I don't know why it is showing like this,


English Google SEO office-hours from October 29, 2021

because still, Search Console having no issues.


We have the good core web issues, mobile usability issues.


But it could not show like that.


Yeah.


I don't know.


It's hard to say without seeing more.


But I think there might be two things at play.


On the one hand, we don't have data for all websites.


So especially the core web vitals relies on field data,


so what people actually see and what is reported back through,


I think, mobile Chrome that we can kind of aggregate


with regards to speed.


So we need a certain amount of data


before we can say, oh, we understand


what the individual metrics mean for this website.


And if you're not seeing any data at all in Search Console


with regards to the individual core web vitals metrics,


then usually that matches to that.


It's like we just don't have enough data at the moment.


And that means also from a ranking point of view,


we can't really take that into account.


So that might be why you're seeing this number where


it says like zero good URLs, but because we just


have zero URLs that we're tracking for core web vitals


at the moment for your website.


So my second question is related to web stories.


I have seen some brands having web stories on their Google


CRP, but I'm not seen for my brand.


So I was exploring how it will come for my brand.


So can you suggest any strategy like to appear web stories


for a brand in Google CR?


OK.


So I think there are two aspects here.


On the one hand, web stories are normal pages.


So they can appear in the normal search results as well.


From a technical point of view, they are built on AMP.


But they're normal HTML pages, essentially.


And that also means that you can link them normally


within your website.


So that's really, I think, critical for us


that we understand these are part of your website.


And maybe they're an important part of your website.


And if you think that they're important,


they should be linked in an important way.


That means maybe link them from your home page


or some other pages which are very


important for your website so that we can understand


this is an important page.


Then the other aspect here is because these are normal HTML


pages, we need to find some text on these pages


that we can use to rank them.


And especially with web stories, I


think that's tricky because they're very visual in nature.


And it's very tempting to just say, oh, I will show a video


or I will show a large image in my web stories.


And if you do that without also providing


some textual content, then we basically


have very little that we can use to rank these pages.


So on the one hand, they have to be


integrated within your website like a normal HTML page would.


And on the other hand, they also need


to have some amount of textual content


so that we can rank them for queries.


And then I think another aspect here


is that in some locations, we show web stories slightly


differently in the search results


when we can recognize that there's maybe a block of web


stories that we can show.


I don't know.


I think in India is one of those places,


or in the US is also where we show them slightly differently.


And there, I think you almost have an advantage because then


we would try to find more web stories to show


for your queries.


So from that point of view, it's almost like a good situation


to be in, but you still need to make sure


that you have the basics covered.


We also have the Google Creators channel.


I don't know if you've seen that.


It's a separate YouTube channel.


They also have a Google Creators blog.


And they have a lot of content on Web Stories.


And they also have some guides for optimizing web stories


for SEO that I would recommend going through.


Thank you so much, sir.


So one more question.


Actually, earlier I asked this question with you.


You have written bloggers on it.


Recently, I'm using my brand name as an author name.


And I'm not using real name instead of it


because that is generic and we can, like,


generic names we can't use.


That's why I'm avoiding it.


So is it appropriate strategy using brand name as an author


name, or we should leave it as a blog?


I mean, ultimately, you can choose how you want to do that.


I think for users for certain topics,


it makes sense to really have names associated with it.


And for other kinds of topics, it's


less a matter of having clear names associated with it.


So in particular, if you look at our quality rater guidelines


for things like medical topics, you


want to make sure that it's actually


someone who's qualified, a qualified medical expert


writing this content and not just a brand.


So for those kind of topics, I think


it definitely makes sense to have a name associated with it.


For a lot of other topics, if you just


need to have an author link there,


then maybe that's OK to have a brand name there.


The one thing I would avoid is using something like admin


or, I don't know, like a generic name as an author,


because that really doesn't tell users anything at all.


But a brand name at least says, like,


our company stands behind this.


OK, we can use brand name, but we can't use generic admin,


and we should avoid these type of things.


It's not that you can't use it.


It's more that I would recommend not to.


So it's not a requirement that you


have to do it in any of these ways,


but especially from a usability point of view,


if you're going to have a link that


says this was written by someone,


then make it someone or something.


Yeah.


AUDIENCE 1 So one more question.


We are posting some news on third-party sites,


and that is appearing as a top story in Google SCRP.


And I guess it is appearing by search queries.


People are using search queries with the help of that news


are coming as highlights in Google SCRP, maybe.


But we are also posting news, and maybe


what can be the reason they are not


appearing as top stories in Google SCRP?


Maybe it can be the quality of content.


And


JOHN MUELLER Sure.


I mean, the top stories takes into account various factors.


So it's not automatically anything


that is news-related that you publish


that will appear there.


And it's not automatically every website's content


that appears there.


But it sounds like you're on the right track,


in that some of these things are showing up in the top stories.


AUDIENCE 1 Thank you so much, and happy weekend.


JOHN MUELLER Thanks.


You too.


Let's see.


Theresa.


THERESA MARTIN-MCCLELLAND Hello.


Hi, John.


Hi.


So I'm working on a recruitment website,


and they've got these jobs that they're


kind of almost evergreen, because they


have a bank of staff, and they have continuous work.


And it's just for a contract ongoing.


And so I've got these jobs on the website.


And the question is, I can't just leave that job listing,


because then it just looks like it's super old.


So should I just be creating a new page every 30 days?


I can't really change the structured data


on there because of the CMS that they're working with.


So what should I do, I guess?


And it's basically, I guess, like an ongoing opening


position?


Yeah, it's like, just say it's for,


they've got a contract for a council,


and it's like they have to keep doing this particular task.


And they have a bank of staff, but they need more people.


And so they're always looking for this particular role.


And it's just an ad hoc role that they can do remotely.


So it's always available in a way at the moment,


and it's the same role in the same area.


Now, I think, surely, from an SEO point of view,


you could just leave it open.


I don't think you would see any big, I don't know,


effects if you were to delete that page at some point


and just create a new one on a monthly or yearly basis.


I don't think you would really see any effects there.


The one thing I'm not sure about is how Google Jobs would deal


with this if you have to do anything


like having specific dates on there for the job listings.


So if it's something specific to Google Jobs,


it sounds like you probably would need


to double-check their guidelines.


But surely, from an SEO point of view,


I don't see any issues with keeping this live like that.


And from my point of view, I also


don't see any issues if you were to update the dates


on those pages from time to time, where you could say,


last updated.


Sorry?


I can't change the dates on it.


It's like this custom lockdown thing.


So when I create a new job, it creates a new URL,


and I can't change the URL.


And so if I leave it as the same page, then on job listing,


it will come up as like month old or something.


Yeah.


So I guess it was just.


From that point of view, it sounds


like it might make sense to update this page from time


to time or create a new version of it.


I don't think you would see any SEO effect either way.


I could imagine if you created new pages very regularly,


then it would be hard for us to understand which of these pages


to show in search.


But if you do this, I don't know,


monthly or quarterly or yearly, then we


would pick that up as a new page,


and we'd have enough time to build signals for those pages


and show those in search.


And I think that would be fine.


And should I just, the page that's gone,


should I just redirect that to maybe the new page or to the?


Yeah.


Yeah, I think if you can do that, that's optimal.


It sounds like your CMS is a little bit limited there,


so maybe it's not always possible.


But if you can do that, that definitely makes sense.


OK.


OK, thank you.


Cool.


Let me take a break here with the recording.


I still have more time.


And Neeraj, I see your hand is up as well,


so we can get to you too.


If you're watching this on YouTube,


thanks for watching to the end, I guess.


If you'd like to join one of these Hangouts in the future,


feel free to watch out for the link


and jump in when it pops up.


So with that, thank you all for joining in.


Thanks for all the questions that were submitted.


English Google Webmaster Central office-hours from February 7, 2020

All right, welcome, everyone, to another Webmaster Central


Office Hour Hangouts.


My name is John Mueller.


I am a Webmaster Trends Analyst here at Google in Switzerland.


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


where people can join in and ask any question related


to their website and related to web search, I guess.


A bunch of things were already submitted.


But if any of you want to get started


with the first question, jump on in now.


John?


Structured data has been noticed by Google until today, neither


in search nor in Search Console.


Indexation of the pages is now more than 10 or 11 weeks ago.


And I gave you two URLs to check the home page and an article


page.


Did you check them?


Could you find anything?


I don't remember.


I need to double check.


I can double check later on if you


want to stick around afterwards when


we have a little bit more time.


Yes.


OK, I will stay.


OK.


Thank you.


Sure.


All right, any other questions before we


jump into the submitted ones?


So you maybe can begin with mine.


It's there in the comments.


Let's see.


I think yours is the second one on the list.


So I'll just start with the first one


so that I don't lose track where I was.


So the first one is a multilingual international


website targeting a specific country with URL patterns


for the home page like ksa.mywebsite.com slash AR,


which has the hreflang value of AR dash SA.


So I guess that would be Arabic for Arabia, I guess.


I don't know.


I don't know my country codes.


OK.


And another one slash EN, which has hreflang value of EN dash


SA.


Knowing that Arabic is the default language for my website,


does it help my website to rank higher


if I implement URL patterns without AR prefix in the URL?


So just ksa.mywebsite.com without the slash AR?


No.


It doesn't change anything.


For hreflang, we look at the specific URLs,


and we essentially rank them as AR.


So that's something where I try to keep it as clear as possible


in your URL.


So if you have different country or language versions


and make it so that people can recognize that right away.


And in general, I don't see any problem


with just keeping it with slash AR and slash EN


for the different language versions.


The country version, I think you already


have set up as a subdomain, which is good,


because for geotargeting, the country level patterns,


we try to look at clear either domain level or subdomain level


or clear subdirectory level folders there.


So that's something where you're using a subdomain, at least


from the example URL there, and that would be perfect.


So from that point of view, I don't


think you need to remove the slash AR.


You can if you want, but it wouldn't change anything


for search.


Should we provide a list of domains


that have been removed in our reconsideration request


for the remaining ones?


We received a manual penalty for thin content


for many of our domains, and we killed a big portion of them.


We improved quality on our high value sites,


and we believe they meet Google's guidelines.


Yes, I think that generally makes sense.


So in particular, if you have a lot of websites


that are under manual action and you delete a lot of those,


and the process of deletion is kind


of your way of cleaning things up,


then that's something I would mention.


I don't think you need to list them all out individually,


but you can say something like, oh, we had, I don't know,


100 domains with a manual action for thin content,


and we removed 90 of them.


Kind of a rough order of magnitude


so that the people who are looking at this


to see if it was resolved, they recognize, oh, OK,


you significantly took steps to clean that up.


And does it matter how we kill the sites?


No index, server error, DNS error, or removal request?


I would just do it in a way that is as clear as possible.


So a server error, a DNS error is something that's like, well,


nobody knows if this is a temporary thing or not.


But if you really take down the site,


if people, when they check the URL,


they clearly notice, oh, this website is gone,


that could be a 404 page, something like that.


Just make it as clear as possible


that this is not a temporary thing,


that you're just like, switch it off and see if it goes through.


But actually, this is what you decided to do.


OK, thanks.


OK, the past three days, we're facing big latency


in the indexing API and a lot of 503 errors


with the services currently unavailable.


Is the service down?


I don't know.


So I just saw this question earlier before the Hangout.


And I'm not sure what the current status is.


I'm not aware of any bigger issues there.


So sometimes what happens is that things just


get stuck for a little bit.


But I'll double check with the team.


And if there is an issue there, then we'll


obviously try to get it resolved as quickly as possible.


There are lots of schema.org types of structured data,


but only a few of them are listed in the Google Developers


Help.


Should we spend time implementing something


like ImageObject?


So I think ImageObject is actually


one of those that is mentioned in the documentation.


In particular, we use images as kind


of a sub-element of different other structured data elements.


So I think it's, in particular, things


like recipes where you have images


that you specify for that.


My understanding is we'd use ImageObject.


I'd need to double check the documentation.


But that's kind of my understanding there.


But going back to the more general question,


should we use types of structured data


that are not in the developer documentation?


So in practice, what happens here


is we would not use them to do anything


visible with your pages.


So if you're using a type of structured data


that we don't support, then you would not


see any visible effect there.


I don't know.


Maybe you have a car on your page


and there's a structured data type for a car.


Then just using that won't automatically


transform your search result into something


that looks like a car.


Because if we don't have that type of rich result,


then we wouldn't be looking at that markup.


And if we did have that type of rich result,


we would have that documented appropriately


in a developer's guide.


That said, all types of structured data


help us to better understand the entities on a page.


So in particular, going back to the car example,


if you have something that uses a lot of words that


could be interpreted as maybe an animal or a type of car,


then that's something where if you tell us


this is actually about a car, then that


would give us a little bit more information


and would allow us to try to rank your pages more


appropriately.


So it's not that you would rank higher,


but rather we would try to show you in the queries


a little bit more where we better understand your page


and where we better understand that your page matches


the user's intent.


So with that in mind, if you're limited or severely limited


by time, then I would focus on the types of structured data


that are really visible.


And if you do have a bit more time


or if you have a CMS that's flexible that allows you


to expand on things that maybe you're talking about,


then that's something where there's definitely


no downside to adding more types of structured data.


The one thing I would watch out for here


is that you can easily get lost in the weeds with all


of the different structured data types.


So it's very possible that you'd mark up every other word


on a page and say, well, this is this element


and this entity related to this entity.


And at some point, you spend more time on the structured


data than you spend actually on the content,


and that's not going to be useful for your website.


So trying to find a balance there


is something that I'd recommend.


And if you're really limited by time


and you really need to focus on things that have a clear result,


then I would focus on the types that are documented


in the developer's guide.


A few of my new websites and competitive niches


have started to rank without building even a single link,


just with pure content.


It took a while, though, more than two years.


So I guess maybe those aren't new websites,


but kind of older ones.


Could I have saved precious time by building links


from high-end websites to reduce this time period,


or it wouldn't have mattered at all.


It would have taken the same amount of time regardless.


So we use a ton of different factors


when it comes to crawling, indexing, and ranking.


So it's really hard to say, if I did this,


how would my site rank compared to when I do this?


So those kind of comparisons are kind of futile in general.


In practice, though, when you're building a website


and you want to get it out there and you


want to have people kind of go to the website


and recognize what wonderful work that you've put in there,


then promoting that appropriately


definitely makes sense.


And that's something you don't have


to do that by dropping links in different places,


but you can get the word out in different ways.


And by getting the word out, you're


kind of bringing people to your website.


And if they like what they see, then maybe


they'll link to your website.


And all of these things can add up as signals,


and it can help us to better understand


where your website fits in with the rest of the web.


So from that point of view, I would not just


create a website and put it up and don't tell anyone about it


and hope that Google finds it and starts ranking it


in competitive areas.


But really, like a normal business,


spend time to build that up and to build an audience


and to understand what people like,


respond to feedback that they give you,


and really build things up as you would with a normal business


essentially.


How important is speakable and keyword-rich URLs


for AMP pages?


Our tech guys would like to switch to ID-only pages,


for example, amp.example.com slash article slash 12345.


And the canonical would still refer


to kind of the speakable and keyword-rich URL.


As far as I know, this wouldn't change anything at all.


So that's something where if you want


to switch to more of an ID-based URL system,


that's totally up to you.


We do use words and URLs as a really, really small factor


when it comes to understanding a page.


But as soon as we are able to process the content on a page,


then those words and URLs are not


going to play a significant role anyway.


So from that point of view, it's not something


where I'd say you're losing out on a lot of things


by not having keywords in your URL.


Regardless if that's kind of your canonical web page


or the AMP version of the page.


In general, people see URLs less and less frequently,


especially if you're on a mobile phone.


It's really rare that you actually see a URL.


So I think that shift has been taking place over time anyway


in that it used to be people would focus on the URL


and try to understand what this URL is before they click on it.


But nowadays, you can't really do that.


So I kind of see the importance of including a long URL


with a description of the article


as something that's kind of fading away a little bit,


I guess.


And that's really regardless of AMP page or web page


in general.


Is a last mod necessary for a new sitemap,


or is this only for normal website maps?


So last mod is one of those things


that we do take into account from a sitemap file.


We don't use any of the other attributes.


Well, obviously the URL.


But any of the other attributes like priority or change


frequency, we don't use those.


We do use last mod, however, to recognize


when pages have significantly changed


and when pages are essentially new.


But for that to work out, we really


need to have a sitemap file that uses the last mod


date in a reasonable way.


So don't use kind of like today's date for all


of your pages' last modification date,


because if everything changed today,


then nothing is really that important for us


to pick up first.


So what you really want to do is to give us


a clear hierarchy of the changes that you've made,


so that if we know that we last crawled maybe yesterday,


and we see these five pages are new,


then we can focus on those five pages a little bit more.


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


Use a proper last modification date,


and specify that for all of your URLs,


and really use this for the sitemap file,


regardless of the type of sitemap file.


So if that's a new sitemap file, then you kind of


have that limitation with 1,000 URLs.


For the normal sitemap file, it's essentially the same thing.


Does the way searchers use branded terms in conjunction


with non-branded terms affect ranking for non-branded terms?


For example, if Google noticed a lot of surfers using the query


x company plus widgets, would Google


be more likely to rank x company for non-branded queries


for widgets?


I don't think it would work that way, essentially just


because people are searching in a particular way


for your website.


It doesn't mean that we can say, well,


if they're searching like this, then we


should rank them for other things as well.


However, if people are explicitly


looking for your company, then that's a really clear sign


that they really want to go to your company.


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


always makes sense to try to find subtle ways to encourage


people to do that because if people know your business,


they understand your brand, and they explicitly


search for your brand, then suddenly there's


no competition in the search results


because it's really clear they want to go to your website.


And that's essentially, we call that more


of a navigational query.


And that kind of that shift from people


are searching for widgets and going to, well, x company


widgets, that's kind of a way of making sure that people


go to your website.


So it's not so much that branded queries drive more traffic


to non-branded queries, but rather,


if people are searching for your brand,


suddenly you have a lot less competition


because Google understands fairly quickly


that this is your brand and this is your website.


The caveat here is, of course, if your brand


is a generic keyword, then that's not really


going to work that easily.


So if, for example, you named your brand best widgets,


then if people search for best widgets,


that's really unclear to us that they actually


want to go to your website.


Whereas if you have some clear company name, like, I don't


know, x company, and you also sell widgets,


and if they search for x company, then suddenly,


we would understand this query matches your website,


and it is more of a navigational query than kind


of an informational query.


So that's something always worth to keep in mind,


especially when you're building up a new website, a new brand,


that you pick something that people can remember


and that's kind of unique in the sense


that when people search for it, it's


easy to recognize that they really


It's not that they want to get general information


for these keywords that they entered.


How important is internal linking in general?


My client's current HTML sitemap takes five clicks


before you reach a page with content.


Outside of using the search bar, the only other way Google


can reach these pages is with an XML sitemap.


So my guess is with the current HTML sitemap,


you mean kind of the current website in general,


not a sitemap page that you would have.


So in general, internal linking is really important,


and it is almost the best way to understand


the context of individual pages within your website.


So it's a lot easier for us to understand this


is the hierarchy of your pages.


These are kind of the higher level pages,


the more important pages, the less important pages.


All of that is something that's really important for us


to be able to pick up on, and it's


something that is reflected in a lot of places in search.


So just for example, something that I saw recently,


if you have a really flat hierarchy in that you


have all of your pages linked from all of your other pages,


then we can't really tell which of these pages


are more important than others, which


can lead to situations like you have a site link on one


of your pages that is shown right below the search result


that points to a completely unrelated page.


And from our point of view, we think, well, all of these pages


are equally important, and they're all very related


because they're all linking to each other.


So taking any random page and using that as a site link


is something that could be reasonable, right?


Whereas if you have a clear hierarchy,


then it's a lot easier for us to understand,


well, this is the part of the website that belongs together,


and this other part belongs together here,


and kind of like this is the higher level part.


All of this is a lot clearer to understand.


So with that said, the number of clicks


to reach a page from your home page, for example,


is something that helps us to kind of understand


how that page fits in.


But it's not necessarily something


that we'd say is bad if it's above three or four or five.


So the important part is really that you


have a clear hierarchy.


And when you have that hierarchy,


the absolute number of clicks is less critical.


That said, if there is something that you really


want to highlight on your website, and you kind of say,


well, this is my favorite product, my best selling


product, the product I make the most profit from,


or this is something completely new that I really


want to promote, then having that linked more prominently


within your website definitely makes sense.


Because then we can understand that you really


care about this new thing or this unique thing here,


and we can show it appropriately a little bit more visibly


in search as well.


So if this is some random product on your website,


and it takes five, six clicks to get there, perfectly fine.


If this is something that is really


your best, most important product,


and it's a very competitive niche, then link to that.


Maybe for a second.


Yeah.


And with regards to linking from the XML sitemap,


that's something that's almost kind of separate.


Because from the XML sitemap, we can pick up


which pages are new and changed, but it's not.


It doesn't give us a lot of context about those pages.


OK.


After a DMCA notice, my client removed the content


and also removed those URLs from Google index.


Still we're receiving DMCA removal notification.


How do I inform the complainant that my client has


removed all of the content?


My client had the rights to publish the content,


but now their license has expired.


I think someone is accidentally muting me.


No problem.


So with regards to DMCA complaints,


the thing you would need to do is


to respond to that DMCA complaint


and to kind of say, well, I cleaned this up.


I resolved this issue.


So that DMCA complaint kind of goes back


to the person who sent the complaint,


and they can take that and say, oh, OK, it's resolved.


I will cancel this.


So that's kind of the direction that you'd need to take there.


In general, if this is a single URL


and you've removed it from your website


and it's no longer shown in search,


then having that DMCA complaint kind of pending or open


isn't something that would affect


the rest of your website.


However, if this is something that happens on a larger scale


in that you have a lot of DMCA complaints on your website


and you kind of remove them individually and it's like,


you're kind of taking them on step by step,


then by having all of those DMCA complaints pending and still


active, that's something that we might pick up in our algorithms


and say, well, we don't really know how well we


can trust this website.


So if you get these kind of DMCA complaints on a larger scale,


then I would respond to them and make it clear


that this is resolved or make it clear


that this is kind of an incorrect DMCA complaint


so that our systems understand that there are no pending


DMCA complaints there.


I'll mute you for a moment.


If you're featuring too many ads on your articles,


the rankings of your website will get affected.


Is that true?


It's not so much the number of ads on your pages


as kind of the general experience


on the pages themselves.


So that's something where we look at things


like the above the fold content.


And if the above the fold content


is reasonable for your website, if there's information


about those pages, then that's kind of fine.


If you have ads that are loaded below the fold


or if you have small parts of the above the fold


content with ads, then that's generally OK.


And that's not so much based on the number of ads,


but more based on how prominent are these ads.


Are they taking up a large part of the above the fold content?


Or is this something that's like a small bar on top


with five little ads next to each other?


That's something that's very different from one very large


ad that takes up the whole above the fold content.


So John, I have a related question.


We have partner links with affiliates.


And we're wondering if we need to add


or if we need to prioritize adding


a real sponsor to our links or nofollow is good enough.


In general, nofollow is good enough.


If you can add the real sponsor to that


as well, that helps us to better understand it a little bit.


But it's not something that would be critical.


So in particular, if you have existing links like that,


I would just leave them like that.


If you're setting up a new website,


then I would just use maybe either rel-sponsored or rel


nofollow sponsored together just to make sure


that it's a little bit clearer going forward.


SPEAKER 2 OK, thanks.


Is it problematic to develop with React


and implement dynamic rendering on a large site that


is essentially static content which


doesn't update rapidly?


Our IT department is advocating for this route


in our upcoming redesign.


We're concerned going the single page application


route is going to overcomplicate a lot of things,


including SEO.


So it will get more complicated.


I think that's generally almost always the case when


you move from a static HTML setup


to a kind of dynamic JavaScript-based framework.


So that's something to keep in mind.


It will get more complicated.


It's not that it's going to become impossible,


but it will definitely become a little bit harder


to manage.


It'll become a little bit harder to set up properly.


It'll become a little bit harder to monitor your setup,


to monitor your website that everything is working well,


because it's a lot harder to use simple command line


tools to just fetch the content of your pages


and check that the meta tags are the same, all of these things.


So that's something definitely worth keeping in mind,


in that you might save a lot of time on the development side


or be able to create something really fancy on the development


side, but you will almost certainly


have to invest a little bit more on the SEO side


to make sure that you're doing everything right.


So that's kind of the, I think, the baseline situation.


It's not that it's going to become impossible to do.


And there are different ways of dealing with that,


which could be as simple as, well, maybe you just


pre-render all of the content and you serve the static HTML


version, either to crawlers or even to all users,


depending on how you have that set up.


But it is something where you'll have


to look a little bit further than just like, oh,


I will just switch it on or switch it over,


and everything will continue to work the same as before.


So that's kind of, I think, definitely worth


keeping in mind.


I think it's getting a lot easier.


It has gotten a lot easier, because there's


a lot more information out there on what you need to do.


There's a ton of documentation on our developer's guide


on how to deal with JavaScript sites.


A lot of the SEO tools nowadays, they


can deal with JavaScript sites.


But it is something where you have


to spend a little bit more time, especially in the beginning,


to make sure that you're picking a setup that is actually


going to work well for your business, for search


in general.


Let's see.


One question about Discover.


My website is in Swedish.


However, my articles are not appearing for me


and the rest of the Swedish people


when you're connected to a Swedish Wi-Fi.


However, when I connect with Wi-Fi outside of Sweden,


my website articles are appearing as normal.


The problem is that my target group lives in Sweden.


So it started on a specific date,


and it seems more Swedish websites have the same problem.


I'm not aware of anything specific related to Sweden,


but I'll double check with the team


to see what might be happening there.


I notice you have a.net domain name, which


is a generic top-level domain from our point of view.


One thing I would make sure is that you also


have the geotargeting settings set to Sweden,


if that's really your target audience.


So that's something you can set in Search Console.


It's a little bit hidden at the moment


because it's a part of the old Search Console,


but that's definitely something I would try to set up.


But I'll also check in with the Discover team


to see if they're aware of anything happening there.


Does a broad core algorithm update also


affect Google Discover?


A couple of weeks after the January 2020 update,


we noticed a drop in traffic coming from that source.


And Search Console also shows a dropping impressions


overall.


Yes, I believe we included that in one of the core update


tweet series that these core updates can affect Google


Discover visibility as well.


Should we have our sites automatically append


our company names to the end of the meta titles


or leave it off and let Google do it?


Right now, our company page automatically


appends a company name to the title


and it's annoying because often the titles get too long


and end up with ellipses.


Yeah, essentially, that's up to you.


So what happens on our side is we


try to understand what the website name is in general.


And if that's not included in the title of your pages,


we may append that to the end as well.


So probably what happens here is we


would show them in more or less the same way anyway.


In general, though, having the website name attached


to your titles makes it a lot easier for us


to understand which title to actually use.


So that's something where if you give us this information,


we'll probably end up using it correctly.


If you don't give us the website name at all in the title,


then it'll be a lot harder for us


to figure out what you would like


to have shown there as kind of a website name, company


name in general.


To handle our pagination, these are category pages, actually,


and they may contain over 100-plus pages.


Do you think this is a good practice


if we create page one, which lists our most important,


30 products, and page two, and a very lightweight View All page,


which might contain up to 5,000 unique product URLs?


And page two would be canonicalized to, I guess,


the View All page.


So in general, this kind of goes back


to what I mentioned before in that having a clear hierarchy


on your website makes it a lot easier for us to understand


your website in general.


So if you have a category page with page one, which


is linked here, and then page two, which is actually


a View All page, which links to all other pages,


then we can still understand things from page one


are probably more important and something higher up


in the hierarchy than kind of like everything else.


But within this bucket of everything else,


everything is kind of equivalent.


And from our point of view, that makes


it really hard to understand which of these


are more critical to you.


And it makes it a little bit harder


to understand how things are related.


So which of these products end up


being similar to each other?


It's really hard for us to tell.


It kind of depends on your website, though.


If this is within a set of different categories


and the first page in this category


is already kind of really a good sample


of the important products that you kind of care


about in that category, then we have a lot of hierarchy


just from those different categories already.


And then the kind of View All page,


which links to everything else, is something


that essentially is kind of connected further down


in the hierarchy of the website.


So that's something where maybe it doesn't matter that much.


But on the other hand, it might also


just be that if those View All pages aren't that


important in general, then you might as well just


use a normal pagination setup rather than kind


of this complicated one that has the normal pagination and then


the View All pagination.


You might as well just have linking


between the individual pages of pagination directly.


Yeah, go ahead.


AUDIENCE 1-1 regarding site hierarchies


and overall architecture, so we're


working with a fairly big retailer in the sense


that they have a few hundred thousand products.


And there's about 1,000 categories,


something like that.


And one of the main issues I think


they have is that most of those 1,000 categories


are in the site-wide menu, like in the header menu.


So that's quite a lot of links on every single page.


So from my point of view, on one side,


that kind of makes all of the categories equal in the sense


that there is no hierarchy for Googlebot,


because everything is site-wide.


Everything is link site-wide.


And on the other hand, having 1,000 links on every single page


might make it difficult for Googlebot to crawl everything


maybe or assess where the page rank should flow more exactly.


So what are your thoughts?


I mean, I know what is the best practice,


but what are the reasons why you shouldn't


go with such a flat architecture?


So I think purely from a technical point of view,


we'd be able to deal with 1,000 links on a page.


I don't see a problem there.


So that's something where it used


to be that we would just use, I think,


the first 1,000 links on a page.


But I think we dropped that, I don't know, 10 years ago,


something like that, pretty long time ago.


So just from purely the technical point of view,


that's not going to cause a lot of issues.


But I could imagine from understanding


the context of individual categories,


it is something that we might have trouble with.


So in particular, you might notice this with site links.


That's kind of the place where I ended up noticing it,


because people flagged it to me, where


if you search for one category and you have different site


links below that category page in the search results page,


and if those other categories that are linked there


are totally unrelated and don't make a lot of sense,


then that's kind of a sign that we don't really


understand how these pages should be connected


and which of these categories kind of belong together.


So that doesn't necessarily mean that you


have to go from 1,000 categories to, I don't know,


100 categories and you link to subcategories or something


like that.


But maybe there are other ways to make it a little bit clearer


that these things belong together,


these things belong together, these other things


belong together.


So that's kind of the direction I would go there first


to figure out, is it really a problem or not?


And if it is a problem, then think about ways


that you can split that up a little bit clearer.


Well, one thing they do, they already


show subcategories in the sidebar.


Once you go to a parent category,


they show the subcategories in the sidebar.


The only thing is that all of these categories


are also in the main menu.


So the main menu is, again, something


like 900 to 1,000 categories.


Obviously, that's not very useful for users as well.


We're guessing because we know this a lot of them


are just using the search bar, the internal search,


simply probably because the menu is so big.


I was wondering whether I know that Google kind of splits


main content from supplemental content


and the menu kind of falls in that supplemental content.


Does that mean that it's less of a problem


to have all of the category links in the menu?


Or does it really play a role there?


I don't think you'd see a big difference there.


Because essentially what would happen


is we would recognize the link, like maybe


to from one category to another category,


we'd see that in the top menu.


And we'd also see it in the sidebar


and maybe within the body of content as well.


But it's not that we would add up


the value of those individual links.


It's just like, well, that link is already there.


And you're not giving us more information


by also including it multiple times.


So that's something where it's like just piling


on more versions of that link to create a category structure


doesn't really work.


It's really like we already see it.


And we know that link is there, even


if it's in the header somewhere kind


of with the main navigation.


So because you see those links everywhere,


that doesn't mean you can't really,


as you mentioned earlier with the site links,


you might not be able to figure out, OK,


so this is like a parent category that targets a topic.


And these are subcategories that target


specific parts of that topic and things like that.


Would that create a problem?


As far as I understand it, yes.


So if we already know that link is there,


then it's not that we're going to try


to figure out, well, it's also here and also here


to try to kind of guess at a hierarchy a little bit more


clear.


It's really like give us a clear hierarchy,


and we'll try to work with that.


SPEAKER 2


OK, cool.


Thanks.


Another one that sounds kind of similar.


Let's see.


If page A1 has 20 outbound links other than a site map,


these are links through which Google can discover those 20


pages.


If we put a canonical tag on A1 pointing to page A,


would Google still be able to discover those 20 out links


on page A1?


So with the rel canonical, you're


essentially telling us that these pages are equivalent.


And from our point of view, if you tell us


that these pages are equivalent, then we


can just pick one of those and use that for indexing.


And it might be that we pick page A1 as a canonical,


even though you have a rel canonical pointed somewhere


else.


Because for canonicalization, we use a lot of different factors.


That includes the rel canonical.


It also includes redirect, internal linking, site map


files.


All of these things kind of come together


when we pick a canonical.


So if we pick page A1 as a canonical,


we'll know about those 20 links.


If we pick page A as a canonical and it doesn't


link to those 20 other pages, then we


will not use those 20 links on page A1 as a part of A.


So with the choice of the canonical,


if we understand that these pages belong


into kind of a set of pages that could be a canonical,


we will only focus on the content and the links


of the canonical page.


Everything that's kind of on the non-canonical versions


that we end up essentially skipping over for indexing,


we would not take into account.


So if these are supposed to be equivalent,


then make sure that they're really equivalent.


If they're supposed to be different,


then let them be indexed individually.


Googlebot now uses the latest version of Chrome


to crawl, render, and index content.


When there are discrepancies between the source


and the rendered JavaScript, what factors


does it use to determine the authoritative version?


So if we render a page, we will use the rendered content only


as a basis for indexing.


So if during rendering, the content of the page


is essentially deleted and replaced with a placeholder


text, then we will only use that placeholder text


if we index that page after rendering.


So anything that was on the page before will be gone.


Usually, that's less of an issue,


because if you have a JavaScript framework,


you're adding content to the page.


So we would have kind of the existing content


plus the JavaScript content.


And that's what we use for indexing.


That kind of makes sense.


The part where this becomes problematic


is if there's a conflict between the content that


is on the page before and the content that


is on the page afterwards.


And one situation that we have seen, for example,


is if the content on the page before it gets indexed


has a noindex metatag on it, then regardless


of what we place there with JavaScript


afterwards, that noindex is always


going to kind of be there.


So that's something where if you have a severe conflict


between the static version and the JavaScript version,


it becomes a lot trickier for us.


Another common case is if you have a rel canonical


on the static page before and you


have a different rel canonical with JavaScript afterwards,


then it's kind of tricky for us to understand, well,


which of these ones is actually useful.


And that kind of comes from us, on the one hand,


looking at the static version before


and then rendering the version based on that.


So that's something where, as much as possible,


you want to make sure that those pages align.


And if you add additional information with JavaScript,


that's fantastic.


If you add information that clashes with the existing


information, then that's something


where it gets a lot trickier.


When does Googlebot take the rendered DOM snapshot


used for indexing?


We don't have a specific time.


So it's not that there's a specific timeout that


happens for us to pick up the indexed version.


We try to recognize when a page is ready.


Whoops, wait.


Anashe, I think you're presenting.


Let's see.


Maybe I can turn that off.


Yeah, so we don't have a specific time with regards


to understanding when a page is ready.


The main reason we don't have a specific time


is that when it comes to rendering,


we do a lot of caching.


And we do a lot of steps to try to understand


when a page is generally ready.


And that can result in things like the timers on the pages


being processed quite differently than when


you process a page manually.


So that's something where it's really


hard to specify a specific time just because of the way


that we render pages.


So for example, if you have different JavaScript APIs


that you're pulling content in and calling those APIs


takes a second each when you run it in the browser,


it might be that we already have those individual elements


cached on our side.


And when we render the page, we can render this page


in a fraction of a second.


So we might get the full version in a fraction of a second,


whereas you might need to wait maybe 10 seconds


to actually render the full page in your browser.


And similarly, it can be the other way around


in that when you access a page, you're


able to get all of those requests in right away.


And you can get that page essentially right at that time.


Whereas when we try to render the page,


it might be that we're limited by the amount of crawling


that we can do for individual pages.


And then suddenly, it takes us maybe an hour


to actually render that page.


So those differences are things that kind of come out just


because of the kind of different approaches


that we take for rendering content for indexing


versus what you would do if you were accessing


a page with a browser.


SPEAKER 2


Hey, John, may I interrupt with a question?


They had some pages for summer collections 2016, 2017, 2018.


And last year, they decided to make a non-year URL


for the summer collection.


They added redirect on all of these.


But the problem is Google is still seeing these URLs,


is indexing them.


If you try to access the 301 works,


every tool I tested with sees the 301.


In Search Console, when I inspect the URLs,


it says that they are indexable.


They have a self-canonical.


If I test the live URL, it still says they're indexable,


but the canonical changes to the new URL


that was added last year.


Could you help in any way, like pointing


in what might be the issue here?


So when do you see the old URLs?


Is that something you see in Search,


or is it showing in Search?


SPEAKER 2 So if I search for the brand and summer collection,


I see those old URLs besides the new one.


OK, in addition to the new one.


SPEAKER 2 Yeah, yeah, yeah.


So you see like three, four URLs for the same.


OK.


Usually, that kind of cleans itself up over time.


So that's something where if we see that there's a redirect,


if we see that the rel canonical is pointing


to the right version, then that's


something where over time, we will recognize, oh,


more and more signals point to this version.


So we'll only index that version.


The thing I would watch out for is


to make sure that your internal links don't


refer to the old URLs.


That's something that people often forget.


Sitemap file, if you have hreflang annotations,


all of those should also point to the new URLs.


Sometimes you can use third-party crawlers


to just recrawl your whole website


and make sure that there is no reference to the old URLs.


And if you're sure that that's the case,


then that's something that'll just settle down over time.


So for individual pages, it's really hard to kind of force


that to happen.


It just happens naturally over time.


And the thing to also keep in mind


is if you explicitly look for the old URLs,


so if you do a site query or if you do a search which includes


maybe words from the old URL, then it might be that we would


still show that in search even when we switched over


to the new one as a canonical.


So that's really common.


For example, if you do a site move from one domain


to another, if you search explicitly for the old domain,


we'll show it to you because we're


trying to be helpful by saying, well, this is the thing


that you're looking for.


But in general, if you've made sure that everything aligns,


that everything matches the new version,


then I would just let it run.


OK, thanks.


Give me a second.


We basically have a page that looks like appearing in Google.


But while you're checking it, it's a new site.


While you're checking it, even if the inspect URL showing


that the site is indexed and looks like have the chance


to get ranked, the results comes empty.


So while technically looks like you're inside and it's fine,


in any way that we're checking, the pages actually


doesn't appear indexed.


You have by chance any idea why this kind of stuff can happen.


We also try to escalate it to the community form.


And we don't really solve it.


So one place where this could happen


is if there is either a manual action


or if you have a URL removal in place.


That's something where both of these kind of


could be similar in that the inspect URL would say it's


indexed, but it wouldn't show in search.


Because from our point of view, these


are basically just filters that happen


on top of the search results.


The page can still be indexed.


It's just not showing in search.


SPEAKER 2


Rather than a comprehensive list of URLs


that match from an indexing point of view,


it can happen that something is just not shown in the site


query.


So it might be indexed, but maybe indexed in a way


that from a site query itself, it wouldn't be shown.


And depending on how you search for that page,


it might be the same.


So what you could do is kind of double check in Search Console


in the Search Performance section


and filter for that specific URL.


And then you can see, is it occasionally shown in search


or not at all?


SPEAKER 1 No, it doesn't show in search.


It's kind of, well, the indexed, but it's technically appearing.


And it's a new site that suddenly got it


dropped without any manual action in Search Console.


It might just be that our algorithms


are trying to figure out how to show this site properly.


That's something that sometimes it takes a bit of time


to settle down.


It really depends on the website itself.


It's also something where if the topic is something that


is often used for spam, then it might be a bit trickier


for our algorithms to figure out, oh, well, actually,


it uses similar keywords to maybe other kinds


of spammy content.


But actually, this one is a good website


that we should show in search.


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


to kind of settle down properly.


SPEAKER 2 OK, thanks.


Sure, all right, any other questions from any of you?


SPEAKER 3 Hello, John, I have a question if you hear me.


SPEAKER 2 Sure.


SPEAKER 3 I assume that you remember


a case which is related to indexing issues with wrong


ref-link attributes.


And Turkish Airlines is one of our main customers,


and they complain from the same thing.


We wonder that one Google can fix this problem.


SPEAKER 2 Which website was that?


SPEAKER 3 I remember that IKEA has


having some problems with wrong ref-link indexing status.


You remember that?


Google was indexing wrong pages about IKEA


from different geographies and from different queries.


And we have same problem with Turkish Airlines


and our customer wonders that when can this problem fix it.


That sounds like something different.


Because I think the issue that we saw with the IKEA website


was kind of unique there.


So it would be really useful to have more specific information


about what kind of problem you're seeing.


So if you want to stick around afterwards,


maybe we can discuss that a little bit more.


Or if you want to drop a link in the chat of some sample


URL, I can get that.


SPEAKER 3 Let me give you an example.


We see that our pages are getting


indexed in Turkish queries with maybe English pages.


But we are using ref-link correctly.


There is nothing wrong about the code.


And I assume that these will be related to the IKEA case.


But then you have Turkish content and English content?


Is that correct?


Yes, we have different contents.


And we are using ref-link correctly.


But Google is indexing them different.


OK.


Maybe you can drop some sample URLs in the chat.


And I can pick that up afterwards.


Thank you.


Because these tend to be kind of unique issues.


So the ones that we see more often


are cases where it's the same content


for different countries.


So for example, if you have German language


content for Germany and Switzerland,


it's exactly the same content.


That makes it hard for us to pick.


If you're seeing Turkish and English content,


we should be able to see that it's different.


But maybe you can give me some sample URLs.


And I can check.


I understand.


Thank you for that.


Sure.


All right.


Looks like we're kind of out of time.


I still have a bit of time left.


So if any of you want to stick around and chat off the record


after the recording stops, feel free to do so.


But otherwise, I'll pause the recording here.


Thank you all for joining in.


Thanks for all of the questions that were submitted.


If there's anything else on your mind


that we weren't able to solve here,


or if any of the answers were confusing,


feel free to drop us a note on Twitter,


or post in the product forums, or add a question for one


of the future Hangouts.


Thanks, everyone.


And wishing you all a great weekend in the meantime.


Bye-bye.


Bye.


Year in Search Central 2021

Welcome, everyone, to the next episode of the Search Off


Year in Search Central 2021

the Record podcast.


Year in Search Central 2021

Our plan is to talk a bit about what's


Year in Search Central 2021

happening at Google Search, how things work behind the scenes,


Year in Search Central 2021

and who knows, maybe have some fun along the way.


Year in Search Central 2021

My name is John Mueller.


Year in Search Central 2021

I'm a search advocate on the Search Relations team


Year in Search Central 2021

here at Google in Switzerland.


Year in Search Central 2021

I'm joined today by Martin.


Year in Search Central 2021

MARTIN SPLITTENBERG


Year in Search Central 2021

Yeah, yeah.


Year in Search Central 2021

Different than expected, probably,


Year in Search Central 2021

but an interesting year, I would say.


Year in Search Central 2021

OK.


Year in Search Central 2021

What did you expect?


Year in Search Central 2021

I don't know.


Year in Search Central 2021

For some reason, I had a feeling that 2021 will be different,


Year in Search Central 2021

as in more normal, more the old normal, but it did not happen.


Year in Search Central 2021

And to be honest, that threw me off


Year in Search Central 2021

at the beginning of the year.


Year in Search Central 2021

But then I figured we have to roll with the punches.


Year in Search Central 2021

And we still pulled off a bunch of cool stuff,


Year in Search Central 2021

and we had lots of community interactions


Year in Search Central 2021

with Google Search, launched a bunch of things,


Year in Search Central 2021

as far as I remember.


Year in Search Central 2021

Maybe I'm misremembering things.


Year in Search Central 2021

It all feels like 2019 just drags on forever.


Year in Search Central 2021

But yeah, I don't know.


Year in Search Central 2021

Maybe that's just me.


Year in Search Central 2021

Yeah.


Year in Search Central 2021

How do you feel about the year, Gary?


Year in Search Central 2021

I mean, kind of like you, I was hoping that we go back


Year in Search Central 2021

to travel and stuff.


Year in Search Central 2021

But obviously, that didn't happen.


Year in Search Central 2021

And that was a bummer, because all my life,


Year in Search Central 2021

I was traveling like crazy.


Year in Search Central 2021

And I do miss it.


Year in Search Central 2021

But it's not like I can do anything about it.


Year in Search Central 2021

So I'm just sitting here and eating popcorn,


Year in Search Central 2021

waiting for things to settle down.


Year in Search Central 2021

So enough about corona.


Year in Search Central 2021

What about JavaScript?


Year in Search Central 2021

What do you think, Martin?


Year in Search Central 2021

Is JavaScript and SEO complete now?


Year in Search Central 2021

Or is there anything left to do?


Year in Search Central 2021

It feels like SEOs have figured it all out.


Year in Search Central 2021

Oh, that's a tricky one, John.


Year in Search Central 2021

That's a good question as well.


Year in Search Central 2021

So on one hand, I think a lot of things


Year in Search Central 2021

that have been historically attributed to JavaScript


Year in Search Central 2021

from SEOs has been resolved as actually not a JavaScript


Year in Search Central 2021

problem.


Year in Search Central 2021

But I don't think it's a solved problem.


Year in Search Central 2021

I don't know if you remember last year's IO website that


Year in Search Central 2021

infamously was a single-page application, if I remember


Year in Search Central 2021

correctly, and it was not really showing up in search, which


Year in Search Central 2021

means there's still ways things can go wrong.


Year in Search Central 2021

And I think JavaScript is such an evolving, fast-paced,


Year in Search Central 2021

and difficult technology to make sure that it's


Year in Search Central 2021

I don't think we can prevent people


Year in Search Central 2021

from shooting themselves in the foot with it,


Year in Search Central 2021

but we can make it harder for them.


Year in Search Central 2021

On the other hand, I am really excited and happy


Year in Search Central 2021

to see that SEOs are catching up with JavaScript


Year in Search Central 2021

and are familiarizing themselves with it.


Year in Search Central 2021

But I often have conversations with people like,


Year in Search Central 2021

I can't pronounce his last name properly,


Year in Search Central 2021

but Giacomo Cecchini, I'm never sure how to pronounce


Year in Search Central 2021

his last name properly.


Year in Search Central 2021

So he'll probably listen to this episode


Year in Search Central 2021

and be like, oh, this is wrong.


Year in Search Central 2021

So Giacomo points out bits and pieces


Year in Search Central 2021

that he's not sure about on experiments with the platform.


Year in Search Central 2021

Dave Smart experiments with this.


Year in Search Central 2021

Jamie Indigo comes with a lot of questions as well.


Year in Search Central 2021

Bartosz Guralowicz and Tom Egroski, I think, from one.


Year in Search Central 2021

We have lots of questions regarding JavaScript.


Year in Search Central 2021

And they are really like trailblazers in this field.


Year in Search Central 2021

Not all of the things that are attributed to JavaScript


Year in Search Central 2021

are JavaScript-related issues, but there are still


Year in Search Central 2021

definitely areas where we can and have to improve.


Year in Search Central 2021

But generally, JavaScript content


Year in Search Central 2021

has a fair chance to be indexed these days.


Year in Search Central 2021

So it's not a solved problem, but it's


Year in Search Central 2021

one that has seen huge strides, huge improvements.


Year in Search Central 2021

And I'm really excited to see the community picking up on it


Year in Search Central 2021

and improving their knowledge and their guidance for others


Year in Search Central 2021

to work with JavaScript and search.


Year in Search Central 2021

So do you think Google's part of the problem is solved


Year in Search Central 2021

and it's now up to the websites to actually get things right?


Year in Search Central 2021

Or is it still that, like, well, Google search


Year in Search Central 2021

doesn't have it all figured out yet?


Year in Search Central 2021

MARTIN SPLITTENBERG We haven't it all figured out yet.


Year in Search Central 2021

There's still areas that we need to work on.


Year in Search Central 2021

For instance, the guidance to shift work off the main thread


Year in Search Central 2021

that is also popularized with the new Core Web Vitals.


Year in Search Central 2021

That's something that we in rendering


Year in Search Central 2021

need to be aware of and work on.


Year in Search Central 2021

It hasn't been very popular as a technique in the past,


Year in Search Central 2021

but it will probably become more popular in the near future.


Year in Search Central 2021

So we need to deal with that appropriately.


Year in Search Central 2021

GARY ILLYES-SCHREIBER Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.


Year in Search Central 2021

Can you explain that to someone who hates JavaScript?


Year in Search Central 2021

I mean, doesn't know much JavaScript.


Year in Search Central 2021

MARTIN SPLITTENBERG I'll explain it


Year in Search Central 2021

for a hypothetical friend of yours, Gary.


Year in Search Central 2021

So JavaScript, by definition, has


Year in Search Central 2021

been running in the same line of execution if you want to.


Year in Search Central 2021

Imagine every browser tab as a person who takes instructions


Year in Search Central 2021

and then constructs the website that you see.


Year in Search Central 2021

And this person also gets instructions from you


Year in Search Central 2021

whenever you move your mouse, whenever you click on a button,


Year in Search Central 2021

whenever you scroll.


Year in Search Central 2021

These instructions go to the same person,


Year in Search Central 2021

and then they assemble or reassemble the website


Year in Search Central 2021

in front of your eyes accordingly.


Year in Search Central 2021

JavaScript is one of the things that


Year in Search Central 2021

happens to this one person.


Year in Search Central 2021

It's called the main thread, this one person.


Year in Search Central 2021

And whenever JavaScript does a lot of work,


Year in Search Central 2021

then this person is kept busy by JavaScript.


Year in Search Central 2021

And then whatever other inputs are coming in,


Year in Search Central 2021

like kicking a button, scrolling the page,


Year in Search Central 2021

need to wait for the JavaScript to finish.


Year in Search Central 2021

So that's something that is becoming


Year in Search Central 2021

more and more challenging as more and more work is


Year in Search Central 2021

shifted to JavaScript.


Year in Search Central 2021

So one way to avoid that issue of the website not responding


Year in Search Central 2021

to your inputs anymore is to move some of the JavaScript


Year in Search Central 2021

work to, let's call it a second person,


Year in Search Central 2021

and we call them a web worker.


Year in Search Central 2021

And they are basically doing things in parallel


Year in Search Central 2021

to the other person.


Year in Search Central 2021

So the main person, the main thread,


Year in Search Central 2021

still responds to clicks and scrolls.


Year in Search Central 2021

But in the background, another person


Year in Search Central 2021

does all the JavaScript work.


Year in Search Central 2021

And then basically, they can exchange messages


Year in Search Central 2021

so that there's less interruption


Year in Search Central 2021

for the main thread person.


Year in Search Central 2021

Historically, that technique hasn't been utilized much.


Year in Search Central 2021

So our rendering service, our web rendering service,


Year in Search Central 2021

is not really good at dealing with that kind of work


Year in Search Central 2021

separation.


Year in Search Central 2021

It does work.


Year in Search Central 2021

It just doesn't work great.


Year in Search Central 2021

So that's something that we definitely


Year in Search Central 2021

want to get better at as that is probably


Year in Search Central 2021

becoming more and more popular.


Year in Search Central 2021

Then there's a few bits and pieces,


Year in Search Central 2021

and there's the continuous work to upgrade the web rendering


Year in Search Central 2021

service to keep up with Chrome updates, new technologies being


Year in Search Central 2021

introduced.


Year in Search Central 2021

So that's definitely work on our side.


Year in Search Central 2021

Also troubleshooting interesting edge cases and things


Year in Search Central 2021

that no one expected would happen


Year in Search Central 2021

is something that happens sporadically,


Year in Search Central 2021

but it does happen on our side.


Year in Search Central 2021

The other side is education, because SEOs are catching up


Year in Search Central 2021

to this fact.


Year in Search Central 2021

But there's still a lot of developers


Year in Search Central 2021

who are now more required to think of SEO


Year in Search Central 2021

and to think of search as one of the users of their website,


Year in Search Central 2021

so to speak, or consumers of their web content.


Year in Search Central 2021

And they don't necessarily know about that,


Year in Search Central 2021

or they don't understand the trade-offs and the decisions


Year in Search Central 2021

that they need to make.


Year in Search Central 2021

So it's our job, I feel it's my job, kind of,


Year in Search Central 2021

to tell them, to talk to them and hear


Year in Search Central 2021

what they are struggling with, what they need,


Year in Search Central 2021

and then bridge this gap between SEOs and developers.


Year in Search Central 2021

JOHN MUELLER 1 bridge the gap.


Year in Search Central 2021

Oh, wow, Martin, you're turning into a manager.


Year in Search Central 2021

What is happening?


Year in Search Central 2021

MARTIN SPLITTENBERG Oh, god, no.


Year in Search Central 2021

So cool.


Year in Search Central 2021

So anyway, with regards to the developer side there,


Year in Search Central 2021

from your point of view, do you think more developers


Year in Search Central 2021

are thinking about search and trying to get it right?


Year in Search Central 2021

Or is there still that mindset that, well, Google


Year in Search Central 2021

will figure everything out?


Year in Search Central 2021

I'm seeing more and more developers thinking about it.


Year in Search Central 2021

And I think that started when we were going


Year in Search Central 2021

into developer-focused events, like certain community events,


Year in Search Central 2021

Google IO, Google Chrome Dev Summit.


Year in Search Central 2021

And we talked in front of developers


Year in Search Central 2021

about search being a thing.


Year in Search Central 2021

And more and more people come to me


Year in Search Central 2021

and ask me questions about what they need to make sure to,


Year in Search Central 2021

well, actually, what they need to consider


Year in Search Central 2021

when building websites so that they make sure


Year in Search Central 2021

that it doesn't break search.


Year in Search Central 2021

But I think more or less most of the people


Year in Search Central 2021

don't really think about it that much.


Year in Search Central 2021

And I'm not too unhappy about it because, theoretically, it's


Year in Search Central 2021

our job to make it just work.


Year in Search Central 2021

But obviously, developers can be very, very creative


Year in Search Central 2021

when it comes to building things.


Year in Search Central 2021

And some creativity might run into problems.


Year in Search Central 2021

OK.


Year in Search Central 2021

So there's also this, I guess you'd say, meme around the SEO


Year in Search Central 2021

community where they're like, oh, the developer did SEO.


Year in Search Central 2021

Therefore, we have to be extra careful.


Year in Search Central 2021

Do you think a little knowledge of SEO,


Year in Search Central 2021

is that a good thing or a bad thing overall for developers?


Year in Search Central 2021

MARTIN SPLITTENBERG


Year in Search Central 2021

I think that's a good thing.


Year in Search Central 2021

But it's also very important to know your limits.


Year in Search Central 2021

And I think that actually goes both ways.


Year in Search Central 2021

I find it very, very problematic when


Year in Search Central 2021

SEOs come with what they think are turnkey solutions to all


Year in Search Central 2021

the problems that the code might have without even understanding


Year in Search Central 2021

what code there is.


Year in Search Central 2021

There's a certain environment.


Year in Search Central 2021

There might be a certain framework involved.


Year in Search Central 2021

There might be certain architectural decisions


Year in Search Central 2021

that have been made that are very, very hard to change.


Year in Search Central 2021

And now they come with what they think


Year in Search Central 2021

is a one-size-fits-all solution.


Year in Search Central 2021

And they are very excited about their solution.


Year in Search Central 2021

And then the developers are like, yeah,


Year in Search Central 2021

but that doesn't work and doesn't apply


Year in Search Central 2021

for what we are working with.


Year in Search Central 2021

And then there is some pushback.


Year in Search Central 2021

It's like, well, I thought about this really long and hard.


Year in Search Central 2021

It's like, yeah, but you could have


Year in Search Central 2021

avoided wasting that time, sorry, by just talking to us.


Year in Search Central 2021

And I think the dialogue needs to happen.


Year in Search Central 2021

And that's, yeah.


Year in Search Central 2021

Yeah, so more dialogue between SEOs and developers.


Year in Search Central 2021

That sounds reasonable.


Year in Search Central 2021

It's like understanding both sides


Year in Search Central 2021

and being able to kind of speak the same language.


Year in Search Central 2021

I think that makes a big difference, yeah.


Year in Search Central 2021

Cool.


Year in Search Central 2021

Do you see any big updates happening


Year in Search Central 2021

with regards to JavaScript?


Year in Search Central 2021

You mentioned the Chrome versions.


Year in Search Central 2021

Does that actually happen?


Year in Search Central 2021

That does happen whenever there's


Year in Search Central 2021

a new stable release on Chrome.


Year in Search Central 2021

A few weeks later, we are usually updating.


Year in Search Central 2021

It might take a little longer than a few weeks,


Year in Search Central 2021

but basically, we are even with the Chrome version


Year in Search Central 2021

that is out there in web rendering service.


Year in Search Central 2021

But there's no huge updates from our side.


Year in Search Central 2021

I know there has been a bunch of core updates this year,


Year in Search Central 2021

but I don't think anything that specifically addressed


Year in Search Central 2021

JavaScript unless I'm mistaken.


Year in Search Central 2021

Core updates, yeah.


Year in Search Central 2021

Like, I don't know, maybe we should announce JavaScript


Year in Search Central 2021

updates more than core updates.


Year in Search Central 2021

Are we even announcing core updates these days?


Year in Search Central 2021

I think we do, right?


Year in Search Central 2021

Why are we talking about core updates?


Year in Search Central 2021

Well, I don't know, Gary.


Year in Search Central 2021

Do you want to talk about core updates?


Year in Search Central 2021

You want to talk about core updates.


Year in Search Central 2021

So Gary, are we announcing core updates?


Year in Search Central 2021

We seem to announce core updates, yes.


Year in Search Central 2021

All long in advance.


Year in Search Central 2021

And are you happy with the way that we're doing it?


Year in Search Central 2021

Oh.


Year in Search Central 2021

I don't know how to give an answer to that


Year in Search Central 2021

without getting fired.


Year in Search Central 2021

Right.


Year in Search Central 2021

OK.


Year in Search Central 2021

Maybe I shouldn't have asked it that way.


Year in Search Central 2021

So I have very strong feelings about core updates in general.


Year in Search Central 2021

Well, our team generally knows what


Year in Search Central 2021

we are doing when we are doing core updates


Year in Search Central 2021

or what the things in the core updates do, more specifically.


Year in Search Central 2021

And in the vast majority of the cases,


Year in Search Central 2021

the things are just focusing on the guidelines


Year in Search Central 2021

that we've been publishing for the past 20 years.


Year in Search Central 2021

So basically, write good content,


Year in Search Central 2021

don't buy links, whatever.


Year in Search Central 2021

I don't know.


Year in Search Central 2021

So every single time we do one of these core updates,


Year in Search Central 2021

we are basically saying that follow our guidelines.


Year in Search Central 2021

And that's also our advice.


Year in Search Central 2021

If you are affected by these updates


Year in Search Central 2021

or if you want to learn more about it,


Year in Search Central 2021

then here's the webmaster guidelines


Year in Search Central 2021

that you can check out or this post


Year in Search Central 2021

that is based on the webmaster guidelines


Year in Search Central 2021

that you can check out.


Year in Search Central 2021

So then why are we publicizing the core updates?


Year in Search Central 2021

Because it's obvious that there was an update.


Year in Search Central 2021

So I don't know what's the benefit of having communication


Year in Search Central 2021

about the core updates when we can't say more about them.


Year in Search Central 2021

People really want us to announce core updates,


Year in Search Central 2021

I think the tricky part is we also


Year in Search Central 2021

want to give people some insight into why


Year in Search Central 2021

they might be seeing changes.


Year in Search Central 2021

I think the important part is also


Year in Search Central 2021

to keep in mind that the core update doesn't mean all sites


Year in Search Central 2021

get shuffled around in search.


Year in Search Central 2021

So it's not like everything is turned upside down.


Year in Search Central 2021

Sometimes it feels that way when you look at, I don't know,


Year in Search Central 2021

SEO Twitter.


Year in Search Central 2021

It's like, oh, everything is changing.


Year in Search Central 2021

But I imagine for the largest majority of the sites out there


Year in Search Central 2021

is like nothing really changes.


Year in Search Central 2021

But for those that do see bigger changes,


Year in Search Central 2021

I kind of understand that some of them


Year in Search Central 2021

would like to have some insight into, well, it's like,


Year in Search Central 2021

what happened?


Year in Search Central 2021

Did I do something wrong or did Google change?


Year in Search Central 2021

And kind of knowing, well, Google changed.


Year in Search Central 2021

Sometimes that makes it easier to say, well, OK,


Year in Search Central 2021

then I will try to adapt.


Year in Search Central 2021

Right.


Year in Search Central 2021

But if we could give more information about what's


Year in Search Central 2021

in an update or what kind of site


Year in Search Central 2021

it's affecting or content it's affecting,


Year in Search Central 2021

then I would be all for it.


Year in Search Central 2021

But at the moment, we cannot.


Year in Search Central 2021

And at the moment, we are just saying that, hello, there


Year in Search Central 2021

was a core update or incoming core update in two hours.


Year in Search Central 2021

And then four weeks later, we are like, yeah,


Year in Search Central 2021

we are finished with this core update.


Year in Search Central 2021

OK.


Year in Search Central 2021

So I guess one way forward could be


Year in Search Central 2021

for us to say a little bit more about what's


Year in Search Central 2021

happening in some of these updates, where we can say more,


Year in Search Central 2021

I guess.


Year in Search Central 2021

Yeah.


Year in Search Central 2021

But may the odds ever be in our favor.


Year in Search Central 2021

Well, I mean, it's like I know some people at the search


Year in Search Central 2021

engine, maybe we can talk with them and find some ways.


Year in Search Central 2021

But yeah, I think it's also interesting to see


Year in Search Central 2021

that internally and externally, there's


Year in Search Central 2021

almost like this bit of a conflict around the core


Year in Search Central 2021

updates, like, oh, should Google be saying these or not?


Year in Search Central 2021

And that's always kind of interesting to see.


Year in Search Central 2021

I don't know, Martin, do you see any talk about core updates


Year in Search Central 2021

from the developer community?


Year in Search Central 2021

Or is this basically just purely an SEO thing?


Year in Search Central 2021

That's an SEO thing.


Year in Search Central 2021

I have not been.


Year in Search Central 2021

I mean, there are a bunch of developers


Year in Search Central 2021

who are also doing SEO and are interested in SEO.


Year in Search Central 2021

And then they catch wind of these things.


Year in Search Central 2021

Or developers who are also just generally the web content


Year in Search Central 2021

producers, and they run their own, I don't know,


Year in Search Central 2021

like software as a service business or services website


Year in Search Central 2021

or whatever.


Year in Search Central 2021

And then they usually know about core updates.


Year in Search Central 2021

But as far as I'm aware, the perception


Year in Search Central 2021

is they are super opaque.


Year in Search Central 2021

It's like, yeah, everything changes.


Year in Search Central 2021

We don't know why, quote unquote, we got hit.


Year in Search Central 2021

And that's just what we need to deal with now.


Year in Search Central 2021

And I understand the frustration that if you then said,


Year in Search Central 2021

yeah, just follow our guidelines.


Year in Search Central 2021

And these people are at least under the impression


Year in Search Central 2021

they are doing that.


Year in Search Central 2021

And then everything changes.


Year in Search Central 2021

And we say, well, just follow our guidelines.


Year in Search Central 2021

That this might not be received super well.


Year in Search Central 2021

So I see that.


Year in Search Central 2021

So should we just stop doing core updates?


Year in Search Central 2021

Or algorithms that assess quality of a site slash page


Year in Search Central 2021

slash content?


Year in Search Central 2021

And what we are trying to do is give users better results,


Year in Search Central 2021

in some sense.


Year in Search Central 2021

So it might be that those sites that were affected negatively


Year in Search Central 2021

by a core update didn't actually do anything wrong,


Year in Search Central 2021

but rather our algorithms changed.


Year in Search Central 2021

And that is very hard to explain and also swallow, I imagine.


Year in Search Central 2021

Because if you are publishing content,


Year in Search Central 2021

and you've been publishing content for five years already,


Year in Search Central 2021

and you have a follower base and whatever,


Year in Search Central 2021

and suddenly you rank lower and some competitor


Year in Search Central 2021

is ranking higher because Google made a change,


Year in Search Central 2021

that's not easy to accept, I guess.


Year in Search Central 2021

But there's also the other side.


Year in Search Central 2021

Like you mentioned, someone else is ranking higher.


Year in Search Central 2021

And from our point of view, if we're


Year in Search Central 2021

improving the relevance or the quality of the overall search


Year in Search Central 2021

results, we're saying, well, you've


Year in Search Central 2021

been doing really good work.


Year in Search Central 2021

And we need to make sure that you're


Year in Search Central 2021

visible appropriately for the good work


Year in Search Central 2021

that you have been doing.


Year in Search Central 2021

So it always feels like there's a strong focus on sites


Year in Search Central 2021

that go down when there's also a lot of sites that go up.


Year in Search Central 2021

I mean, that's just social media, right?


Year in Search Central 2021

Because if something negative happens,


Year in Search Central 2021

then social media blows up.


Year in Search Central 2021

If positive happens, then maybe it


Year in Search Central 2021

will blow up if it's cute, but otherwise, probably not.


Year in Search Central 2021

That's just human nature.


Year in Search Central 2021

And with the mix in the search results,


Year in Search Central 2021

it's like there are 10 results.


Year in Search Central 2021

If one goes up, then something else has to drop because of that.


Year in Search Central 2021

So it's always, I guess, a mix.


Year in Search Central 2021

Yeah, but in those cases, we couldn't even


Year in Search Central 2021

be able to say that, yeah, you have to improve your content


Year in Search Central 2021

or you have to buy more links or whatever.


Year in Search Central 2021

Because there's not one thing that you need to do


Year in Search Central 2021

or you don't actually need to do anything


Year in Search Central 2021

because you were not punished for publishing good content.


Year in Search Central 2021

It's just someone else was awarded


Year in Search Central 2021

for publishing better or more in-depth or more something,


Year in Search Central 2021

more pink content.


Year in Search Central 2021

I don't know.


Year in Search Central 2021

Yeah, complicated topic.


Year in Search Central 2021

I am sure we'll be talking more about that later on this year


Year in Search Central 2021

and seeing how these updates happen over time.


Year in Search Central 2021

So we'll probably have more of them to mention.


Year in Search Central 2021

Or I don't know.


Year in Search Central 2021

If Gary has to mention them, maybe we won't mention them.


Year in Search Central 2021

We'll see.


Year in Search Central 2021

Traditionally, you folks have been doing a lot of events.


Year in Search Central 2021

And I thought I had a better idea than most of the other online events out there.


Year in Search Central 2021

I did not.


Year in Search Central 2021

So that, as far as I can tell, the event was called Search Central Live.


Year in Search Central 2021

And it was the three of us having a chat and a panel with Danny.


Year in Search Central 2021

And we had a guest speaker, Christina Azarenko.


Year in Search Central 2021

And I think the guest speaker case study thing, that worked really well.


Year in Search Central 2021

So I'm looking forward to try that again in a different format somehow,


Year in Search Central 2021

somewhere.


Year in Search Central 2021

We'll see how that goes this year.


Year in Search Central 2021

But the rest of the event, I wasn't super happy with.


Year in Search Central 2021

And I think people liked it.


Year in Search Central 2021

Tell me in the comments if you disagree with this


Year in Search Central 2021

or if you agree with this for that matter.


Year in Search Central 2021

But I think we didn't get much value out of it from our perspective.


Year in Search Central 2021

We did another virtual unconference.


Year in Search Central 2021

That was awesome.


Year in Search Central 2021

It worked really, really well.


Year in Search Central 2021

So this year, we want to do more unconferences


Year in Search Central 2021

or virtual unconferences for sure, maybe an unconference in person.


Year in Search Central 2021

Who knows about that?


Year in Search Central 2021

We also want to do more local and small events


Year in Search Central 2021

because I still don't feel good about getting many people in.


Year in Search Central 2021

I tried that in December.


Year in Search Central 2021

We had to cancel the event because the COVID numbers conveniently


Year in Search Central 2021

started to go up drastically, like a week before the event.


Year in Search Central 2021

So that didn't happen.


Year in Search Central 2021

I was at one in-person event in August because it was in Zurich.


Year in Search Central 2021

And I knew the organizers because I used to co-organize the event.


Year in Search Central 2021

And I trusted them.


Year in Search Central 2021

It felt good but also really, really weird.


Year in Search Central 2021

I do miss in-person events a lot.


Year in Search Central 2021

And having been to one in-person event, that has been great.


Year in Search Central 2021

But it has also felt strange because everyone


Year in Search Central 2021

forgot how to interact with large groups of people.


Year in Search Central 2021

And I felt very, very drained afterwards.


Year in Search Central 2021

On the point that you made about the COVID numbers rapidly raising,


Year in Search Central 2021

spiking right before the event, that was my problem as well.


Year in Search Central 2021

I tried to.


Year in Search Central 2021

I generally don't do online events because I don't like them


Year in Search Central 2021

and I don't want to do them.


Year in Search Central 2021

But I got really excited about this event in Benelux


Year in Search Central 2021

in Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg.


Year in Search Central 2021

And I really wanted to go.


Year in Search Central 2021

And then literally a week before, our COVID numbers went nuts.


Year in Search Central 2021

And suddenly, our situation changed


Year in Search Central 2021

and we couldn't go anymore.


Year in Search Central 2021

And that was a big bummer.


Year in Search Central 2021

But I really wanted to be there and see people's faces


Year in Search Central 2021

and interact with them.


Year in Search Central 2021

But I kind of feel like it will be much weirder than it was


Year in Search Central 2021

because I imagine that everyone will have to be in a mask,


Year in Search Central 2021

for example.


Year in Search Central 2021

You have to distance yourself from people.


Year in Search Central 2021

You have to queue in very specific ways.


Year in Search Central 2021

So I don't know.


Year in Search Central 2021

Do I want to go back to those kind of events or not?


Year in Search Central 2021

Yeah.


Year in Search Central 2021

It's like if you do a few months of online events,


Year in Search Central 2021

then you kind of still have a connection


Year in Search Central 2021

to all of the in-person things.


Year in Search Central 2021

But now it's been, I don't know, two years, more or less.


Year in Search Central 2021

It's like, I don't know.


Year in Search Central 2021

It's almost like learning how to socialize again.


Year in Search Central 2021

And it's like, there are these people.


Year in Search Central 2021

And they know you.


Year in Search Central 2021

And they would like to take a photo next to you.


Year in Search Central 2021

And you're like, uh, I don't know.


Year in Search Central 2021

I think that'll be kind of challenging.


Year in Search Central 2021

But on the other hand, even just being


Year in Search Central 2021

able to go back to the office every now and then


Year in Search Central 2021

and seeing people in person that you've worked with,


Year in Search Central 2021

I found that really, really valuable.


Year in Search Central 2021

And I don't know.


Year in Search Central 2021

That was, at least the few times that I went,


Year in Search Central 2021

I found that really energizing.


Year in Search Central 2021

And seeing people in person, being able to chat in person,


Year in Search Central 2021

and not having to do kind of this video back and forth


Year in Search Central 2021

where it's like, well, you see them.


Year in Search Central 2021

But it's like, they might as well be virtual reality


Year in Search Central 2021

or you don't really know.


Year in Search Central 2021

MARTIN SPLITTENBERG


Year in Search Central 2021

Conversations just unfold very, very differently


Year in Search Central 2021

when you're in person.


Year in Search Central 2021

And I really enjoyed that in the office.


Year in Search Central 2021

And I really, really miss that.


Year in Search Central 2021

Even at large events like Google IO or Chrome Dev Summit,


Year in Search Central 2021

these have been immensely useful, at least to me.


Year in Search Central 2021

And I do miss it.


Year in Search Central 2021

I don't know.


Year in Search Central 2021

People call it the hallway track.


Year in Search Central 2021

When you have a big event and you


Year in Search Central 2021

have different tracks going on, you


Year in Search Central 2021

have the hallway track where you kind of meet people


Year in Search Central 2021

in the hallway and you chat and you discuss things.


Year in Search Central 2021

And they tell you all of the things that are broken with Google


Year in Search Central 2021

and you take lots of notes and pass those on to the team


Year in Search Central 2021

afterwards.


Year in Search Central 2021

So that's, I don't know.


Year in Search Central 2021

It feels like that part is still kind of missing, even


Year in Search Central 2021

with online events, which is kind of weird because, I don't


Year in Search Central 2021

know, it's like two years practice.


Year in Search Central 2021

You'd think someone would have figured out


Year in Search Central 2021

how people can discuss things in kind of a less formal way.


Year in Search Central 2021

I mean, that's precisely why I have started the virtual conferences


Year in Search Central 2021

where we don't record the events.


Year in Search Central 2021

There are small groups of people in a discussion.


Year in Search Central 2021

And I got a lot of heat for it.


Year in Search Central 2021

It was like, oh, why don't you record this


Year in Search Central 2021

and upload the recording?


Year in Search Central 2021

Because then people won't be so open,


Year in Search Central 2021

won't be so direct in what they say


Year in Search Central 2021

and share with the group.


Year in Search Central 2021

And why can't we have unlimited number of participants?


Year in Search Central 2021

Well, because a group discussion with 1,000 people


Year in Search Central 2021

is not a group discussion.


Year in Search Central 2021

And even just knowing that there's a lot of people lurking


Year in Search Central 2021

and listening quietly in the background


Year in Search Central 2021

just changes the dynamic of the conversations


Year in Search Central 2021

that are being had.


Year in Search Central 2021

So while they are not perfect and why


Year in Search Central 2021

they have lots of limitations and are quite a bit of effort


Year in Search Central 2021

to pull off, I'm very, very happy that we have those.


Year in Search Central 2021

But they are still not a replacement


Year in Search Central 2021

for the real hallway track.


Year in Search Central 2021

Yeah, I do that with my office hours


Year in Search Central 2021

as well, where I have the first part is recorded.


Year in Search Central 2021

And usually, people still have more questions at the end


Year in Search Central 2021

anyway.


Year in Search Central 2021

So I stop the recording and make it


Year in Search Central 2021

so that it's a reasonable size for YouTube.


Year in Search Central 2021

But the whole dynamic changes as soon as you stop the recording.


Year in Search Central 2021

It's like, I don't know, people lose a lot of the stress.


Year in Search Central 2021

And it's a lot easier to talk about specific issues.


Year in Search Central 2021

And I don't know, it feels a little bit more


Year in Search Central 2021

like a hallway track.


Year in Search Central 2021

But it's still not the same thing.


Year in Search Central 2021

It's just, I don't know, virtual is just so different.


Year in Search Central 2021

What do you think about bigger events in general?


Year in Search Central 2021

Like you mentioned the event in the beginning


Year in Search Central 2021

that you had planned didn't go quite as well.


Year in Search Central 2021

And it seems like the other big events from Google side


Year in Search Central 2021

have kind of shrunk a little bit and also


Year in Search Central 2021

focused a little bit more.


Year in Search Central 2021

Do you think even in-person big events at some point


Year in Search Central 2021

will come back?


Year in Search Central 2021

Or will it be like, well, people just


Year in Search Central 2021

go to big events to meet other people,


Year in Search Central 2021

not to actually listen to keynotes?


Year in Search Central 2021

That's a really good question.