SEO Mythbusting by Google

[HTMLBasicTutor]

Google has started a series of SEO myth busting videos on YouTube.

[HTMLBasicTutor]

Introduction - basics of SEO

In this first - introductory - episode of SEO Mythbusting, Martin Splitt (WebMaster Trends Analyst, Google) and his guest Juan Herrera (Angular GDE, Wed Developer at Parkside) discuss the very basics of SEO such as:
What is a search engine? (0:57)
What is crawling? (1:32)
How does Google determine which search results are relevant for which users? (2:51)
What are the top 3 things I should do to make my website discoverable? (3:17)
Why is it important for a website to appear in the top search results? (7:52)

In the future episodes of SEO Mythbusting, look forward to more advanced topics such as SEO & Googlebot, SEO & JavaScript, SEO & Web Performance, SEO & Web Frameworks, and SEO & Future of the Web.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrIwTzUTEGs
May 15, 2019

[HTMLBasicTutor]

Information about Googlebot

In the second episode of SEO Mythbusting, Martin Splitt (WebMaster Trends Analyst, Google) and his guest Suz Hinton (Cloud Developer Advocate, Microsoft) discuss the many intricacies of Googlebot such as:

What is - and what is not - Googlebot (crawling, indexing, ranking) (1:02)
Does Googlebot behave like a web browser? (3:33)
How often does Googlebot crawl, how much does it crawl, and how much can a server bear? (4:03)
Crawlers & JavaScript-based websites (9:04)
How do you tell that it’s Googlebot visiting your site? (11:12)
The difference between mobile-first indexing and mobile friendliness (12:2
Quality indicators for ranking (13:35)

Documentation mentioned in this episode:
What Crawl Budget Means for Googlebot → https://goo.gle/crawl-budget
Google crawlers (user agents) - see which robots Google uses to crawl the web → https://goo.gle/googlebot-useragents
Implement dynamic rendering → https://goo.gle/dynamic-rendering
Prepare for mobile-first indexing → https://goo.gle/mobile-first-indexing

In the future episodes of SEO Mythbusting, look forward to more topics such as SEO & JavaScript, SEO & Web Performance, SEO & Web Frameworks, and SEO & Future of the Web.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QeU97wWomQ
May 22, 2019

[HTMLBasicTutor]

In this bonus material from the filming of last week’s episode (Googlebot: SEO Mythbusting), Martin Splitt (WebMaster Trends Analyst, Google) and his guest Suz Hinton (Cloud Developer Advocate, Microsoft) dive into the topic of “new microformats”: structured data!


Documentation mentioned in this episode:
Intro to structured data → goo.gle/structured-data-intro
Overview of supported structured data in Google Search → goo.gle/search-gallery
Structured data testing tool → https://goo.gle/2K9rTo5
Rich results rest → https://goo.gle/30SEWA3
Rich result status reports → goo.gle/rich-results-report

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je6G4IUYcGI
May 29, 2019

[HTMLBasicTutor]

Mythbusting SEO and JavaScript

In this third episode of SEO Mythbusting, Martin Splitt (WebMaster Trends Analyst, Google) and his guest Jamie Alberico (SEO Product Manager, Arrow Electronics) discuss the issues of JavaScript in the context of SEO, such as:
Where do misconceptions about SEO & JavaScript come from? (0:00)
Is JavaScript the devil ? (1:56)
Lazy loading in search (5:11)
Ajax, SEO, and crawl budget (5:36)
Googlebot & JavaScript (8:21)
Is pre-render always the best solution? (10:4
What are the user benefits of implementing JavaScript SEO well? (12:3
What should SEOs look for in a website solution stack? (13:33)
Recommended testing tools for JavaScript SEO (15:10)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZtCgrpa6ss
Jun 6, 2019

[HTMLBasicTutor]

This episode of SEO mythbusting includes web performance and usability.

In this fourth episode of SEO Mythbusting, Martin Splitt (WebMaster Trends Analyst, Google) and his guest Ada Rose Cannon (Web Developer Advocate, Samsung) discuss the issues of web performance and usability, such as:
The mobile web & the web on low-end devices (1:21)
Performance metrics as a ranking factor for search results (2:17)
How does Google communicate up-to-date SEO metrics to SEOs/SEO companies/web developers? (3:31)
JavaScript sites - ranking, indexing, and performance (5:09)
Is it more SEO-friendly to rely on modern, semantic HTML and CSS rather than JavaScript? (7:20)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prmrFlaDtMg
Jun 12, 2019

[HTMLBasicTutor]

Challenges of web frameworks in context of SEO:

In this fifth episode of SEO Mythbusting, Martin Splitt (WebMaster Trends Analyst, Google) and his guest Jason Miller (Sr. Web Developer Programs Engineer, Google) discuss the challenges of web frameworks in the context of SEO, such as:
Do search engines run JavaScript? (1:2
How to debug your site’s discoverability issues with the new Google Search Console features? (2:39)
Which features can one count on being available in the Google crawlers? (4:17)
For websites built using web frameworks, does Google Search pick up on push-dates, and under what conditions? (5:10)
Is content accessible by onclick event handlers & buttons indexable? (7:30)
How can you make your content easily discoverable if you use infinite scrolling? (9:45)
SEO troubleshooting for websites driven by web workers (11:06)
Is there much of a difference between framework sizes and approaches for how those get crawled? (12:39)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU_ZaO35w0U
Jun 27, 2019

[HTMLBasicTutor]

Final episode of SEO mythbusting - what technical SEO might look like as things keep evolving:

In this final episode of SEO Mythbusting, Martin Splitt (WebMaster Trends Analyst, Google) and his guest Dion Almaer (Director, Web Dev Ecosystem, Google) discuss what technical SEO might look like as the web keeps evolving, such as:
The same content in multiple versions, PWA/desktop site/AMP/etc. vs Google Search and SEO (2:19)
Current & future web & SEO tool integration (Google & third parties) (4:50)
The “unknown” variables & search performance (7:32)
Are web components and virtual scroller compatible with SEO? (10:06)
The future of assistants, and semantic & structured data (12:3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3eysnid0Sk
Jul 3, 2019