you again on June 9 or later.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Thanks a lot for joining.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

Thanks for all the fantastic questions.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021

I really wish you have a fantastic day.


JavaScript SEO Q&A May 26th 2021


JavaScript SEO office hours October 14th, 2020

All right.


Hello and welcome, everybody, to the JavaScript SEO Office


Hours.


After a bit of a break, I'm back.


And I hope to do these now on a biweekly basis or fortnightly


basis, as the British would probably say.


So every 14 days, there will be an opportunity.


And I'll try to switch the different time zones


so that we have both APAC-friendly hours as well


as EMEA America's friendly hours too.


Sweet.


So let's go through the questions that


were submitted on YouTube.


Black Cat Go asks, how does Google's web rendering service


handle course or cross-origin resource sharing?


Does it inherit the policies of the Chromium version in use?


Yes.


It is also bound by the course principles and APIs


and headers.


So that means that if you have course requests or cross-origin


requests, so requests to another subdomain or another origin,


you want to make sure that these are allowed as per


the specification as well.


Then we have Moncef asking two questions, actually.


The first one, is it safe from an SEO perspective


that Nuxt, Vue store the duplicated data in a script tag?


Yeah, that's fine.


That's not an issue.


And the same question about Vue server-side rendering


hydration at SEO.


Is it better to do lazy hydration, which


means hydrate the content or refill the content that


you sent from the server as well just before the user reached


the components to decrease time to interactive?


It's also a user experience question.


And I think it would be good to lazy hydrate.


But if that causes problems or if you notice in the testing


tools that your content doesn't show up in the rendered HTML,


then that means that lazy hydration does not


work with Googlebot very well.


I haven't really tested that.


Try it out.


And if it does not work, then I would not hydrate lazily.


But hypothetically, the content should be there


and from the server-side rendered version anyway.


So you should be fine.


But definitely test everything.


And also, things can change over time.


So testing is always the best possible strategy here.


Also, if there is a popular, sorry,


Caio asks, if there is a popular resource,


like a popular JavaScript library from a WordPress plugin


or something from Node.js, can Google


cache it in a single place to render pages


from different domains?


So in the WordPress plugin example,


let's say you have a local link from my JavaScript resource.


And that's broken.


Can Google still render the web page?


Because it's a popular resource and therefore cached


from other pages.


No, we cannot do that for the simple reason that that would


allow cache poisoning.


And that's a very, very risky vulnerability.


So what you can do is you can include them from CDNs


if you trust these CDNs or public places where these might


be hosted.


Then you can use those versions instead of your version.


And we might be able to use them from the cache.


On the other hand, you don't really have to worry about it.


Because popular or not, our cache is very aggressive.


So we are generally over-caching and under-caching.


So if something is broken momentarily,


that normally isn't a problem because we're not


fetching it in every render anyways in the first place.


But there is no such thing as, oh, yeah, jQuery


is broken on your side.


So we'll just fetch it from somewhere else.


The only situation where I could see that as potentially


feasible is if you have a sub-resource, what's it called?


Sub-resource integrity token in your code.


And even then, it is tricky because there


are so many different versions.


So we are not implementing that really.


But again, don't worry about it.


Normally, we are over-caching rather than under-caching.


So even if you have a momentarily broken link


to a resource from your site, then that's


not necessarily a problem.


Also, we retry renders if that is necessary.


So don't worry too much about that.


So the follow-up question is, from what I understand,


the caching is more or less domain-based.


Origin-based, yeah.


Yeah.


We'll cache everything my domain needs.


Even if I request the resource from a CDN or from other?


Well, no, because then we would potentially


be able to cache that on that domain as well.


OK.


Yeah, it makes sense.


Yeah, that makes that possible.


And I believe the follow-up question


that will come with that is, how does that affect


crowd budget and everything?


So let's say I fetch the resource from a different source


from a different CDN.


Does that impact my crowd budgets or their crowd budget?


I'm not 100% sure, to be honest, because I haven't really


thought about this.


But I think it does not affect your crowd budget,


or at least it doesn't do so directly.


But then again, it might do indirectly.


I wouldn't worry about it too much,


because I assume that you're not having thousands of resources


that you need to download.


I hope you don't.


I hope so too.


Thanks.


You're welcome.


Hey, Martin.


Follow-up question about that resource availability rate.


Yes.


So I see in a lot of URL inspector tests


a high level of the resources not being available.


That leads me to ask, does Google


do a fresh fetch for each resource


when you do a URL inspection test?


Or is that really representative of the availability rate?


You're probably mostly riffing off of the other error


that you might see in the testing tools, right?


Is that what you're getting?


Or does that look differently in the testing tools?


What I'm referring to is when you go into the More Info


and you look at resource availability,


and if a page calls 150, I've got some rather complex folks


I've worked with who have 104 of those missing, unavailable.


And some of them I've seen from being dependencies.


So their jQuery resource didn't respond.


That was unavailable.


And then the five scripts executed off of that


also were listed as unavailable because domino effect.


So I'm curious if those tests are actually


representative of what Googlebot is seeing


or just an isolated individual.


We tried to fetch everything fresh.


Right.


So OK, the general answer to that


is, unlike the actual indexing runs,


the test, for the obvious reasons,


actually does run a fresh fetch because we


want to give you the opportunity to test the latest


version of everything that you've got,


which means that we are definitely bypassing the cache.


So the testing tools do bypass cache,


which is not something that happens in the actual crawls


and the actual indexing runs.


I know that that sometimes causes a few confusion


or confusing moments.


But when you say resource available,


do you mean basically you go in the URL inspection tool,


for instance, you go to page resources,


and then you see some resources can't be loaded, right?


Yes.


So there's the screenshot, the rendered HTML, the more info


tab.


It says x out of x resources unavailable,


and you look through those.


That's decent hearing about.


If Google has a proper copy of that resource at any given


point, it sounds like that will behave differently


than the test that we're doing.


Exactly.


You can double check this.


If you look at the crawled page instead of the life test


that you do, you would see how that


looks like in terms of the page resource.


And not everything that is in there is necessarily a problem.


Sometimes other error just means that we didn't deem this


resource to be very important.


That happens specifically with images


that are usually skipped in fetching


because we don't really have to fetch the images for some


of the stuff and most of the stuff.


The idea being image is static, so once you have it,


you're not going to worry about grabbing it again.


Yeah.


But I think it's a strip.


We are updating the images.


It's just that for the indexing run,


that doesn't necessarily report well


because the image index is a separate entity anyway.


OK.


So generally speaking, you shouldn't


need to worry too much about a resource not showing up


in the life test because we are skipping the cache.


But you still want to make sure that you


have a look at the crawled page to make sure


that all the content that you expect shows up there.


If that doesn't show up and you see a related resource issue,


let's say some content is drawn from an API endpoint that


is fetched by your app.js file, and then


that app.js file shows up as fails to load in the crawled


page report.


So again, you basically click View Crawled Page,


and then you get more info, page resources.


If something shows up there as an error


and you see the matching missing content in the rendered HTML,


you see the content that should be loaded by this resource


missing, then that's a strong hint for something going wrong


in terms of us not being able to cache it.


Or maybe we cached it in the past


and we couldn't refresh the cache or the cache has expired.


But generally speaking, yes, the live test tools, all of them.


So that's the AMP test, the rich results test,


the mobile-friendly test, and the live test


in Google Search Console, they skipped the cache.


That's correct.


Thank you.


You're welcome.


All right, I see that we are through with YouTube questions.


And that means that I'm opening up the questions


to the live audience.


All right, Martin, I have another question then.


Sure.


This is based on something I've been seeing on the forums.


So let's say I want to have a lighter version of my website


for mobile.


And I don't want to show all the resources on the mobile page.


I don't know, maybe I don't want to show a carousel because it


takes too much space.


One way to do that is to use CSS display none.


But the resource will be fetch anyway, right?


So what do you, yeah, I think so as well.


But I'm not sure.


So do you have any suggestions on, what do you suggest?


Server-side rendering, what would be the best thing


to do to?


There's a bunch of different ways


of going about having a mobile-friendly version


of your site and not loading resources.


One way is that if it's a component that is dynamically


inserted, it sounds like that.


If you say additional resources are being fetched,


then what you could do is you could do conditional fetching


based on the media selector.


So you can say, oh, this is a small screen.


And I think on small screens, this carousel


does not make sense.


That's one way of doing it.


That is possible.


You can also just server-side render.


I mean, you would also always have


to find a way to adapt to things.


But if you server-side render, then you


should not necessarily have to fetch much


in terms of resources, because these resources will


be inlined into the page.


At least the HTML will be there.


It will still load the images, of course.


What you can do is, especially if it's an image carousel


specifically, you can lazy load the images.


And then display none would mean that the images aren't


being loaded, because they are never in the viewport.


That is an option for this as well.


So you have different options to make your design responsive


to the different screen sizes.


And you have to try them out to see what


works best for your approach.


Because from a search perspective,


it doesn't really matter which one you go with.


But I think from a user experience point of view,


as well as from an implementation point of view,


that will very likely be the bigger bits


to understand what works best or what doesn't work so great.


Because some might be easier.


For instance, the CSS display none,


that's really easy to implement, I guess.


Whereas a dynamic switch, depending on the media query,


might not be as easy to implement,


depending on the solutions being used.


But it might be more effective, as it would take out


the content entirely if the screen size doesn't


warrant for displaying it.


Yeah.


So and of course, you are suggesting


that this should be dynamic based on the screen size,


not on user agent or any other way.


Don't base it on user agent.


I don't think I saw anyone much later people


using this with user agent.


But then I was thinking now for the Core Web Vitals scores,


when they are testing for, at least in Lighthouse,


if they are testing for mobile and for desktop,


the only thing that's changing there


is the screen size when they are doing those.


Screen size, yeah.


OK.


Makes sense.


Thanks.


You're welcome.


Good to have so many questions in the first one


after the longer break.


More questions?


Anyone else having a question?


Hi, yeah.


Is there any difference between the mobile-friendly testing


tool and the rich results test and the URL inspection test?


Big question.


I know there is.


But in terms of the timeline that they're using,


I've simply had someone come in the forum


who was very weird in case of a site that


would render the HTML in the mobile-friendly testing tool


but would not in the rich results test.


And from what they were reporting to us,


it wouldn't in the URL inspection either.


And apparently, that seemed to reflect more


what they were actually getting.


But is there anything around that?


The only thing that I could think


why the mobile-friendly test was possibly working


is if there was something about a viewport thing


because it attempts to paint.


But I couldn't really see anything.


But there's nothing kind of too different about those


other than that, I suppose.


No.


So internally, it's a very good question.


Actually, I think I saw the thread.


It's like a React page that has the perspective that it's React.


And I don't think it's React.


Yeah, no, I think it was a different one.


I did see some one guy the other day, a React thread.


But I think that was basically just incredibly slow.


He was just talking out of breath.


I think that was that.


But it's cool.


It was legitimately.


Right.


So these things do fall out multiple times, I see.


Interesting.


So internally, all of these are called the Single URL Inspection


Tools, or SUIT, or Suit, depending on.


I think Suit is how you properly pronounce it.


And S-U-I-T is the internal acronym.


It all goes to the same pipeline.


Obviously, then there are a few changes.


For instance, the Rich Results Test


allows you to specify if you want mobile or not,


whereas the mobile-friendly test always


opts for the mobile route, the URL Inspection Tool


goes for if the page is mobile-first indexed,


then it goes for the mobile route.


If it is not, then it goes for the desktop route.


But you can't switch that.


So there might be small issues or small differences,


especially if it's a non-MFI, so not mobile-first indexed page.


It might go through the desktop route.


And then you can get different results


in the Rich Results Test and in the mobile-friendly test,


because those go the mobile route instead.


So there's a few small different code paths


that could be triggered hypothetically.


But it is the same infrastructure.


And so far, as you say, most of the times


I've seen this either with intermittent errors


on which resources are fetched, because we


are bypassing the cache.


Then different resources might time out


or might fail to complete their requests in time.


And then you might get different results in one.


Even in the same tool, I think the thread


that I looked at, at least, they used the same tools


multiple times.


And they got, like, yeah, the URL inspection tool


doesn't work, but the mobile-friendly test does.


And the Rich Results Test also doesn't work.


And then the next time they posted,


it was like, the URL inspection tool doesn't work,


but the mobile-first indexing tool doesn't.


And the Rich Results Test does.


And basically, it was different combinations of the three


where it worked and it didn't.


I'm like, well, if you're running it


through the same three tools multiple times


and you get different results, then that tells you


that there's something intermittently wrong


and not necessarily a fundamental issue.


Really hard to do that.


So I found out about this one little case.


It must be very educated that it was consistent.


It was consistent with no page results, loading errors at all.


It was consistently failed in rich results,


and loaded in MFT.


Is that the one that you escalated recently?


Yes.


I think I might have escalated it to you.


Because that is an issue on my desk to find out.


I just didn't have the time yet.


But it looks like it might happen either tomorrow


or on Friday that I can look into it.


So that's fun.


That's timely.


So yeah, just for the general population and public


out there, if you are seeing a fundamental issue that


can't be solved in the Webmaster Forum,


then sometimes these issues get escalated through Googlers


who work on the forum.


And then these are being investigated.


I can't give you, please don't send me direct messages


or something, because I can't investigate every page


out there.


But if it looks like this might be something


where the public channels fail to support your case


and give you support, then we might look into it


as a potential general larger issue.


And if that is true, then we will fix that larger issue.


But if it's just your site, then we'll


find a way to give you more public feedback


so that the next person running into the exact same situation


sees that forum thread and can use that as a reference point.


So that's what I'll be doing later this week as well.


It's an interesting case.


It's a curious case.


When I saw that, I was like, hmm, interesting.


It goes through the same pipeline.


How is this different?


We'll find out.


Thanks for the question.


That's a really good question.


All right, well, OK.


More questions?


OK, so I'll give it a 5, 4 for your questions.


One last question.


There we go.


Oh, multiple people jump on.


All right.


Go, James.


Go ahead.


So in thinking about how to approach understanding


rendering and resource availability better,


aside from doing the manual breakdown of that rendered


HTML, associating it with the script that creates it,


is there another way to figure out


if a resource has been persistently


unavailable to Google on the script which generates content


is problematic?


That's not really easy to do that, especially over time


as the crawl page is basically just


a snapshot.


I mean, in the end, if you see your page, for instance,


dropping out of the index every now and then


and dropping back in, that's something


that you probably want to investigate in general


if that is an issue with intermittent resource issues.


Generally, these issues are really, really rare.


Because as I said, we have a cache.


We have a very aggressive cache.


So even if your server gives us the script once and then


doesn't give it out for the next month,


you should not see intermittent resource issues.


This is more a problem with the live test than a real issue.


Is there an index coverage type that we


should look for it moving from indexed and submitted


or whatever to?


Not really.


As long as it is indexed and you want it indexed,


then I think that's fine.


I don't think you can monitor for anything specific there,


except for it landing in the error category


or in the excluded category.


If a page that you really care for


lands in the excluded category every now and then,


then that's probably something where you want to look into.


It doesn't mean that it's a rendering problem, though.


Would crawl anomaly be the closest rejection or excluded


type to indicate that?


Not really either.


Because crawl anomaly normally is not a rendering issue,


but an issue in crawling already.


Also can be pretty much anything.


That's a really broad category.


I wouldn't say there is a clear category


or there are candidates where you


would need to worry about rendering more than others.


Couldn't think of any.


Because rendering is more or less a transparent part


of indexing.


So it's not that we report a very specific error back,


because we are retrying errors.


So again, normally you should never


run into this problem in real life,


where a resource is temporarily not available to us.


Unless, of course, you 404 a resource,


and then the page drops out because it's now


basically empty or barren of content.


But I wouldn't know how you would spot this in Search


Console patterns.


Thank you.


You're welcome.


I'm sorry that I don't have a better answer for this.


Probably crawled currently not indexed


might point at that problem.


If it is something with the sometimes


it might affect the canonical.


If the canonical on the HTML looks different than from what


is in the rendered version, then that


might come out as like alternate page with proper canonical tag


or duplicate without user-selected canonical.


But I wouldn't say that these are inherently signals


that that's a rendering problem.


They might be, but they don't have to be.


That's as good as I can do at this point.


Damn.


SPEAKER 2


Martin, the live tests in the URL inspection


tool use the same pipeline as the testing tools,


which results test.


MARTIN SPLITTENBERG Yeah.


SPEAKER 2 Yeah.


And it doesn't take up caching when you do the live test,


right?


SPEAKER 2 Yeah, OK.


But I have another question related


to lazy loading, native lazy loading


as an attribute of images.


I was looking here in can I use, and I


noticed that it doesn't run on Safari yet.


It's an experimental feature on Safari.


So maybe if I implement that on a web page,


it could cause some slowness in real-time measurements, right?


I know that Googlebot uses evergreen Chrome,


but if I'm looking at the field measurements in Search Console


for speed and things like that, maybe using native lazy


loading will slow down.


We would expect to slow down for iOS users or Mac OS users,


something like that.


I mean, it wouldn't go down.


Yeah, exactly.


If you have a fallback, then that's the best you can do.


If you don't have a fallback, then it wouldn't slow it down,


but it would be slower than in Chrome


where native lazy loading is implemented.


Yeah, that's true.


SPEAKER 2 Yeah.


So it should appear on the field testing results


on Search Console.


What do you think?


MARTIN SPLITTENBERG I think we are mostly sourcing them


from the Chrome usability report.


So I don't think they show up unless iOS Safari does


play into this, because when you're running a Chrome on iOS,


you are effectively running Safari.


But I'm not sure if that is the case.


I'm not sure if we can somehow.


I don't know.


It might be.


SPEAKER 2 All right.


In any case, test on the real thing, right?


MARTIN SPLITTENBERG Definitely test.


OK.


All right.


More questions?


5, 4, 3, 2, 1.


Awesome.


That was fantastic.


Thank you so much, everyone, for submitting your questions


on YouTube, as well as everyone who joined tonight,


or this morning, or this evening, or this afternoon,


depending on where you all are based.


It has been huge fun.


And again, as I said at the beginning,


we will do these every two weeks.


So definitely keep your eyes peeled for the post


for the next episode's question time, where


you can post your questions and the link to the Hangouts


if you want to join the next edition.


I wasn't saying next week's Hangout,


but it's not in a week.


It's the week after next week's Hangout.


Wow.


OK.


It's quite late here.


I'm sorry.


In that case, thank you very much, everyone who is watching.


Have a great time.


Stay safe, stay healthy, and bye-bye.


Bye-bye.


Bye, Martin.


Bye-bye, Martin.


Thank you.


How does user feedback impact search results? #AskGooglebot

Today, Praveen is asking, what makes user feedback eligible enough


that Google decides to tweak its search ranking algorithm?


Taking a step back, every website that cares about their users in the long term


should watch out for feedback and work to improve over time.


Your users can help you to spot issues early on,


they can guide you to new opportunities,


and if you've been treating them right,


they often have an interest in helping your site to improve,


listen to feedback, and work to improve over time.


When it comes to a broadly used service like Google Search,


we get a lot of feedback, and it's sometimes tricky to prioritize that.


Like any larger system, there will always be things to improve and to change.


It's more a matter of finding the critical areas for improvement


and focusing on them.


The most direct way to give us feedback in Search


is to use the feedback link on the bottom of the search results.


This feedback goes directly to a team at Google


to be reviewed, organized, and prioritized.


There's also a help community for Google Search


if you'd like to bring up issues for the experts there to double-check.


While sometimes the solution can be to search slightly differently,


it's still useful for us to hear about what you initially tried.


After all, Search should be able to help users


even when they don't know all of the ins and outs of Search.


The experts in the help forums can also escalate discussions to Google


when needed.


If there's something that's very problematic,


perhaps objectively incorrect, misleading, offensive,


or otherwise wholly inappropriate,


it can also be worthwhile to forward that


to the public-facing Google accounts on social media like Twitter.


Let us know so that we can work to improve as quickly as possible.


Regardless of the contact method,


make it easy for us to recognize the scale


and the scope of the problem that you've run into.


Give us at least one common query that you suspect many users might use


and that highlights the issue as clearly as possible.


As I mentioned before, we do try to prioritize issues


reported to us in various ways.


Some things will need to be worked on as soon as possible.


Others might need to wait


until we work on a specific part of our systems again.


In practice, it makes little sense to manually tweak the search results.


The web is so gigantic and ever-changing


and users ask us new questions every day.


Because of that, our goal is generally to improve


the algorithms that pull together the search results overall


and not to tweak things for individual queries.


This may take a bit of time,


but it makes search better for everyone worldwide


for the large number of searches that are done every day.


So, in short, we appreciate all of the feedback that we can get for search.


Your feedback helps us to continue to make search better.


So please keep that feedback coming.


And that's it for this time.


I hope you found this useful and insightful.


See you in one of the next episodes of Ask Googlebot.


And don't forget to subscribe to see them all.


Google Search News (June ‘22) - Ecommerce Essentials, Google I/O Announcements, and more!

Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Google Search News.


I hope life is treating you reasonably well wherever


you are.


I'm your host today, John Mueller,


here from Google Switzerland.


Well, it's June already, and today we


have updates for you on a new video series, bubble charts,


events, and more.


So ready or not?


Here we go.


Starting off, we recently launched a new video series


for e-commerce sites called E-commerce Essentials.


The first episode is about one of the most critical elements


for user experience, images.


E-commerce sites use a lot of images,


so this is an important topic.


There are also episodes about optimizing JavaScript,


making sure the site is mobile-friendly, and more.


While these focus on e-commerce sites,


you can use the information in them for any kind of website,


including yours.


And now over to bubbles.


In a blog post series, we went through ways


of connecting Google Search Console to Google Data Studio.


Search Console gives you information


about how your site performs in Google Search.


Data Studio gives you countless ways


of visualizing any kind of data, and so it's a great match.


In this series, we guide you through setting up


the connection and help you to create a bubble chart.


This shows which queries are performing well for your site


and which ones could be improved.


It's a neat way of looking at data and just one


of the many things you can do with your data connected


to Data Studio.


Changing scenery, I bet.


Folks like me on this search relations team


are now back at events.


We started off this year with virtual unconferences


in Japanese and in English.


These are smaller events where everyone takes part


and folks can discuss topics together


with people from Google.


We currently don't have the next one finalized,


but knowing the organizers, I'm sure we'll have more.


If you're cautious about going to big events,


an unconference might be a great way to get started.


So watch out for the next one.


On that note, Google IO took place in hybrid mode this year.


The session for search included a preview of a search video


report in Search Console.


While we don't have a timeline to share just yet,


if you use videos on your website,


you can get a peek at the current plans for videos


in the video for the session.


And events are not just virtual.


The team has started going back to in-person events as well.


Meeting people in real life is exciting


after such a long break.


We'll add the next events to our usual event calendar.


So watch out for that.


If you see any of us at an event, come over and say hi.


Next up, we recently launched a ranking algorithm change


called the May Core Update.


We make these updates multiple times a year.


We call them core updates because they


affect the core of our systems and can result in changes


across search and discover.


If you're curious to find out more,


we have a blog post on what site owners should


know about these updates.


We confirm broad core updates because they typically


produce noticeable effects.


Some sites may see drops or gains during them.


For more information on our thinking behind these updates,


I'd recommend reading the blog post.


Elida Solis, an external SEO expert,


has put together some recommendations and a flow


chart on how to think about algorithm changes.


While we generally can't confirm third-party content like this,


sometimes it's useful to have a framework for looking


at changes and to get another perspective when appropriate.


In sadder news, Bill Slavsky has recently passed away.


Bill was extremely active in the SEO community


and worked very hard to correct misinformation in SEO.


Bill was also very passionate about search-related patents


and wrote about them frequently.


If you've ever seen someone mention a patent


with the context of SEO, then most likely Bill was involved.


Rest in peace, Bill.


Thank you for everything that you've done for the SEO world.


And now over to more smaller updates.


In Search Console, we recently deprecated the URL parameters


handling tool.


Google's crawling systems have improved significantly


over the years, making this tool less critical to sites.


We recommend that websites use the robots.txt file


to provide information about crawling instead.


Additionally, we announced that we will stop


using a handful of sitemap extension tags,


such as the image geolocation and video category.


These will stop being used in August of this year.


This does not affect the use of other sitemap data, which


continues to be supported.


And last on my list, but definitely not least,


we recently published our annual web spam report.


To help people find information on questions


that they send us, we worked hard to prevent spam


and malicious content from affecting search.


The report mentions some of the changes


in what we've seen over the years,


if you're curious to find out more.


There we go.


That's all for this time, folks.


Thank you for tuning in to the Google Search News.


I hope things have been going well for you so far this year,


and I look forward to catching up again in the near future.


If you have any feedback or comments,


please let us know here.


If you subscribe to this channel,


we'll make sure to let you know when another episode is


ready for you.


Non-HTML files on the web

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


Non-HTML files on the web

coming to you from the Google search team, discussing all things search and maybe having


Non-HTML files on the web

some fun along the way.


Non-HTML files on the web

My name's Lizzie, and today I'm joined by Gary from the Search Relations team, of which


Non-HTML files on the web

I'm also a part of.


Non-HTML files on the web

So in today's episode, we're going to talk about dealing with non-webpage content like


Non-HTML files on the web

PDFs.


Non-HTML files on the web

So Gary, what's your least favorite file type?


Non-HTML files on the web

Your most hated, maybe.


Non-HTML files on the web

Most hated?


Non-HTML files on the web

I don't think I have a hated file type.


Non-HTML files on the web

I think I have file types I don't like because they are not so compatible across platforms.


Non-HTML files on the web

So for example, when you have a proprietary file type, that's very hard to port from one


Non-HTML files on the web

platform to the other.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like for example, if you have, I don't know, like an Apple note that will need some proprietary


Non-HTML files on the web

software on Windows or Linux to display.


Non-HTML files on the web

And those are generally not a good idea because then like you find something on the internet


Non-HTML files on the web

and then you download it.


Non-HTML files on the web

And then you also have to download something that decodes those file types for you to put


Non-HTML files on the web

on your display.


Non-HTML files on the web

So I don't like those, but it's not like one particular file type.


Non-HTML files on the web

It's more like a category.


Non-HTML files on the web

Yeah, I feel like there could be multiple things that if they just started enforcing


Non-HTML files on the web

that you install software to read the thing, then it would be...


Non-HTML files on the web

There are tons of them for good or bad reasons.


Non-HTML files on the web

I don't know.


Non-HTML files on the web

But like you can think of docx files like...


Non-HTML files on the web

doc.doc.docx.


Non-HTML files on the web

.docx.


Non-HTML files on the web

Yes.


Non-HTML files on the web

That's yes.


Non-HTML files on the web

This is great.


Non-HTML files on the web

In the same suite, you have the presentations as well, which are at least used to be a pay


Non-HTML files on the web

paying to transcode into something else.


Non-HTML files on the web

Oh, the PowerPoints like.ppx probably.


Non-HTML files on the web

We could just do ASMR us reading file type extensions.


Non-HTML files on the web

Or we could not.


Non-HTML files on the web

I think that's a better way to go about this podcast.


Non-HTML files on the web

If we don't try, we'll never know.


Non-HTML files on the web

This could be what people are looking for from a podcast.


Non-HTML files on the web

Do you know my favorite word?


Non-HTML files on the web

No.


Non-HTML files on the web

Correct.


Non-HTML files on the web

It's too easy.


Non-HTML files on the web

Right.


Non-HTML files on the web

So proprietary file types, like those are bad because it requires people to install


Non-HTML files on the web

stuff or it's just like more red tape.


Non-HTML files on the web

And it's better to be open.


Non-HTML files on the web

I wouldn't say that they are bad because they have their own uses.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like for example, if you download an AutoCAD file, which has some blueprint for something,


Non-HTML files on the web

there's a very good reason to have that in a proprietary file type or format.


Non-HTML files on the web

Because the software that has to render that file has to be built in a very, very specific


Non-HTML files on the web

way to be able to display all the information that you put in one of those blueprint files.


Non-HTML files on the web

And yes, you can try to reverse engineer those, but you can also just buy AutoCAD and then


Non-HTML files on the web

support the work that they are doing.


Non-HTML files on the web

Okay.


Non-HTML files on the web

And AutoCAD, are these files something that you would want to find from search?


Non-HTML files on the web

Like is this in our list of things that we would index?


Non-HTML files on the web

Like we could bring it back to scoping it to our podcast.


Non-HTML files on the web

So our or Google's mission is to organize the world's information, make it generally


Non-HTML files on the web

accessible and useful or universally accessible and useful.


Non-HTML files on the web

So from that angle, yes, we want to index those file types as well.


Non-HTML files on the web

But that doesn't mean that we will index all of them because some of them are more prominent


Non-HTML files on the web

than others on the internet.


Non-HTML files on the web

So for example, if you go down the PDF route, PDFs are super common on the internet.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like if you go to the irs.gov website, it's littered with PDFs.


Non-HTML files on the web

Do you think it's because it's easier to create a PDF than a webpage?


Non-HTML files on the web

Like why are there so many more PDFs?


Non-HTML files on the web

And it seems to be like increasing as well that more people are making more PDFs, putting


Non-HTML files on the web

them on the web.


Non-HTML files on the web

I never thought about that.


Non-HTML files on the web

To me, creating a PDF is probably harder because I don't know how to create them.


Non-HTML files on the web

But they have like apps that just can convert things to PDF.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like you just take pictures and it's like a page.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like each picture you take, it's scanning the document or whatever.


Non-HTML files on the web

And this seems to be like a trend also for like at the start of the pandemic when, or


Non-HTML files on the web

not at the start of the pandemic, but once we were returning back to dining at restaurants


Non-HTML files on the web

and they started doing the no paper menu thing.


Non-HTML files on the web

People were making, like the restaurant owners were making PDF versions.


Non-HTML files on the web

So then you would scan that barcode to see the menu.


Non-HTML files on the web

And the easiest thing for them to do is probably just download a free app to convert their


Non-HTML files on the web

physical paper document into a PDF versus making a webpage.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like can you do that from an app on your phone?


Non-HTML files on the web

Just like take a picture, convert it into a webpage.


Non-HTML files on the web

I don't know if it's as easy as making a PDF.


Non-HTML files on the web

I mean that's fair.


Non-HTML files on the web

But the other thing I've seen at restaurants is that they actually have like a professionally


Non-HTML files on the web

designed presentation of the menu.


Non-HTML files on the web

And what I imagine that happened there was that they just point the QR code to a PDF


Non-HTML files on the web

that's uploaded.


Non-HTML files on the web

And then that's the same PDF that they received from the designer that creates the menus in


Non-HTML files on the web

general that they would print or they would have printed pre-pandemic.


Non-HTML files on the web

For me, it would be much simpler to just create a few pages on the internet like HTML, but


Non-HTML files on the web

then if you never worked with HTML, then it might be harder.


Non-HTML files on the web

And with PDFs, I imagine that it's more like a Weisweig editor where you can just drop


Non-HTML files on the web

boxes and then type things into it.


Non-HTML files on the web

Yeah, it's much easier to design if you don't have, like for laying out things on a page


Non-HTML files on the web

and especially if you want it to feel like a menu maybe to retain that sort of same vibe


Non-HTML files on the web

that you're at a restaurant.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like you're looking at something on your phone that used to be a physical thing to try to


Non-HTML files on the web

replicate that as close as possible.


Non-HTML files on the web

Because if you're just doing menu items on a web page, you're basically ordering food


Non-HTML files on the web

delivered to you.


Non-HTML files on the web

Might as well skip the restaurant experience altogether.


Non-HTML files on the web

Yeah, right.


Non-HTML files on the web

So I don't particularly like PDFs.


Non-HTML files on the web

I see why, or I can understand why people do them and why they publish them.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like going back to IRS, like some of those forms, I don't know how you would present


Non-HTML files on the web

them on a web page in a way that you can print them and send them back to your textbooks.


Non-HTML files on the web

With a PDF, it's much easier to download because it's more intuitive.


Non-HTML files on the web

It's much easier to print them.


Non-HTML files on the web

Oh, filling them out too.


Non-HTML files on the web

Filling them out.


Non-HTML files on the web

You can like edit them and then print them out for like these documents that maybe you


Non-HTML files on the web

need to fill in your information and mail it back to the government or something like


Non-HTML files on the web

that.


Non-HTML files on the web

You could just type.


Non-HTML files on the web

Right.


Non-HTML files on the web

But then that also says something about the tech's office.


Non-HTML files on the web

They have PDFs and they want you to print these forms out and then send them back.


Non-HTML files on the web

So basically you are leading a paper trail.


Non-HTML files on the web

In some countries, you don't have to do that anymore.


Non-HTML files on the web

You just put everything in a table, like a form, same way.


Non-HTML files on the web

It used to be that when you applied for a US visa or Indian visa as well, you had to


Non-HTML files on the web

fill out the form manually with a pen.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like they would not allow you to edit and type and then send it in?


Non-HTML files on the web

That would be like...


Non-HTML files on the web

You had to print it out.


Non-HTML files on the web

You had a hard copy and then you took that to the embassy or consulate and then they


Non-HTML files on the web

would basically transcribe that into something else again.


Non-HTML files on the web

And that evolved for the US, for India, that evolved into an online form that you fill


Non-HTML files on the web

out and then someone on the other end will check the details and will make decisions


Non-HTML files on the web

based on what you gave.


Non-HTML files on the web

So basically that PDF part just like went away.


Non-HTML files on the web

And I can totally see that that will happen with taxes as well, because in some countries


Non-HTML files on the web

there's already no paper trail for taxing.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like you just do everything online.


Non-HTML files on the web

But you could do everything online with a PDF.


Non-HTML files on the web

Well, not if they require you to fill it out, print it out and send it back.


Non-HTML files on the web

Right.


Non-HTML files on the web

But you could just skip the mailing part and upload it.


Non-HTML files on the web

If the tax office allows that.


Non-HTML files on the web

But sometimes they require you to mail it back.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like, for example, until I think last year, even in Switzerland, you had to mail back


Non-HTML files on the web

the forms.


Non-HTML files on the web

It was not that you can upload the forms, you had to mail it back.


Non-HTML files on the web

And in those cases, the PDFs are excellent, I guess.


Non-HTML files on the web

Okay.


Non-HTML files on the web

And all this stuff like filling it out at that point, like you don't want your own document


Non-HTML files on the web

to be showing up into search.


Non-HTML files on the web

People would want to find the forms, but not necessarily the ones that we fill out.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like if we were to upload it, like that would be bad if our personal information is showing


Non-HTML files on the web

up in search or something like that.


Non-HTML files on the web

So that is another problem, I guess, for them receiving like a digital file.


Non-HTML files on the web

So strictly speaking and without empathy, it's not our problem.


Non-HTML files on the web

Because we index whatever we find on the public web.


Non-HTML files on the web

And if a website uploads private information, then we would index that.


Non-HTML files on the web


Non-HTML files on the web

Like basically we are going out on the web and we index public information, basically


Non-HTML files on the web

information that was made public.


Non-HTML files on the web

If someone uploaded their private data to some website and that website made it public,


Non-HTML files on the web

then we might index it.


Non-HTML files on the web

And we do have some measures to mitigate these kinds of issues, but it's not perfect.


Non-HTML files on the web

So basically people still have to ensure that they are not publishing their private information


Non-HTML files on the web

on the internet.


Non-HTML files on the web

Of course, they can also take it down, but that's for another episode or for an episode


Non-HTML files on the web

that we already had basically removals.


Non-HTML files on the web

Removals, but we didn't really talk about, I guess, personal information because that's


Non-HTML files on the web

sort of...


Non-HTML files on the web

I mean, that's removing information from the internet.


Non-HTML files on the web

But basically you can use any of the things that we talked about.


Non-HTML files on the web

And with PDFs, we don't actually look, well, not just PDFs, with any content, we don't


Non-HTML files on the web

actually look into what's in the content.


Non-HTML files on the web

So it's not like this document is talking about Obama or Trump, and then we want to


Non-HTML files on the web

index it because it talks about those things.


Non-HTML files on the web

We index it because it's from a high quality site because people are talking about this


Non-HTML files on the web

topic on the internet and so on.


Non-HTML files on the web

Basically the normal indexing signals, it doesn't have anything to do with like it has


Non-HTML files on the web

PII.


Non-HTML files on the web

And that's one of the problems with PII that we can in certain cases recognize that something


Non-HTML files on the web

is PII if it follows a very strict format.


Non-HTML files on the web

But in many cases that's not possible.


Non-HTML files on the web

For example, an address shows up or an email address shows up on the internet, do we index


Non-HTML files on the web

it or not?


Non-HTML files on the web

We don't know if that's a private address or it's a business's address or it's a support


Non-HTML files on the web

address or whatever.


Non-HTML files on the web

Yeah.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like it could be totally something that makes sense to have at the end of the PDF.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like this is like the restaurant's address.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like you are looking at a menu or whatever.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like our robots.txt standard doc, like at the bottom, it's like these are the authors,


Non-HTML files on the web

their work addresses are here.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like we put it there, but it's not that we would consider that personal information.


Non-HTML files on the web

So maybe it's a context thing, but I can imagine why.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like how can you tell it's an address, but is it personal?


Non-HTML files on the web

Did you not mean it for it to be there or not?


Non-HTML files on the web

Like it's there.


Non-HTML files on the web

We can't decide based off of like the fact that it's an address only.


Non-HTML files on the web

All right.


Non-HTML files on the web

So with PDFs, has anything changed?


Non-HTML files on the web

So I know that you wrote a blog post in 2011 about dealing with PDFs and best practices.


Non-HTML files on the web

On our blog, on onesie, you wrote, we can index PDFs now.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like the blog post is announcing that PDFs can show up in a search results.


Non-HTML files on the web

We can index them.


Non-HTML files on the web

The result shows up like this and not much has changed in the result itself.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like it still is like, this is a preview of a PDF.


Non-HTML files on the web

The title, like it shows the number of pages, how big the PDF is.


Non-HTML files on the web

And you say some things in there that like we're still not able to do.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like we can't index images from PDF like we can from a webpage, but it seems like we can


Non-HTML files on the web

do that now just from like a test.


Non-HTML files on the web

So I searched for like pictures of cats and then limited it to file type PDF and the PDF


Non-HTML files on the web

shows up as a result with an image like in Google images.


Non-HTML files on the web

So that seems like change.


Non-HTML files on the web

But other than that, has there been any other?


Non-HTML files on the web

I'm not aware of any changes.


Non-HTML files on the web

And that's the important thing that with these weird formats, the problem is that you have


Non-HTML files on the web

to convert them.


Non-HTML files on the web

We are not actually indexing the PDF itself.


Non-HTML files on the web

We are converting it to HTML and then indexing whatever we found in the HTML.


Non-HTML files on the web

Same goes for Word documents.


Non-HTML files on the web

Ah Word, Microsoft Word.


Non-HTML files on the web

That's the thing.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like with Word documents, with presentations, with pretty much anything that's more or at


Non-HTML files on the web

least leaning towards proprietary, we are converting them to HTML.


Non-HTML files on the web

That's very interesting because it does seem like people are searching for, I looked up


Non-HTML files on the web

PDF popularity and the trend for people converting JPEGs to PDFs is like the thing that people


Non-HTML files on the web

are trying to do is to convert an image to a PDF, but no one's looking to convert PDF


Non-HTML files on the web

to HTML.


Non-HTML files on the web

Would this be something that like if that existed for these restaurant owners?


Non-HTML files on the web

People on Google Trends?


Non-HTML files on the web

Yeah.


Non-HTML files on the web

Right.


Non-HTML files on the web

So you get relative.


Non-HTML files on the web

Relative information.


Non-HTML files on the web

Information.


Non-HTML files on the web

Okay.


Non-HTML files on the web

So yeah, I guess that it's something like that.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like people are looking up that information to how to convert a JPEG into PDF that they


Non-HTML files on the web

can use like an online menu.


Non-HTML files on the web

I don't know why.


Non-HTML files on the web

Why would that happen?


Non-HTML files on the web

I guess like, is there a way that people could convert PDF and HTML and would that be helpful


Non-HTML files on the web

or like same difference?


Non-HTML files on the web

Like we can still deal with it in the end.


Non-HTML files on the web

So it doesn't matter like giving us an HTML, like we don't have a preference between PDF


Non-HTML files on the web

and HTML necessarily.


Non-HTML files on the web

We don't.


Non-HTML files on the web

And for the conversion part, I think it depends on what outcome you are expecting because


Non-HTML files on the web

if you want something that looks exactly like the PDF, then I think there's no perfect conversion


Non-HTML files on the web

tool for that.


Non-HTML files on the web

At least not yet.


Non-HTML files on the web

You are going to get something similar, but not one to one copy.


Non-HTML files on the web

But if you're a search engine, then that's not the goal.


Non-HTML files on the web

It's just to extract the text and the images?


Non-HTML files on the web

Yes.


Non-HTML files on the web

Anything else?


Non-HTML files on the web

And pretty much that's it.


Non-HTML files on the web

Maybe the metadata, but otherwise you don't care that much about how it looks like, right?


Non-HTML files on the web

Like you might care about where the bolded characters are or italics or whatever or headings,


Non-HTML files on the web

but otherwise you don't care that here's a box, there's a box, whatever.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like the layout of the page is not...


Non-HTML files on the web

Especially with PDFs, that doesn't matter that much because there you have a long document


Non-HTML files on the web

that just has text all over it.


Non-HTML files on the web

The weight of the content is pretty much uniform across the whole PDF.


Non-HTML files on the web

Whilst with HTML, usually that's not the case.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like you have navigation, you have footer, you have pop-up boxes and whatnot.


Non-HTML files on the web

And there it matters where a piece of content showed up.


Non-HTML files on the web

Because if it's like in the footer, then it probably needs to have less weight than something


Non-HTML files on the web

that's in the center, like in the body of the document.


Non-HTML files on the web

I see.


Non-HTML files on the web

So with these conversion tools, our aims are different.


Non-HTML files on the web

And as far as I know, we are licensing something from Adobe, for example, to convert PDFs.


Non-HTML files on the web

And that's basically how it works.


Non-HTML files on the web

And we don't have that much control over what we are getting.


Non-HTML files on the web

Basically we are limited by the decoder or converter that we get from whoever wrote the


Non-HTML files on the web

converter.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like basically our basic needs is to get the content from the thing.


Non-HTML files on the web

And same goes for docs and Microsoft Word and presentations and whatever else we index.


Non-HTML files on the web

If it's one of those proprietary formats.


Non-HTML files on the web

And then we also index other weird TXT files and Python files and Java files and whatever.


Non-HTML files on the web

Are we like indexing them to save them because they're helping for the web page or because


Non-HTML files on the web

someone might be searching for the content that's in there?


Non-HTML files on the web

That's the code.


Non-HTML files on the web

Yeah.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like searching for the code that's in there?


Non-HTML files on the web

Basically we are indexing the code as text because that's what it is.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like when you are coding something or scripting something, you are writing basically a prose.


Non-HTML files on the web

And that's what we are indexing.


Non-HTML files on the web

Would we ever return that as like an example?


Non-HTML files on the web

Like someone's looking for examples of some code or something?


Non-HTML files on the web

Sure.


Non-HTML files on the web

We would return it as like you were looking for this.


Non-HTML files on the web

They do have harder time to rank, I think.


Non-HTML files on the web

But that's because of the structure of the page.


Non-HTML files on the web

And we don't necessarily know like what is the purpose of this thing?


Non-HTML files on the web

Like did they tell us it was a sample?


Non-HTML files on the web

Like is there a title for the thing?


Non-HTML files on the web

I mean if you think about it like when you are looking for, I don't know, how to split


Non-HTML files on the web

a string in Python, for example.


Non-HTML files on the web

Then you very likely going to get some Stack Overflow which has loads of information from


Non-HTML files on the web

really knowledgeable people about how to split a string and what's the most optimal way to


Non-HTML files on the web

split a string.


Non-HTML files on the web

But then if we surface a Python file that does exactly that, then you can copy paste


Non-HTML files on the web

the thing.


Non-HTML files on the web

But you have no context.


Non-HTML files on the web

Is there a good way to do it or is there a least efficient way to split a string?


Non-HTML files on the web

And I feel that Stack Overflow is a better choice because there you also learn something


Non-HTML files on the web

or you get context about like how are these things happening, like the splitting, how


Non-HTML files on the web

it's happening.


Non-HTML files on the web

And you have loads of content that reinforces our ranking algorithms that this is the right


Non-HTML files on the web

thing for your query.


Non-HTML files on the web

While with.py document you don't have that.


Non-HTML files on the web

You have the code which usually is not that verbose.


Non-HTML files on the web

I guess if there were comments in the code.


Non-HTML files on the web

But have you ever met anyone who writes elaborate comments?


Non-HTML files on the web

Title and description for your code example.


Non-HTML files on the web

If you are looking at my converter code for example, it's like yeah.


Non-HTML files on the web

Yeah, it's just going to be looking at a thing with no context.


Non-HTML files on the web

Another aspect to dealing with non-web page content is putting them on your site somewhere.


Non-HTML files on the web

Is there anything that you should be doing?


Non-HTML files on the web

Like a person who has a website with PDFs, should they be putting them somewhere in their


Non-HTML files on the web

directory structure or grouping?


Non-HTML files on the web

Like from a management perspective I guess there probably are things that make it easier


Non-HTML files on the web

from maintaining like these are where all my PDFs are.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like I'm going to put them in the PDFs directory.


Non-HTML files on the web

But from Google perspective, like does that help?


Non-HTML files on the web

I guess more information from the URL path that these PDFs are related to this topic.


Non-HTML files on the web

I imagine it depends what you can do on your server.


Non-HTML files on the web

Because if you have like shared hosting and you don't have access to the, I don't know


Non-HTML files on the web

if you're on Apache web server and you don't have access to the HTTP Conf to create a global


Non-HTML files on the web

rule for PDF files but you want to redirect them and bulk.


Non-HTML files on the web

Then it's better if you have them in a directory.


Non-HTML files on the web

But then if you are on your own server and you can do whatever, then it doesn't matter


Non-HTML files on the web

that much.


Non-HTML files on the web

In those cases it's probably better to have them spread out on the site because then like


Non-HTML files on the web

all those issues that some people might have, like we talked about crawl or people think


Non-HTML files on the web

they have that we talked about last episode or indexing issues, then it's not limited.


Non-HTML files on the web

Or we can infer signals from basically any of the patterns.


Non-HTML files on the web

But if you are creating a single pattern URL pattern where you store your PDFs, then that's


Non-HTML files on the web

probably not that great because then we will have to learn that that particular pattern


Non-HTML files on the web

is good.


Non-HTML files on the web

Versus if you spread out, then we will infer the signals from the already existing pattern


Non-HTML files on the web

where you also publish HTML files or text files or whatever.


Non-HTML files on the web

So it's better to group them by topic and not necessarily by file type.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like what if it was images, for example.


Non-HTML files on the web

Yes.


Non-HTML files on the web

Also, yes.


Non-HTML files on the web

The same thing applies to images, videos.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like it doesn't matter, but it seems there's a slight preference to putting things in the


Non-HTML files on the web

directory that they're applicable to.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like instead of putting all of our images on 1Z in some slash images directory, it would


Non-HTML files on the web

be better to have all the images that are in the robots.txt documentation in that directory.


Non-HTML files on the web

Images are completely different.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like images index differently.


Non-HTML files on the web

That's a completely different indexer, same as video.


Non-HTML files on the web

Okay.


Non-HTML files on the web

It's actually the same indexer.


Non-HTML files on the web

But with web content.


Non-HTML files on the web

I know when the title of this, like web, non-web, all of this stuff is on the web.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like all of these.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like text content.


Non-HTML files on the web

Yeah.


Non-HTML files on the web

And we should come up with a new word for this.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like text content and media content that's indexed differently, like vastly differently


Non-HTML files on the web

and usually presented differently.


Non-HTML files on the web

What if it's an image of text and we can convert that?


Non-HTML files on the web

How do we know that we should be, oh, this is like somebody took a picture.


Non-HTML files on the web

But we would not run that on the old tab.


Non-HTML files on the web

Or whatever we call it today.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like that image would not be ranked on the old tab.


Non-HTML files on the web

It would be in Google images, but not on, basically we index it for Google images.


Non-HTML files on the web

So we can see that there's text in this image and that.


Non-HTML files on the web

Right.


Non-HTML files on the web

You would need the landing page.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like we would index the landing page of that image.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like we never just index an image on its own.


Non-HTML files on the web

It's always the landing page and then the image that is on the landing page.


Non-HTML files on the web

Okay.


Non-HTML files on the web

So you've just had images floating in a directory and you never embedded one of them like this.


Non-HTML files on the web

It never embedded.


Non-HTML files on the web

It didn't happen.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like that's like, good luck with that.


Non-HTML files on the web

It's not going to show up.


Non-HTML files on the web

That's not going to show up ever.


Non-HTML files on the web

If it doesn't have HTML page that's hosting or PDF that's hosting that image, it will


Non-HTML files on the web

never show up ever.


Non-HTML files on the web

And that's because.


Non-HTML files on the web

We don't have anywhere to send the user.


Non-HTML files on the web

You can just send them to the image.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like it's a link.


Non-HTML files on the web

Right.


Non-HTML files on the web

It's a page.


Non-HTML files on the web

Image search is more about the whole experience than just the image.


Non-HTML files on the web

So we've talked about PDFs.


Non-HTML files on the web

We've talked about images briefly, PowerPoint presentations.


Non-HTML files on the web

What are some other types of files that maybe people haven't thought about dealing with


Non-HTML files on the web

them on their site that you would want people to think about more?


Non-HTML files on the web

Well, I want people to think about HTML.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like they should stop putting, if they're putting content into another file, they should


Non-HTML files on the web

convert it to HTML.


Non-HTML files on the web

I mean, what else can you have?


Non-HTML files on the web

You can have text files.


Non-HTML files on the web

Text files.


Non-HTML files on the web

Okay.


Non-HTML files on the web

So I have an example.


Non-HTML files on the web

I can put Google bot IP addresses into that text file.


Non-HTML files on the web

Is that fine?


Non-HTML files on the web

Like should we be putting that into an HTML page?


Non-HTML files on the web

That's the same as like having a, well, it's technically a text file, but it's a JSON object


Non-HTML files on the web

that we are exporting.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like at Google, we work mostly with the protocol buffers and then protocol buffers have like


Non-HTML files on the web

a definition, like a schema, and then you can export that into a textual representation,


Non-HTML files on the web

but that's not how it's used.


Non-HTML files on the web

It's used in an encoded form.


Non-HTML files on the web

And that's roughly how JSON objects are also used.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like you are exporting a textual representation to a JSON file.


Non-HTML files on the web

Technically it's a text file, but then so is PDF because you have text on it, but we


Non-HTML files on the web

can index those files as well.


Non-HTML files on the web

And I think we do because last time someone was complaining that we are not indexing or


Non-HTML files on the web

we are not exporting some IP address.


Non-HTML files on the web

Then I searched for Google bot IP addresses and that was the first thing that showed up.


Non-HTML files on the web

It took you right to the list because I was wondering, are we even returning that or in


Non-HTML files on the web

that, would that be?


Non-HTML files on the web

But it was also a personalized thing.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like it showed that I already visited that, so I might've gotten some personal boost if


Non-HTML files on the web

that's still a thing based on previous visits.


Non-HTML files on the web

I don't know if that's still a thing, but it looked sus.


Non-HTML files on the web

So we can index that and we can serve it if we have enough context.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like with those files, the problem is I think that we don't have enough context, right?


Non-HTML files on the web

Because in the text file you have a buttload of IP addresses, IPv6 and IPv4 plus creation


Non-HTML files on the web

date or creation time or whatever the field name is.


Non-HTML files on the web

And that's it.


Non-HTML files on the web

Yeah, there's no title.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like even in the URL path, like how could you tell what this was?


Non-HTML files on the web

Like the way that we named it, I think it's just like IP range.


Non-HTML files on the web

It is like, like for what?


Non-HTML files on the web

Right.


Non-HTML files on the web

Well, I mean from the finding we could probably infer if we had to, but that's like such a


Non-HTML files on the web

tiny signal.


Non-HTML files on the web

If we wanted to spam, like if we wanted to have a title like a generic Cialis or Viagra


Non-HTML files on the web

or whatever, then that would also hint that that document is about like generic Viagra.json.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like does it mean that the document is about Viagra?


Non-HTML files on the web

Probably not.


Non-HTML files on the web

But then fortunately people started linking to it with a very clear anchor text, usually


Non-HTML files on the web

very clear anchor text, and then we can infer...


Non-HTML files on the web

Googlebot IP address, then we know, yep, that's what this list is.


Non-HTML files on the web

And then return that if the query is somebody explicitly searching for that list, then yeah,


Non-HTML files on the web

good job.


Non-HTML files on the web

And same goes for.txt files as well or Python files,.py files.


Non-HTML files on the web

It's not limited to our JSON object.


Non-HTML files on the web

There are things that you can have on your side, XML files maybe.


Non-HTML files on the web

And those are weirder and more complicated, I guess, because some of them we don't want,


Non-HTML files on the web

some of them we do.


Non-HTML files on the web

Right?


Non-HTML files on the web

Like why would we be returning like a somebody's sitemap file?


Non-HTML files on the web

I think sitemap files we can actually index.


Non-HTML files on the web

Yeah, as like a result.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like somebody is looking for our sitemap and then we would say like, here it is.


Non-HTML files on the web

That's what you were looking for.


Non-HTML files on the web

But RSS feeds or Atom feeds, I guess we wouldn't.


Non-HTML files on the web

And if I remember correctly, Bogdan Stanescu, one of our engineers working on converter


Non-HTML files on the web

back in the days, probably 2008, 2009, maybe he published a blog post about how we don't


Non-HTML files on the web

index certain feeds, but then other feeds we actually do want to index.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like for example, podcast feeds.


Non-HTML files on the web

So it's like with the XML it gets really murky.


Non-HTML files on the web

It depends on what is the file content and not necessarily the extension that we're like,


Non-HTML files on the web

we can't tell based off of the extension alone that this is what it is.


Non-HTML files on the web

I guess we can tell based on the content type header and some of the hints from the document


Non-HTML files on the web

itself, hints from the XML, because if you start parsing the XML, unfortunately XML is


Non-HTML files on the web

a very structured thing.


Non-HTML files on the web

So very early on you have to tell what the PDF will be about.


Non-HTML files on the web

So for example, for a sitemap, you have to declare the sitemaps namespace, like the XMLNS


Non-HTML files on the web

attribute.


Non-HTML files on the web

And from there you can infer what it is going to be.


Non-HTML files on the web

And then for RSS atom, you have different namespaces so you can infer from there.


Non-HTML files on the web

But I imagine that also the content type header is different for those file types.


Non-HTML files on the web

So we can tell that we can index this, but not that.


Non-HTML files on the web

And do you think we're, are we missing anything?


Non-HTML files on the web

Like any new file types that have come about that we would want to add to our list of things


Non-HTML files on the web

that we can index?


Non-HTML files on the web

For text, probably not so much.


Non-HTML files on the web

I haven't seen a new text format.


Non-HTML files on the web

But also the new formats that I've seen, I think I've seen a couple the past few years,


Non-HTML files on the web

they are pure text.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like it's not like it's a proprietary file type that we have to decode or mania decode,


Non-HTML files on the web

but it's more like a text file that has a funny extension.


Non-HTML files on the web

And we don't actually care about the extension.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like we don't actually care if it's.py or.txt or.php.


Non-HTML files on the web

We care about what the server sent back and with what content type header.


Non-HTML files on the web

Like for example, with a.py file or a PHP.


Non-HTML files on the web

That's incredibly popular server-side programming language.


Non-HTML files on the web

It may happen when you access a.php file, you get source code, and then you can index


Non-HTML files on the web

the source code.


Non-HTML files on the web

But then if the server is configured to execute that code, then you are going to get whatever


Non-HTML files on the web

the code produces.


Non-HTML files on the web

So it could be an HTML file, it could be an image, it could be whatever the PHP interpreter


Non-HTML files on the web

was told to render.


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Like for example, you can bring in the image bytes from a remote URL and then present it


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through that script.


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Or you can just print hello world and print text slash HTML content type header, and then


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it's HTML.


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So it depends what the server will do when you are accessing that URL.


Non-HTML files on the web

Okay.


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And are these things that we'd want to index in the context of that page similar to images?


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Or it depends on if it's something that stands.


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So if just an image comes back with just a content type image.jpg, for example, then


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we probably don't want to index that image in particular, unless it's embedded into a


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page that's using that image.


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And then we would index the page and then we would index the image reference.


Non-HTML files on the web

All right.


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Can we go now?


Non-HTML files on the web

No.


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But we talked about everything.


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So we should really, really go and end this episode, please.


Non-HTML files on the web

Pretty please.


Non-HTML files on the web

Okay, fine.


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I'm going to end this episode, please.


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Next time on Search Off The Record, we'll be chatting with Vanessa Fox in our Spotlight


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series where we talk to someone who inspires us in the community.


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Well, we've been having fun with these podcast episodes and I hope you, the listener, have


Non-HTML files on the web

found them both entertaining and insightful too.


Non-HTML files on the web

Feel free to drop me a note on Twitter or chat with us at one of the next events we


Non-HTML files on the web

go to if you have any thoughts.


Non-HTML files on the web

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


Non-HTML files on the web

Thank you and goodbye.


Non-HTML files on the web


English Google SEO office-hours from November 5, 2021

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


SEO Office Hours Hangout.


My name is John Mueller.


I'm a search advocate at Google in Switzerland.


And part of what we do are these Office Hour Hangouts,


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


Lots of questions were already submitted on YouTube.


But it also looks like we have a bunch of people


with their hands raised ready to go.


So maybe we'll just go through some of those first.


Let's see.


Ibrahim, I think you're first.


I can't hear you.


I think you're muted.


OK, hello.


OK.


You hear me now?


Yes.


So we have three online pharmacies in Switzerland,


Amavita, Code Vitality, and Sonnestore.


You may have heard them.


And for Amavita, in summer, we got a lot of spammy backlinks.


And I also talked with you about that.


And from what I know already, usually Google


can manage those type of backlinks.


But after Google updates, Core update in July,


we got really hurt in our visibility for Amavita,


just specifically for that shop that we got spammy backlinks.


I tried a lot to disavow them by Google links.


But at the same time, Code Vitality and Sonnestore,


we increased double in traffic and visibility.


So I'm really not sure if this was because of just


spammy backlinks.


I assume that.


So I would like to get your recommendation on that.


What should I do?


What can we do?


We try to figure out things.


We try to solve technical problems


that we have, which we have.


But so far, I still believe that happened


because of spammy backlinks.


But not sure.


OK.


It's hard for me to say without digging into the detail.


But in general, with the Core updates,


if you're seeing changes there, usually that's


more related to trying to figure out


what the relevance of a site is overall,


and less related to things like spammy links.


So that's something where I wouldn't expect any reaction


from a core update based on random spammy links


that go to your website.


And also with core updates, you can make incremental changes


to improve your site over time with regards


to the overall quality.


And that will incrementally help there.


But if it was a really strong adjustment with a core update,


then you probably need to wait until the next core update


to see those changes.


And because I don't think it would be related


to the spammy backlinks, I don't think


disavowing those backlinks would change anything there.


It's really a matter of us trying


to figure out what the relevance of the site is overall.


And that's something that almost relies on the overall site's


quality.


And I imagine it's tricky if you have multiple shops that


are fairly similar, in that it's probably not the case


that one of them is really bad and the other ones


are really good.


But it might still be something where


you can use maybe user studies to figure out


what are the differences, what are things that you could


do to make it clear that this site is particularly relevant.


And I think, especially with regards


to websites like pharmacies, it is something


where our algorithms probably try


to be a little bit more critical just because there's


just so much more involved.


It's not a random website that has a story and a funny picture.


It's people's health that's involved.


Thank you.


Thank you so much.


So we need to work more on the quality of the content,


it seems, because we have kind of same content on all shops.


Because of restriction, we cannot always change that.


And also, we are solving and already solved


a lot of 404 pages in Sitemap.


But thank you so much.


Yeah.


Yeah, especially with regards to things like 404 pages


and technical issues, that would not


be related to core updates.


So core updates are really more about understanding


your site's overall quality and its relevance


and less about technical issues and less about spam.


OK, thank you so much.


Sure.


Good luck.


Nice.


Let's see.


Angie.


Hi, John.


Hi.


I have a question about JavaScript SEO


and getting JavaScript content indexed.


So for Core Web Vitals, so I work on a blog website,


first of all.


And for Core Web Vitals, so we have a feature


where we put a YouTube video at the top.


So that became the LCP element.


So it was heavier than when we just had a regular image.


So we're trying a method where we're dynamically injecting it.


I saw a web dev article that suggested


lazy loading with a facade.


So since it's not below the fold content, we don't lazy load it.


But we're using a facade.


And then the iframe is dynamically


injected when the user clicks the Play button.


I'm realizing now that the articles are not


being indexed with the video content on the page,


essentially.


So if I search for the page and I go to video search,


it doesn't appear there.


I'm wondering what the best way to get that content indexed


with the page is.


I mean, I know I can do things like submit a video site map


and stuff.


But for it to be, basically for the video


to be seen as related to the web page,


the way that it was indexed before.


So is something like no script or structured data


the way to go?


Is there any sort of best practice for this?


Yeah, depending on the way that you set up the facade


that you mentioned there, where you click on an image


essentially or a div or something,


and then it loads the video in the background,


it can definitely be the case that we don't automatically


pick it up as a video when we view the page.


And I have had feedback from the video search team


telling us we shouldn't tell people


to do this because it causes problems like that.


Essentially, the best approaches there


are at least to make sure that with structured data


we can tell that there is still a video there.


So I believe there's a kind of structured data


specifically for videos that you can add.


Video site map is essentially very similar in that regard


in that you're telling us on this page


there is a video that is relevant.


So those are the two approaches there.


I suspect over time the YouTube embed


will get better and faster, and it'll


be less of an issue where you have to do these tricks.


But I think for the moment it can still make sense,


and it can still have a big effect on the core web


vitals of a page.


So from that point of view, I'm kind of torn.


If the video team tells me you should put it directly


in the other team says you should make things fast,


then hard to find the middle ground.


But I think at least making sure that we


can recognize the video is there, that's really important.


So for the video object structured data,


I think there is a general structured data guideline


that you can't mark up content that


isn't visible on the page.


So could it be potentially seen as misleading because Google


can't actually see the video?


I think that's fine.


No, I don't think you have to worry about that.


That's specifically if there were no actual video


on the page, that would be a problem.


And specifically with text-based structured data,


that's something we can try to figure out automatically.


But when it comes to videos, there


are lots of different ways of embedding videos.


And some of the ways to embed videos we just


don't pick up automatically.


And because of that, we have the structured data.


So from that point of view, that should be fine.


OK.


And then if so I know there's a few different options here.