Shows
Musonera Jean Claude's podcastDemystifying SEO for developersDevelopers 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 b...2025-06-2633 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastWhat SEOs should know about devsIn 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 also explores the evolution of Martin’s care...2025-06-1231 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastHow Googlebot Crawls the WebIn 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 in...2025-05-2932 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastDebugging the Internet: HTTP, TCP, and YouIn this episode of Search Off the Record, Gary Illyes and Martin Splitt from the Google Search team dive deep into the foundations of how the web works—specifically HTTP, TCP, UDP, and newer technologies like QUIC and HTTP/3. The two reflect on how even experienced web professionals often overlook or forget the mechanics behind these core protocols, sharing insights through technical discussion, playful banter, and analogies ranging from messenger pigeons to teapots. The conversation spans key concepts like packet transmission, connection handshakes, and the importance of status codes such as 404, 204, and even 418 (“I’m a teapot”). Throughout the conversation, they con...2025-05-1533 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastLaunching Search Central Live Deep DiveIn this episode of Search Off the Record, Google's Martin Splitt, Cherry, and Gary Illyes discuss the exciting expansion of Search Central Live with the introduction of Search Central Live Deep Dive. They share the history of Search Central events, the inspiration behind creating a more advanced, multi-day experience, and how community feedback helped shape the new format. Cherry explains how the Deep Dive events will offer in-depth sessions, practical workshops, and greater opportunities for networking within the Search community across the APAC region. The team also offers a behind-the-scenes look at the complexities of planning international events, from budgeting a...2025-05-0135 min
Musonera Jean Claude's podcastHow are web standards made?Ever wondered how web standards are made? Martin and Gary from Google Search take you behind the scenes of the internet's governing bodies. From the IETF to the W3C, learn about the consensus-driven processes that shape the web. Find out why these standards are crucial for ensuring a consistent and reliable online experience. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr089-transcript 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...2025-04-1744 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastWrapping up 2024As 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 → https://goo.gle/sotr088-transcript Encoding + Googlebot → https://goo.gle/4iZEKXO 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.2024-12-3037 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastHandling Dupes - Same Same or Different?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 → https://goo.gle/sotr087-transcript 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 Speakers: Allan Scott, John Mueller, Martin Splitt Products Mentioned: Search Console - General2024-12-0532 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastA discussion of UX for SEOIn 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 → https://goo.gle/sotr086-transcript Rio on X/Twitter → https://goo.gle/4eAOjJz Rio on...2024-11-2131 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastUnderstanding how users experience your websiteSometimes 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 "w...2024-10-3137 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastDesigning Google Doodles and delightful experiencesWhat 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/3UbGg...2024-10-1731 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastGoogle Search ReliabilityIn 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 → https://goo.gle/sotr083 SRE handbook → https://goo.gle/3XSbVUF David on LinkedIn → https://goo.gle/3XQKavR Ben on LinkedIn → https://goo.gle/4ewAkEX Listen to more Search Off the Record → https://goo.gle/sotr-yt Subscribe to...2024-10-0336 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastHow do I know if my SEO is doing a good job?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 transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr082-transcript John's...2024-09-1937 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastLet's talk shopping markupIn 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 → https://goo.gle/sotr081-transcript Irina Tuduce on LinkedIn → https://goo.gle/3Xuiywf Product structured data → https://goo.gle/4eaPJus Feed spec in Merchant Center → https://goo.gle/3Tdl2MU How to set up Merchant Center account →...2024-09-0528 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastWorking With Search Console APIWe 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 → https://goo.gle/sotr080-transcript Mihai on X...2024-08-2229 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastCrawling smarter, not harderIn 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 → https://goo.gle/sotr079-transcript Gary's post on LinkedIn → https://goo.gle/3YAT55q Crawling episode with Dave Smart → https://goo.gle/3WShUsf If-Modified-Since → https://goo.gle/3ywXvja About the IETF → https://goo.gle/3SGVVlo Robots Exclusion Protocol → https://goo.gle/4dgmBSg Proposal for new kind of chunked transfer → https://goo.gle/3AgMF1c Listen to more Search Of...2024-08-0840 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastInternationalization & hreflangManaging websites that use different languages and serve different countries is no easy task. That's why Lizzi, Gary and Martin sat down to talk about all things internationalization, hreflang and what's making managing international, multi-language websites easier. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr078-transcript Docs for international and multilingual sites → https://goo.gle/3WtolAL How x-default can help you → https://goo.gle/3Y8AdKB Web Almanac hreflang usage in 2022 → https://goo.gle/4bKX2Hv Hreflang tags generator by Aleyda Solis → https://goo.gle/4bVRVEI Merkle Hreflang testing tool → https://goo.gle/3WaWbKj Hreflang Builder → https://goo.gle/4cW8fGi Listen to more Se...2024-07-2538 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastRendering JavaScript for Google SearchIn this episode, Zoe Clifford from the rendering team joins Martin and John from Search Relations to talk about how Google Search deals with JavaScript sites, how rendering works and what the mysterious "iteratorect" was. They also discuss what's the DOM, if all pages get rendered, how long it takes and what website owners should look out for when building JavaScript-driven websites. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr077-transcript JavaScript SEO basics → https://goo.gle/3W0XnjB Fixing search-related JavaScript issues → https://goo.gle/3S2bMdY Google I/O 2019 presentation → https://goo.gle/4bCdZ6M Listen to more Search Off the Rec...2024-07-1125 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastInside Search Quality: Using metrics and data science to improve SearchIn this episode of SOTR, Lizzi and John sit down with Elizabeth Tucker to go behind the scenes of Search Quality product management. Listen along as they discuss using data science to measure quality and make improvements, how search behavior is changing over time, and how to think about E-E-A-T and the Search Quality Rater Guidelines. Resources: BERT paper → https://goo.gle/3XroKpe E-E-A-T for site owners → https://goo.gle/4c5E0fQ Search Quality Rater Guidelines → https://goo.gle/3z07OvN Improving Search with Rigorous Testing → https://goo.gle/45x7OQ0 Day in a life of a Search Quality Product...2024-06-2736 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastCosmic Rays & Crawlers: When Google Search is under the weatherHow does Google address incidents that affect Search results, like indexing problems or crawling issues? Join John, Lizzi, and Gary in this episode of Search off the Record as the team discusses internal processes Google uses to detect, investigate, and communicate these incidents to users and website owners. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr075-transcript Google Search Status Dashboard → https://goo.gle/3Vcs9pi Lifecycle of an issue → https://goo.gle/3KsgjCe SRE Playbook's chapter on troubleshooting → https://goo.gle/3V9NPCj Listen to more Search Off the Record → https://goo.gle/sotr-yt Subscribe to Google Search Channel → https://goo.gle/Search...2024-06-0627 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastBuilding SEO community with office hoursIn this episode of Search off the Record, John and Lizzi invite Michael Chidzey and “Jo” Juliana Turnbull to talk all things SEO Office Hours. Listen along as they discuss why they picked this format, whether community building has an impact on SEO, and how you can get involved in this growing community of SEO practitioners. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr074-transcript Join the next Good Signals SEO Office Hours → https://goo.gle/4avilfM Good Signals SEO Office Hours announcements on LinkedIn → https://goo.gle/450vo7F Jo Juliana Turnbull on LinkedIn → https://goo.gle/4bISYbP Jo Juliana Turnbull on X...2024-05-2332 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastWhat is Content Decay?“Content Decay” generally refers to the natural decline in relevance and effectiveness of online content over time due to various factors such as changing trends, evolving audience preferences, or changing search engine algorithms. In this episode of Search Off the Record, Lizzi Sassman and John Mueller discuss the importance of addressing old content to maintain or improve its performance and relevance. Listen along as Lizzi and John discuss content decay’s effect on Google Search results and practical steps to tackle it. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr073-transcript Watch more Search Off the Record → https://goo.gle/sotr-yt Subscribe to...2024-05-0933 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastGemini for Social Posts: Game EditionIn this episode of Search Off the Record, Gary Illyes, Lizzi Sassman, and John Mueller put Large Language Models (LLMs) to the test and compete to create the best social post using generative AI. Listen along as they weigh the pros and cons, assess how accurate the posts are, stumble on some owl facts, and see how Google’s own GenAI tool, Gemini, can be used as a creativity tool. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr072-transcript SEO Starter Guide → https://goo.gle/42alrmy rel=prev/next isn't a signal → https://goo.gle/4aIWz8F Managing Multi-Regional Sites → https://goo.gle/3J3u5e...2024-04-2532 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastDeciphering INP and Core Web VitalsIn this episode of Search Off the Record, John Mueller and Lizzi Sassman are joined by Rick Viscomi from the Chrome Web Performance team to discuss the importance of understanding what users seek to accomplish and optimizing accordingly, rather than focusing solely on metric scores. Listen along as the Search team touches on metrics like Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), and the latest Interaction to Next Paint (INP) as pieces of the pie for a better user experience. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr071-transcript Introducing INP to Core Web Vitals → https://goo.gle/4ar2UW6 Page Ex...2024-03-2835 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastWhat is a web crawler, really?In this episode of Search Off the Record, Gary Illyes and Lizzi Sassman take a deep dive into crawling the web: what is a web crawler, and how does it really work? Listen along as the Search team is joined by an expert web developer in the SEO community, Dave Smart, for an in-depth and technical discussion of all things crawling, and maybe dispel some myths along the way. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr070-transcript Managing your crawl budget → https://goo.gle/3IzRZxl Dave Smart on LinkedIn → https://goo.gle/3wPSuRA Tame the Bots → https://goo.gle/4cfCQ1P Search Ce...2024-03-1430 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastSearch Central Product ExpertsIn this episode of Search Off the Record, John Mueller and Lizzi Sassman sit down with Aaseesh Marina, Product Support Manager, to discuss the Search Central community forums. Did you know there is a group of Product Experts and community members that can help you navigate your SEO questions? Listen along as the Search Team takes a deep dive into the Search Central help community forum and discover why it should be your go-to guide for any SEO help. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr069-transcript Search Central help community → https://goo.gle/3sViTv3 Product Expert program → https://goo.gle/3SL6j...2024-02-2123 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastRewriting the SEO Starter GuideThe SEO Starter Guide is getting a refresh! Have you ever wondered how the Search team plans and writes such a document? In this episode of Search Off the Record, John Mueller, Gary Illyes, and Lizzi Sassman discuss which topics are still relevant, the right level of detail for a starter guide, and whether or not including anti-patterns in documentation is a good idea. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr068-transcript SEO Starter Guide → https://goo.gle/42alrmy SEO Starter Guide: What’s all the drama? → https://goo.gle/4b6ZLMq Let’s pick a domain name → https://goo.gle/3tezc6t S...2024-01-2525 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcast2023: Year in reviewIn this episode of Search, Martin, John, and Gary look back at 2023 and reminisce on some of this year’s Search announcements. From updates to Core Web Vitals to going back to basics of website titling, the team covers a wide range of announcements and updates in the world of SEO. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr067-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team. #SOTRpodcast2023-12-2136 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastWhich aspect of my site should I focus on?In this episode of Search, Martin, Gary, and John discuss aspects of SEO that website owners often overlook. From overall quality to more technical aspects, The Search team talks about where they focus on their SEO work and why the details add up to a better SEO experience. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr066-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team. #SOTRpodcast2023-11-2127 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastFeatures and deprecations on SteveIn this episode of Search, John, Gary, and Martin discuss why the search team adds and removes features on their search engine, Steve. From creating a better user experience to surfacing relevant answers for search queries, maintaining an organized webspace requires continual retooling. Tune into this episode of Search Off the Record to learn about what the team considers when updating their search engine itself! Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr065-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team. #SO...2023-11-0721 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastThe effect of quality on SearchIn this episode of Search, John and Gary discuss the impact of quality on search results. From sitemaps to scheduling and more, the Google Search team talks about how the crawl scheduler tries to predict high-quality versus low-quality results and how that impacts their indexability. Do you need to update your site often or add many links? Tune in and find out on this episode of Search Off the Record! Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr064-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search wi...2023-09-1920 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastEpisode 3 - Musonera Jean Claude's podcast2023-09-0800 min
Musonera Jean Claude's podcastEpisode 2 - Musonera Jean Claude's podcast2023-09-0800 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastIsato2023-09-0800 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastLet's talk ranking updatesThe Google Search algorithm has been updated and panic quickly sets in. In this episode of Search, Martin, John, and Danny help content creators everywhere focus on the value they bring into the digital world. From changing ranking systems to updated documentation, the Google Search team discusses their holistic approach to SEO, ranking, and more! Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr063-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team. #SOTRpodcast2023-08-2234 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastLet’s pick a domain nameA top-level domain (TLD) is the last part of a domain name, after the dot, and identifies the type of organization the domain belongs to, or the country the domain is targeting. Some examples include .com, .org, .ai, .ch, .xyz. In this episode of Search, John, Gary, and Martin help you choose the best top-level domain for you and your website, including price, popularity, and if a custom one makes a difference in search engines. They also touch upon second-level domains, dashes, keywords, their effect on SEO, and more! Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr062-transcript 2023-07-2026 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastWhy is my site not indexed?Martin, John, and Gary discuss the potential reasons why your website or page is not indexed, both from a technical and quality perspective. Learn about the tools and reports available in Google Search Console to help determine why your website is not indexed. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr061-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team. #SOTRpodcast2023-06-2227 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastQ&A: You asked on Linkedin, we answered in hereIn this episode of Search Off the Record, John, Gary, and Martin answer highly sought-after questions left on Gary’s Linkedin post. They share the drawbacks of client-side rendering, how Web3 would affect SEO, and more. Why do 410 response codes show the same as 404s in Search Console? Is it treated differently in the backend? Find out that, and more from how the Search team would rebuild a search engine differently from Google’s to what the team has learned from the billions of search queries it’s received over the years. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr060-t...2023-05-3027 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastStaging and launching a siteIn this episode of Search Off the Record, John, Gary, and Lizzi chat about launching websites. Launching a website can be a nerve-wracking experience, especially staging your website for launch, or if you’re a seasoned website owner and want to stage a new feature. How can you prevent a staging site from becoming indexed? Who are the people having the problem with the staging servers? What is the difference between a site launch and migration? Listen to this podcast episode to find out! Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr059-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that tak...2023-04-0525 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastJavaScript at GoogleIn this episode of Search Off the Record, Googlers Edu Pereda and Pascal Birchler join Martin Splitt to chat in-depth about programming languages, JavaScript and TypeScript. Learn more about the projects they use JavaScript with, why people have strong emotions towards JavaScript, what they like and dislike about the controversial programming language, and more! Has Javascript improved? Is there such a thing as modern JavaScript? Is it possible WebAssembly could replace TypeScript? Listen to find out! Transcript → Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team. #SOTRpodcast #Java...2023-03-2334 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastSearch and Open SourceOn this episode of Search Off the Record, guest Edu Pereda, Engineer at Google joins Martin Splitt and Gary Illyes to chat about Search Open Sourcing projects. Open source is a source code made available for the public to modify and distribute. Learn about the Search open source library projects, requirements in mind when creating open source libraries, why not every library can be open source, and more in this podcast episode! Resources: Episode transcript →https://goo.gle/sotr057-transcript Find us on Twitter → https://goo.gle/3JgUSEB Edu Pereda on Twitter → https://goo.gle/3ZntryE Search Off the Record...2023-03-0828 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastSite moves: Are they getting any easier?With the right resources, site moves or domain changes don’t have to be as hard as we once remember. In this episode of Search Off the Record, join Lizzi, Gary, and John for a chat about site moves. Learn about the different types of site moves, common issues, and how to move your site without harming search ranking results. Find out how site moves affect users and Search, how there could be a drop in traffic, and more. Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr056-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behin...2023-02-2329 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastSearch Console Help CenterIn this episode of Search Off the Record, Josh Cohen, a Tech Writer on the Search Console Team, joins John and Lizzi to chat about the Search Console Help Center. They dive into who drives changes in Search Console, tips for writing feedback, and questions to ask when deciding the right level of information to give in a document. Learn the differences between product and doc issues, not being able to remove content from a website you don't own, and more! Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr053-transcript Search Console Help Center → https://goo.gle/3k34NU5 Search Off the...2023-01-1236 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastYear in review 2022John, Gary, and Lizzi wrap up 2022 by reflecting on projects, events, and past episodes of Search Off the Record. They discuss the most surprising aspect of 2022, updating Search documentation, and much more! Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr055-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team. #SOTRpodcast2022-12-2224 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastSearch Status DashboardOn this episode of Search Off the Record, John, Gary, and Lizzi chat about the Google Search Status Dashboard for incident reporting. They discuss what prompted the dashboard, how this compares to reporting Search incidents on Twitter, and more! Learn how the dashboard can streamline communication between Google and those reporting incidents. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr054-transcript Status Dashboard → https://goo.gle/3Wt80KL How To Use the Dashboard → https://goo.gle/3HvwHls Blog: When indexing goes wrong (2019) → https://goo.gle/3HvwHls Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Goo...2022-12-1423 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastFrom journalism to SEO with Jennifer SleggIn this episode of Search Off the Record, Gary and Lizzi talk with a guest from the larger Search Marketing Community, Jennifer Slegg - an expert on all things Search Engine Marketing, specializing in the Quality Rater's Guidelines and E-A-T. Reminisce about the internet in the early 2000s, hand-coded websites, minimal search results, no ads, and straight-to-the-point content. Jennifer shares her experience transitioning from journalist to Search Marketer, the writing process for her well-known detailed analysis on changes in the Quality Rater's Guidelines, and more! Was there any data available about what people searched for in the early 2000s? What...2022-11-3032 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastLet’s talk redirectsRedirects are a genuine approach to moving something from one place to another. In this episode of Search Off the Record, John and Martin talk about the different types of redirects and which one you may want to use. They share the differences between 301 and 302 redirects, what type of redirects 308 and 307 are, why someone may want to use a JavaScript redirect over a meta refresh-type redirect, and more. They also cover merging and splitting domains, frustrating geo-targeting redirects, and redirects for mobile and desktop. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr052-transcript Search Off the Record is a pod...2022-11-1727 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastLIVE Q&A from brightonSEOJoin John, Lizzi, and guest, Myriam Jessier, SEO Trainer, for a live recording of SOTR from brightonSEO: a conference where SEOs gather to chat, network, and learn about search marketing. In this episode, they answer a bunch of questions hand-picked before the event. They cover topics like which is better: subdomain or subdirectory, to criteria for penalizing backlinks, and the pros and cons to templated content outlines. Learn about adding schema types, image alt, and more! Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr050-transcript brightonSEO website → https://goo.gle/3TVlfm0 Mryiams Jessier’s website → https://goo.gle/3W6iUGU 2022-11-0331 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastSearch Central docs and SEOFind out if Google Search Central implements its SEO best practices and guidelines on its own website and documentation! Hosts John and Lizzi discuss SEO tools, sitemaps, hreflang links, robots.txt, click-through rates, and more. They cover what they’ve implemented, what they are thinking of updating, and what they are passing on. Hear all things link related, categorizing, and working with an external SEO agency during rebranding. Episode transcript → http://goo.gle/sor049-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.2022-10-2030 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastLet's talk image SEODo you want to know how to increase traffic to your website with images? What about making your website more accessible for screen readers with alt text for an image? Our hosts John and Lizzi chat about optimizing for image search. They cover everything from naming your image file, how often Googlebot crawls images, increasing visibility of your page through image search, to improving alt text and image accessibility. Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr048-transcript Google images best practices → https://goo.gle/3CAevUD SEO for Google Images | Search Central Lightning Talks → https://goo.gle/3e76PQo Search Off...2022-10-0633 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastThe early days of Google Search CentralIn this episode of Search Off the Record, Vanessa Fox, a former Google employee, joins hosts John and Lizzi to talk about the early days of Google Search Central (or shall we say, Webmaster Tools). She shares the beginnings of the Sitemaps tool, Webmaster Help group, Webmaster Tools, and more! Resources:Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr047-transcript Our very first blog post, authored by Vanessa Fox → https://goo.gle/3qEM6WM URL Structure guidelines → https://goo.gle/3U3T8BU SEO Compendium → https://goo.gle/3C0RsCn Keylime Toolbox → https://goo.gle/3xIipIn Vanessa Fox...2022-09-2227 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastNon-HTML files on the webJoin hosts Gary and Lizzi for a chat about file types on the web beyond HTML, like PDFs, PowerPoints, and images. We cover issues with all sorts of file types, if you should convert your weird file into HTML, what file types are indexed, and more on non-HTML files. Resources: PDFs in Google search results → https://goo.gle/3RZ16dV Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr046-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team. #SOTRpodcast2022-09-0828 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastPODCAST TRAILER: Welcome to Search Off the RecordWhat is Search Off the Record? Listen to our podcast trailer! Do you geek out about SEO? Are you interested in exploring on-going projects with the people that work on Google Search? Well, look no further! Listen to the Search Off the Record podcast to go behind the scenes of SEO and Google Search, all while having fun and mischief with our hosts from the Search Relations team from Google: Gary Illyes, Lizzi Sassman, John Mueller, and Martin Splitt. Watch the Search Off the Record podcast trailer on YouTube → https://goo.gle/3RmjuNe Listen to Search Off the...2022-09-0101 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastShould I worry about crawl budget?There is a lot of confusion around crawl budget so Martin, Lizzi, and Gary from Search Relations are here to bring clarity for everyone unsure about it. Are you worried about your website not being crawled quickly? Not sure what consumes and wastes your crawl budget? Learn when you should and shouldn’t be worried about your crawl budget. This episode covers misconceptions and frequently asked questions concerning crawl budget. Resources: What Crawl Budget Means for Googlebot → https://goo.gle/3pIwXTM Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr045-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes o...2022-08-2529 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastLet’s talk accessibilityIn this episode of Search Off The Record, guest Danny Farra, UX Interaction Designer at Google, joins Lizzi Sassman to chat about accessibility of websites. We explore how to get started with accessibility, from using a screen reader for the first time to assessing contrast ratio and cognitive accessibility. Listen to this podcast to learn about assisted technology tools like screen readers and more! Resources: Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr044-Transcript Google Accessibility → https://goo.gle/3A5C6LG Danny Farra on LinkedIn → https://goo.gle/3A6OJX6 Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind...2022-08-1133 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastHow do removals work in Google Search, really?In this episode of Search Off the Record, Lizzi Sassman, John Mueller, and Gary Illyes have an insightful conversation around how removals work in Google Search. Specifically, they chat about how Google Search operates when removals are in the mix. How does crawling, indexing, and blocking work in the backend? What really happens at each of these stages when it comes to removals? Listen to this podcast to get a behind-the-scenes look at Google Search Resources: Check out our episode about blocking → https://goo.gle/3P1UWYq Control what you share with Google → https://goo.gle/3oUyoym In-depth guide to how Googl...2022-08-0428 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastHow Barry Schwartz Created RustyBrickIn this episode of Search Off the Record, Lizzi Sassman and Gary Illyes sit down with Barry Schwartz - a search engine connoisseur. Specifically, they explore how Barry runs his online career, balancing RustyBrick and Search Engine Roundtable. We even talk about website development, and the origin story behind RustyBrick - a web construction firm specializing in website development, web page design, SEO optimization, and more! Check out and subscribe to Barry Schwartz’s YouTube channel → https://goo.gle/3z3FCWw Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr042-Transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes...2022-07-1430 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastHow can you block content from Google Search?In this episode of Search Off the Record, we take a look at what it takes to block content from Google Search. Lizzi Sassman, Gary Illyes, and John Mueller chat about the role of robots.txt files and robots meta tags. What roles do they play in crawling and indexing? What other practices can you employ to remove unwanted content from Google Search? Listen to this podcast to discover some useful Search tips and tricks when it comes to barring content. Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr041-Transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the...2022-06-3031 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastLet’s talk about UX and SEOIn this episode of Search Off the Record, Martin Splitt, Gary Illyes, and Lizzi Sassman sit down to talk about user experience and SEO. What is UX? Besides Core Web Vitals, what other things could we try to automatically infer about the user experience of a site? From interstitials to site structure, our team of Search experts sit down and chat about the relationship between UX and SEO. Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr040-Transcript Let’s talk Core Web Vitals video → https://goo.gle/3xyX0k9 Let’s talk Core Web Vitals podcast → https://goo.gle/3xWcQGJ Search Off the Record is a...2022-06-2131 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastA spotlight on SEO and data with Michelle RobbinsIn this episode of Search Off the Record, we talk with Michelle Robbins - a software engineer by trade and member of the Search Marketing community. Lizzi Sassman and Gary Illyes sit down with Michelle to discuss how she got interested in SEO and even talk about data’s relation to SEO. How can data improve your SEO? Moreover, they explore common issues with data: bias, misrepresentation, and correlation vs. causation. Listen to this episode to see where the worlds of data and SEO overlap. Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr039-Transcript Michelle Robbins on Twitter → https://goo.gle/3Nd8jVE Mic...2022-06-0232 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastLet’s talk about Web 3.0With Web 3.0 on the horizon, it’s hard to not talk about the next evolution of the internet. In this episode of Search Off The Record, Martin Splitt, Gary Illyes, and Alan Kent offer up their thoughts about the World Wide Web’s next iteration, and fondly recollect their experiences with older versions of the web. They ponder what people think Web 3.0 is and what it might become. Is it decentralized? Is it crypto? Both or none of that? Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr038-Transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Goog...2022-05-1933 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastLet’s talk sitemapsA sitemap is a file where you provide information about the pages, videos, and other files on your site, and the relationships between them. In this episode of Search Off the Record, we sit down with Gary Illyes, John Mueller, and Lizzi Sassman to discuss all things sitemaps. How do they help with website SEO? What is the future of sitemaps? Listen to this episode to find out! Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr037-Transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.2022-05-0528 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastThe Story of Kenichi SuzukiIn this episode of Search Off The Record, we talk with Kenichi Suzuki, a member of the larger search marketing community. Lizzi Sassman and Gary Illyes talk with Kenichi about his career in SEO, how he got started, and what advice he would give to those just starting out. Listen to this episode to gain valuable insight into the SEO world, and SEO in Japan! Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr036-Transcript Follow Kenichi on Twitter → https://goo.gle/3Li7BoX Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search...2022-04-2628 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastStructured data: What's it all about?In this episode of Search Off The Record, we take a deep dive into structured data. Our hosts Martin Splitt and Lizzi Sassman talk with Ryan Levering, a software engineer at Google, about the importance of structured data, impactful things you can do with it, how Google uses it, and more! If you’re wanting to know the in’s and out’s of structured data, this episode is for you. Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr035-Transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team. full...2022-04-0729 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastDe-SEOing: ants vs πYou did a great job optimizing your site for search; however, it's attracting the wrong traffic from search engines. What are your options to correct this unexpected behavior? In this podcast, Martin Splitt, Gary Illyes, and Lizzi Sassman take a deep dive on how to determine if the search traffic is the correct audience, de-SEOing, and why it's such an interesting subject. Remove a page hosted on your site from Google → https://goo.gle/3JxlGhJ Get videos on Google with schema markup → https://goo.gle/3JwayBn Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr034-Transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast seri...2022-03-2429 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastCats, muffins and more: Videos in SearchLet’s talk about the fascinating and surprising ways search engines index video content. In this podcast, Gary Illyes and Lizzi Sassman chat with Danielle Marshak - Product Manager for Search - about how images, structured data, content protections, and more influence the way search engines surface content. Learn some best practices for surfacing your videos in search! Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr033-Transcript Video indexing best practices → https://goo.gle/3vFuAWg Google's Artificial Brain Learns to Find Cat Videos blog post → https://goo.gle/3Moy4T2 Try out Muffin Films → https://goo.gle/3CdodKZ Search Off the Recor...2022-03-1029 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastThe Story of Aleyda SolisIs there one right path to becoming an SEO? In this episode of Search Off the Record, John Mueller and Gary Illyes speak with Aleyda Solis, a well-known SEO professional. Specifically, they ask her questions about her first website, her path to becoming a professional SEO, and what tips she would give to those who are starting out. Listen to this podcast to gain insight into what it takes to become a professional SEO. Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr032-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search...2022-02-1731 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastBuilding a better website for SteveMaking a website is no easy task, but what if your search engine had guidelines and best practices in place to help you build a better website? Search Advocates Gary Illyes, Martin Splitt, and John Mueller continue their conversation about Steve - their theoretical search engine. From HTML validations to image alt text, they discuss guidelines and practices that affect ranking for your website on this search engine. Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr031-transcript Episode 17 → https://goo.gle/3uoiVup Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search R...2022-02-0333 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastWhat to expect from Search Central in 2022?In this episode, John, Martin, and Gary discuss what is in store for 2022. They talk about voice search, if there is a sustainable way for Googlebot to index and crawl content, webmaster guidelines, and more! Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr030-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.2022-01-2037 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastYear in Search Central 2021In this episode, John, Martin, and Gary wrap up 2021 by reflecting on updates, debates, and events. They discuss the status of JavaScript and Search, bridging the gap between SEOs and developers, core updates, and much more! Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr029-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.2022-01-1134 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastThe past, present, and future of robots.txtIn this episode of Search Off the Record, Gary, Lizzi, and Martin from the Google Search team are joined by special guest David Price, a Product Counsel for Google. They discuss human initiated crawl requests vs. bot initiated crawl requests, the robots.txt file, and more! Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr028-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.2021-12-2153 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastInclusive language in SearchJohn and Martin are joined by guest stars Zineb Ait Bahajji and Bruno Cartoni from Google to talk all about inclusive language. The group discusses principles behind inclusive writing, examples in different languages, how Search handles indexing and ranking for inclusive writing, and more! United Nation - Gender-inclusive language (available in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Chinese) → https://goo.gle/3DsRws4 Inclusive Language (Wikipedia) → https://goo.gle/3ouqZpX European Institute for Gender Equality → https://goo.gle/3Dsxrlx A guide to inclusive language in the workplace → https://goo.gle/3Eyozw1 Google Developer Documentation Style Guide → https://goo.gle/3lIdLUR Ep...2021-12-0725 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastThe Future of SEOIn this episode, John, Martin, and Gary discuss the future of SEO. They talk about the changes they’ve seen in the past decade and anticipate what’s next for SEO. Find out if HTML knowledge will be necessary in the future, if SEO will still be relevant, and more! Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sot026-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.2021-11-1146 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastLet's talk Core Web VitalsJohn and Martin are joined by special guest stars Annie Sullivan and Vivek Sekhar, who work on Core Web Vitals. They discuss the metrics that make up Core Web Vitals, speed and performance of a web page, page experience ranking for larger and smaller companies, and more! Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr025-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.2021-10-2143 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastLet’s talk JavaScriptIn this episode, Martin and Gary discuss JavaScript in great detail. They talk about the origins of JavaScript, how it compares to Java applet, modern replacements, and all the problems that go along with this programming language. Google Search developer site → https://goo.gle/35HtREZ Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr024-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.2021-09-3051 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastSEO Starter Guide: What’s all the drama?In this very special episode, John, Gary, and Lizzi are joined by a guest star Michael Wyszomierski (tech writer for internal apps). Through some dramatic readings they bring the SEO Starter Guide to life and discuss robots.txt, the mobile-friendly test, writing for users, and more. SEO Starter Guide → https://goo.gle/36ZamsL Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr023-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.2021-09-0943 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastMonetized websites, search experiments, and more!John, Martin, and Gary are joined by special guest Aurora Morales from the Trust & Safety Policy Transparency team. They talk about website monetization, publisher policies, how Google runs search experiments and more! Policy Change logs AdSense → https://goo.gle/3zkup0S AdMob → https://goo.gle/3eCMNdF Ad Manager → https://goo.gle/2V27Qzd https://g.co/legal Publisher webinars → https://goo.gle/3eAFhQk Sustainable Monetized Websites → https://goo.gle/smw Google Search developer site → https://goo.gle/35HtREZ Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr022-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behin...2021-08-1942 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastCheese, Web Workers, universal search, and more!John, Martin, and Gary celebrate recording over 20 episodes of the podcast reminiscing about great cheese and guests they want to have on the show. They then dive into how Web Workers work, their dream Swiss German programming language, how different result types are bundled together, and more! Google Search developer site → https://goo.gle/35HtREZ Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr021-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.2021-07-2942 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastTackling web spam, search quality, and more!John, Martin, and Gary are joined by special guest Duy Nguyen from the Search Quality team. They discuss tackling web spam, responding to manual actions, preventing hacks, ranking, and more. Google Search developer site → https://goo.gle/35HtREZ Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr020-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.2021-07-0642 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastGoogle I/O 2021, information retrieval, and more!John, Martin, and Gary discuss this year’s Google I/O and whether its website followed SEO best practices, upcoming events, and, of course, JavaScript. Gary also deep dives into Google’s search engine information retrieval process and why, when searching for a car, you don’t get results for pineapple pizza. Google Search developer site → https://goo.gle/35HtREZ Episode transcript → http://goo.gle/sotr019-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.2021-06-1740 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastSearch Console, JavaScript, serving, and more!In this episode, John, Martin, and Gary are joined by special guest Daniel Waisberg. Daniel talks about the new Search Console Regex feature and how Search Console feature requests are prioritized in general. They also discuss converting a blog to a static site, JavaScript generated content, and serving. Have a listen! Google Search developer site → https://goo.gle/35HtREZ Episode transcript → http://goo.gle/sotr018-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.2021-05-2743 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastWhat if speed was a ranking factor...?In this episode, John, Martin, and Gary discuss Core Web Vitals and start a hypothetical search engine (Steve) to figure out how they would approach speed as a ranking signal and why. Have a listen! Google Search developer site → https://goo.gle/35HtREZ Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr017-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.2021-05-0628 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastHow serving works, hreflang, and more!In this episode, John, Martin, and Gary dive into how serving works, discuss the Search Central Live debugging session, and the surprising complexity of internationalization and hreflang. Have a listen! Synonyms talk → https://goo.gle/2PZA6js Search Central Live → https://goo.gle/3dBm1B8 Google Search developer site → https://goo.gle/35HtREZ Episode transcript → http://goo.gle/sotr016-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.2021-04-1333 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastSearch Central LIVE Q&AThis episode is a recording of the Q&A section of the Search Central LIVE event which took place on Feb 24th, 2021. John, Martin, and Gary answer questions about launching a new site for a local business, algorithm changes, dynamic rendering, AMP, PWAs, title tag length, and more. We apologize for the subpar quality of one of the tracks recorded live. Search Central LIVE → http://goo.gle/SearchCentralLIVE Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr015-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.2021-03-2533 minMusonera Jean Claude's podcastSite Kit, Web Components, shards and more!In this episode, John, Gary, Martin, and special guest Mariya, Product Manager on the Search team, discuss Google’s free WordPress plugin Site Kit, the Swiss army knife of Google products that puts the most relevant of Google’s tools directly in your WordPress admin dashboard. They also dive into web components, indexing shards (or sharks?!), and posting lists. Have a listen! Google Search developer site → https://goo.gle/35HtREZ Episode transcript → http://goo.gle/sotr014-transcript Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.2021-02-2326 min