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Demystifying SEO for developers

Search Off the Record

Release Date: 06/26/2025

How does CSS affect SEO? show art How does CSS affect SEO?

Search Off the Record

Martin and John dive into the world of CSS and explore its connection to SEO. Discover why CSS files matter for SEO, how modern CSS frameworks impact pages, and the SEO implications of CSS class names and pseudo elements. Moreover, learn practical tips for ensuring your CSS enhances - rather than hinders - your website's search performance. Resources:  Episode transcript →   Chapters: 0:00 - Introduction 0:56 - What is CSS? 1:37 - CSS file crawlability 3:52 - CSS flexibility and power 4:55 - Website and CSS growth 5:43 - CSS file size 9:15 - CSS class names and SEO 10:51 -...

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SOTR096_Transcript.pdf show art SOTR096_Transcript.pdf

Search Off the Record

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SEO for small businesses show art SEO for small businesses

Search Off the Record

Are you a developer or small business owner struggling with Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? In this episode of Search Off the Record, Google Search Advocates John Mueller and Martin Splitt break down the essentials of SEO for small businesses. Learn practical tips for understanding your target audience, crafting a content strategy, and measuring your SEO efforts. They debunk SEO myths and explain when it's time to hire an SEO expert or agency. Get clarity on content strategy, technical SEO basics, the importance of relevant content and how to measure success. This video is perfect for...

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SOTR095_Transcript.pdf show art SOTR095_Transcript.pdf

Search Off the Record

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Demystifying SEO for developers show art Demystifying SEO for developers

Search Off the Record

Developers often have misconceptions about SEO. In this episode of Search Off the Record, John Mueller and Martin Splitt clarify what matters and what doesn't. They cover areas including: Optimizing themes for SEO, The indexing API, and common HTML mistakes. This podcast delivers essential knowledge for developers to enhance their SEO strategies and avoid common pitfalls. Resources:  Episode transcript →  Chapters: 0:00 - Intro to SEO misconceptions 0:15 - Why developers should care about SEO? 0:59 - Technical vs non-technical SEO 4:38 - The importance of naming things 6:03 - Title...

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SOTR094_Transcript.pdf show art SOTR094_Transcript.pdf

Search Off the Record

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What SEOs should know about devs show art What SEOs should know about devs

Search Off the Record

In this candid episode of Search Off the Record, Gary Illyes and Martin Splitt from the Google Search team peel back the curtain to reveal a more human side of their work and challenges. Instead of diving deep into technical concepts, they reflect on their personal journeys—touching on everything from public speaking nerves to building empathy between developers and SEOs. Through playful banter and thoughtful commentary, they share how communication, context, and curiosity play vital roles in their day-to-day roles, both internally at Google and in the broader web ecosystem. The conversation...

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SOTR093_Transcript.pdf show art SOTR093_Transcript.pdf

Search Off the Record

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How Googlebot crawls the web show art How Googlebot crawls the web

Search Off the Record

In this episode of Search Off the Record, Martin and Gary from the Google Search Relations team take a deep dive into how Googlebot and web crawling work—past, present, and future. Through their humorous and thoughtful conversation, they explore how crawling evolved from the early days of the internet, when scripts could index a chunk of the web from a single homepage, to the more complex and considerate systems used today. They discuss the basics of what a crawler is, how tools like cURL or Wget relate, and how policies like robots.txt ensure crawlers play nice with web infrastructure....

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SOTR092_Transcript.pdf show art SOTR092_Transcript.pdf

Search Off the Record

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More Episodes

Developers often have misconceptions about SEO. In this episode of Search Off the Record, John Mueller and Martin Splitt clarify what matters and what doesn't. They cover areas including: Optimizing themes for SEO, The indexing API, and common HTML mistakes. This podcast delivers essential knowledge for developers to enhance their SEO strategies and avoid common pitfalls.

Resources: 

Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr094-transcript

Chapters:
0:00 - Intro to SEO misconceptions
0:15 - Why developers should care about SEO?
0:59 - Technical vs non-technical SEO
4:38 - The importance of naming things
6:03 - Title and Meta Description
7:31 - Is bad Html bad for SEO?
12:43 - Core Web Vitals
17:22 - Javascript SEO
27:00 - Google APIs and SEO
27:42 - Google Search algorithm
31:32 - What about Html comments?
31:58 - Themes and SEO
32:13 - How to reach out to Martin
32:57 - Wrap up

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.

#SOTRpodcast #SEO

Speaker: Martin Splitt, Gary Illyes
Products Mentioned: Search Console,