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JOHN MUELLER: Hi, everyone, and welcome back
to the Google Search News.
I hope life is treating you reasonably well wherever
you are.
I'm your host today, John Mueller, here
from Google Switzerland.
Today, we have some ranking changes, a new API, a change
in analytics, and more.
So ready or not, here we go.
Starting off, we have two ranking changes.
The first is about the page experience ranking factor.
It includes the Core Web Vitals, which
are based on measurements for speed, responsiveness,
and stability as seen by users.
Previously, this was used only on mobile.
Recently, we launched this for desktop users too.
As an aside, this is independent of mobile-first indexing.
We've seen some fantastic progress on the web in regards
to the Core Web Vitals.
Many sites, perhaps also yours, have improved significantly.
I'm looking forward to seeing even more of that.
Another update is about product reviews.
Last year, we expanded our recommendations
for websites that include product reviews.
We recommended focusing on in-depth, authentic,
and high-quality reviews.
Recently, we announced an update that works to better recognize
these for ranking.
This update is rolling out in English,
and we aim to cover more languages over time.
If you're publishing product reviews,
I'd recommend checking out the blog post and the information
link from there.
Even if you're not publishing these,
it may still be worthwhile to check it out.
It can give you a better understanding
of the kind of content that Google's users have found
useful, and perhaps there are some parallels
relevant for your website too.
And now, over to APIs--
we just recently launched a new API for Search Console.
An API is a way that programmers can reuse functionality
from one system in an app of their own.
In this case, it's for the URL inspection feature.
This API allows programs to check
the indexation status of any particular page
on your website.
Among others, it will let you know
if the URL was discovered, crawled, indexed,
and if so, what the selected canonical was.
This is also available to use manually in Search Console.
As an API, it's now possible for other tools
to include this functionality.
Many have already started including it, perhaps even
some that you're using.
Even if you're just using spreadsheets
to track your website, there's a way to integrate it.
And of course, if you like to write code yourself,
we have great documentation for it.
Combine it with other data sources
to make something really fancy.
Check it out or try one of the many tools that
have implemented it.
And now, for something that's not from search
but likely relevant to many of you--
Google Analytics recently announced
that they're stopping data collection for Universal
Analytics next year.
This is one of the more common ways
that people track website metrics.
The newer version, Google Analytics 4,
has been available for a few years now.
While there's still a bit of time,
it can make sense to move to the new setup
and to get used to it early.
There's a lot of documentation and a bunch
of smart folks out there who can help you with the process.
Let us know in the comments if you found a particularly
useful site for GA4.
Moving over to a neat milestone in the community,
recently, Barry Schwartz from Search Engine Roundtable
announced that he had published over 40,000
articles on the topic of SEO.
Barry stays on top of every change at all major search
engines and frequently asks us for more details
when things aren't so clear.
Barry has been doing this, more or less,
since the start of SEO.
His work has truly made a big difference in search engines
in the world of SEO and on websites worldwide.
Thank you, Barry.
But wait, there's still more.
We recently started a blog post series
about using Search Console with Data Studio.
Combining these services allows you
to connect multiple sources of data
and to create fancy dashboards.
Our blog has more.
Another recent update is the launch
of the indexifembedded robots meta tag.
This allows a page to specify whether its content should
be used for indexing in certain situations.
It covers a somewhat unique situation,
so you probably won't run into it often.
If you're using Search Console Insights,
you may have received congratulatory emails.
Who doesn't like to celebrate steps on the path
to more success?
Search Console Insights is specifically
tuned for creators who often don't
need the full functionality of Search Console or analytics.
If you're verified in Search Console,
you will automatically have access to it.
Check out the Google for Creators YouTube
channel for more.
We also recently published a new video series called
SEOs & Devs on our channel.
This series aims to bridge the disconnect between SEOs
and developers by highlighting the intersection of the two
professions.
There's a link to the playlist below.
And finally, even though we're currently still recording
at home, folks from the Search Relations team
are planning to go to a handful of in-person events again.
It's exciting and a bit scary to see folks in person, so say hi
if you see us.
All right.
That's all for now, folks.
Thanks for tuning in to this Google Search News episode.
I hope your year has started off well
and the spring or fall is giving you time to do good things.
If you have any feedback or comments, please let us
know here.
If you subscribe, I'm sure we'll meet again,
perhaps in another episode of the Google Search News.
Bye.
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