[AUDIO LOGO]
JOHN MUELLER: Hi, everyone.
And welcome back to the Google Search News.
I hope life is treating you reasonably well wherever
you are.
December is here.
And, as you can see, we're back to recording in a studio.
It's been challenging but fun to record at home.
I hope you enjoy these from the studio as well.
This time we're doing things a little bit differently.
I'm joined by Lizzi to help deliver the updates.
LIZZI SASSMAN: Thanks for having me.
So what are we going to talk about today?
JOHN MUELLER: Well, today, there's
an update about revamped Search guidelines,
site names, our ranking systems, and more.
And now, here to talk about Search guidelines-- here
is Lizzi, our technical writer who worked on these.
LIZZI SASSMAN: Well, the biggest news today
is the revamp of Google's Webmaster Guidelines
as the Search Essentials.
The Search Essentials start off with
the technical requirements, which are minimal.
These are followed by the spam policies covering
various things to avoid.
They include new sections for misleading functionality, scam,
fraud, and copyright and harassment removals.
The search essentials also include a limited set
of key best practices for Search.
If you're making websites for Google Search,
the Search Essentials are, well, essential.
And now back to John, who's going
to tell us about site names.
JOHN MUELLER: We recently launched
a new way of showing site names in the search results.
Site names make it easier to identify your website.
The change makes site names much more visible
while giving your page's title link a little bit more space.
This feature is currently available on mobile
in a specific set of languages.
Your site may already be using the appropriate structure data.
Read our documentation to find out more.
Also, with this change, your site's favicon icon
may be more noticeable.
So it's good to double-check that too.
I've been seeing a lot about ranking updates.
Can you tell us more, Lizzi?
LIZZI SASSMAN: Ranking third in this episode
is the Google Search ranking systems documentation.
We've talked about ranking updates before.
And what good is an update without the system
that's being updated?
So now there is a guide to Google Search's
ranking systems.
The guide covers over 20 systems, including
some that are retired.
Was it Panda or Penguin which looked at links?
You can find out here.
It's also a great reference if you write about Google systems.
Feel free to link to those specific sections.
In addition to the ranking systems guide,
we have a list of ranking updates.
The list includes dates for the rollout and completion
of each update.
It helps you to double-check changes on Google's side
when you see changes on your site's performance.
And finally, we have detailed documentation on newer systems,
like for helpful content and product reviews.
We do realize that change is hard.
So we do our best to let you know about these updates.
It's important that you have the information
you need to be successful with Google Search.
For more input on changes affecting your website,
I recommend the Search Central Help Community.
And if there's anything unclear in the documentation,
feel free to send us feedback.
And now over to the external world of SEO.
JOHN MUELLER: It's always inspiring to see what people
in the community are up to.
This time, it's a video series by Shelley Walsh
that features interviews with people
from the early days of SEO.
Making websites that worked well on search engines
was different when there were fewer websites, fewer
guidelines, and when search engines were
less sophisticated.
There's a video with me in there too,
but I've found them all fascinating so far.
Check out Shelley's videos, and give her a thumbs-up
for the work put into these.
And if you're nostalgic for Webmaster Tools,
we had Vanessa Fox as a guest in the "Search Off the Record"
podcast.
Vanessa managed the first Search Console team back
when it was called Webmaster Tools.
We had a fun time, so take a listen.
We're now almost at the end.
Stay tuned for a few short updates.
On the Search Central Blog, we published a deep dive
into Search Console's data filtering and limits.
The reports have a lot of data, but what do they mean?
If you like numbers, check it out.
LIZZI SASSMAN: On our YouTube channel,
we launched a new series called "SEO Fairytales" with guests
from the industry explaining how they solved tricky problems.
It's fun and insightful.
Also on the YouTube channel, we published an interactive video
about the right to be forgotten.
It's fun and worth trying out.
JOHN MUELLER: And if you want even more,
the team has been back at events around the world.
We were recently in the UK, Austria, Barcelona, and even
Singapore.
For more on the upcoming events, the calendar
is in our Search documentation.
And that's it for this episode.
Thank you for tuning in to the Google Search News.
And thank you for joining us here, Lizzi.
LIZZI SASSMAN: Thanks for having me.
JOHN MUELLER: I hope this video is useful and entertaining.
Please add your feedback and comments here.
We read them all.
If you subscribe to this channel,
we'll make sure to let when another episode is ready.
Bye!
LIZZI SASSMAN: Bye!
JOHN MUELLER: Take four, I think.
Hey, snowman, you look just like Santa.
We have updates about ranking updates
and ranking about updates.
Nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom.
LIZZI SASSMAN: Bye!