Search Off the Record

​Join Martin and Gary as they dive into Search Off the Record's Episode 103, unpacking the 2025 Year-End report on crawling issues. Discover fascinating insights on faceted navigation, action parameters, irrelevant parameters and more, highlighting the biggest challenges faced by web crawlers last year. With humor and expert analysis, this episode reveals critical takeaways for webmasters and SEO professionals. Don't miss valuable tips to enhance your site's crawl efficiency!
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Resources:
URL structure best practices for Google Search → https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/url-structure
 
Crawling December: Faceted navigation →
https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2024/12/crawling-december-faceted-nav
 
Xkcd (programmer humor) →
https://xkcd.com/327/

In this episode, John Mueller and Danny Sullivan continue their conversation about the changing landscape of Search. They discuss the practicalities of hiring an SEO professional in the age of AI: Do you really need one? How do you evaluate them? Danny also shares his thoughts on third-party SEO tools, "domain scores," and why creators shouldn't rush to break their content into "bite-sized chunks" just to please Large Language Models (LLMs).
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 #GoogleSearch

In this episode, John Mueller and Danny Sullivan talk about SEO and the new kids on the block: AIO, GEO and others. Danny shares how these things interact with each other and what he thinks website owners should look for in their content creation and how Google's principles align with the way people use AI and search engines to navigate the web.
 
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.

Celebrate the 100th episode of Search Off the Record with Martin, Lizzi, Cherry, John and Gary as they revisit memorable moments, touching on a bunch of topics. This special episode touches on Google's mobile-first indexing, the intricacies of the Caffeine indexing system, and a deep dive into JavaScript scoping – and hoisting. You'll hear again  about optimizing documentation traffic and the delightful world of Google Doodles. Discover key insights that impact your SEO strategies and web development practices.
Resources: 
Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr100-transcript
Chapters: 
0:00 - Welcome and 100th Episode Intro
2:21 - Lizzi's favorite: SEO starter guide readings
3:01 - Gary on Mobile-First Indexing Importance
3:39 - Revamping the SEO starter guide
5:13 - Meta tags and Google's indexing system
9:11 - Cherry's use of podcasts for work
12:09 - Deep dive into caffeine indexing
13:59 - The mechanics of data conversion in caffeine
16:12 - John's favorite: The magic of Google Doodles
23:30 - JavaScript ccoping and hoisting
25:47 - Optimizing documentation traffic 
29:29 - Conclusion: 100 Episodes of Search Off the Record

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, John Mueller, Cherry Sireetorn Prommawin
Products Mentioned: Search Console

Explore critical aspects of search engine optimization for web content that lives behind a login or paywall. In this episode, Martin and John cover how Googlebot interacts with these pages, the role of paywall structured data, and methods to prevent unintended indexing of private information. Get practical advice on improving your website's visibility and user experience while maintaining data security in Google Search.
Resources: 
Episode transcript →https://goo.gle/sotr099-transcript 
Chapters: 
0:00 - Intro 
0:09 - Navigating SEO for login and paywalled content
2:01 - How Google indexes restricted content
10:51 - Strategies for controlling content visibility
20:54 - Testing and optimizing your site for Search
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, John Mueller 
Products Mentioned: Search Console