Wrapping up 2024
Search Off the Record
As 2024 comes to a close, we're reflecting on what SEO things happened this year. Listen along as we chat about what we learned from going to events, the importance of understanding how AI works, and whether everything will be replaced with JavaScript. Resources: Episode transcript → Encoding + Googlebot → Listen to more Search Off the Record → Subscribe to Google Search Channel → l Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.
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Handling Dupes - Same Same or Different?
Search Off the Record
In this episode of Search Off the Record, John and Martin talk to Allan Scott from the Google Search team that handles duplicate content. They explore how Google Search deals with duplicated content, clustering, and canonicalization. Resources: Episode transcript → Listen to more Search Off the Record → https://goo.gle/sotr-yt Subscribe to Google Search Channel → Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team. #SOTRpodcast #SEO Speakers: Allan Scott, John Mueller, Martin...
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A discussion of UX for SEO
Search Off the Record
In this episode of Search Off the Record, Lizzi and John are joined by Rio Ichikawa, a product manager working on UX, CRO, and SEO, to discuss the intersection of SEO and UX. They explore how user experience impacts SEO, emphasizing the shared goals of attracting and converting users. Tune in for a discussion on common UX mistakes - like carousels - and how heatmaps can be a valuable tool for understanding user behavior and optimizing web pages for better engagement and conversion rates. Resources: Episode transcript → Transcript in Japanese by Rio → Rio on X/Twitter ...
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Understanding how users experience your website
Search Off the Record
Sometimes talking to your users is the best way to figure out why that pesky bounce rate is high. But how do you actually do that, especially if you're on a budget? In this episode of Search Off the Record, we're learning all about user experience research (UXR) and how getting a better understanding of how your users interact with your website can help when you're looking for ways to improve it. Tune in as Iva Barisic Hafner, a user experience researcher on the Google Shopping team, explains how to use UXR methods to get to the bottom of the "why" behind user behavior. ...
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Designing Google Doodles and delightful experiences
Search Off the Record
What does recursion, Weather Frog, and Momo the Magic Cat have in common? In this episode of SOTR, Lizzi and John go behind the scenes of a Google Doodle with Jessica Yu, the lead for Doodles and delight on Google Search, about designing experiences that resonate with your audience. Listen along as we learn more about what's involved in getting an easter egg into Google Search, from hatching the idea to designing (and deploying) the experience and measuring success. Resources: Episode transcript → Jessica Yu on LinkedIn → Momo's first appearance → Submitting an...
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Google Search Reliability
Search Off the Record
In this episode of Search Off the Record, Ben Walton and David Yule from the Google Search Site Reliability Team (SRE) walk us through their day to day work, which surprisingly is not just about putting out fires! Learn what Search SREs really do, how they handle incidents that occasionally occur, and what it takes to be an SRE for Google Search. Resources: Episode transcript → SRE handbook → David on LinkedIn → Ben on LinkedIn → Listen to more Search Off the Record → Subscribe to Google Search Channel → Search Off the Record is a podcast series...
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How do I know if my SEO is doing a good job?
Search Off the Record
It's been a few months since you hired an SEO; how can you tell if things are headed in the right direction? In this episode of Search Off the Record, Lizzi and John interview Erika Varangouli, head of Branded Content at Riverside.fm, about all things hiring and working with SEOs. Just because uplift isn't happening doesn't mean they're not doing work; we walk through practical things to check throughout the process, such as how things are prioritized, is there regular reporting, and proactive communication around things that don't go as planned. Resources: Episode...
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Let's talk shopping markup
Search Off the Record
In this episode of Search Off the Record, Irina Tuduce from the shopping team joins John Mueller and Lizzi Sassman to chat all things shopping data, from schema.org to feeds spec. Listen along as we chat about how shopping infrastructure gets its data, why pricing data can be tricky, and what the Shopping team has been working on this year. Resources: Episode transcript → Irina Tuduce on LinkedIn → Product structured data → Feed spec in Merchant Center → How to set up Merchant Center account → Merchant-level organization markup → Schema.org community on GitHub → ...
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Working With Search Console API
Search Off the Record
We sat down with Mihai Aperghis, a Google Product Expert (PE) for Search, when he visited the Zurich office for the PE Summit this year. In this episode we talk about how he started his SEO agency, the tools he built, and his role as a Product Expert in the Search Central Help Community. Mihai explains how he built tooling to get data from Search Console into Google Sheets and how he automated this process as well as what features he'd like to see coming to the Search Console API. Resources: Episode transcript → Mihai on X → Mihai's tools → Mihai's recap of the PE Summit → Search...
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Crawling smarter, not harder
Search Off the Record
In this episode of SOTR, John Mueller, Lizzi Sassman, and Gary Illyes talk about misconceptions around crawl frequency and site quality, what's challenging about crawling the web nowadays, and how search engines could crawl more efficiently. Resources: Episode transcript → Gary's post on LinkedIn → Crawling episode with Dave Smart → If-Modified-Since → About the IETF → Robots Exclusion Protocol → Proposal for new kind of chunked transfer → Listen to more Search Off the Record → https://goo.gle/sotr-yt Subscribe to Google Search...
info_outlineWhat does recursion, Weather Frog, and Momo the Magic Cat have in common?
In this episode of SOTR, Lizzi and John go behind the scenes of a Google Doodle with Jessica Yu, the lead for Doodles and delight on Google Search, about designing experiences that resonate with your audience. Listen along as we learn more about what's involved in getting an easter egg into Google Search, from hatching the idea to designing (and deploying) the experience and measuring success.
Resources:
Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr084-transcript
Jessica Yu on LinkedIn → https://goo.gle/3BKgSq1
Momo's first appearance → https://goo.gle/3UbGgeC
Submitting an idea for the Google Doodle → https://goo.gle/3A04stC
AVIF is now supported by Google → https://goo.gle/3NrwhhK
Listen to more Search Off the Record → https://goo.gle/sotr-yt
Subscribe to Google Search Channel → https://goo.gle/SearchCentral
Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.