[MUSIC PLAYING]
JOHN MUELLER: Hi, everyone.
And welcome back to the Google Search News series.
I hope life is treating you reasonably well,
wherever you are.
I'm your host today, John Mueller.
Here from home, again, in reasonably sunny Switzerland.
With this show, we want to give you
a regular summary of what's been happening around Google Search,
specifically for webmasters, publishers, and SEOs.
If you find these useful, which I hope you do,
and if you'd like to stay up to date,
make sure you subscribe to the channel.
It's been a bit since our last update.
It turns out that times like these
can be pretty challenging.
So regardless of where you are and of how the situation is
in your region, I hope that you, your family, friends,
and co-workers are all doing well.
And now, without further ado, let's
move on to the recent Google Search news.
Today we'll take a look at Web Stories,
an upcoming ranking factor, structured data updates,
and more.
Keep playing the video.
Let's check it out.
Let's start with Web Stories, an exciting and somewhat
new approach to content on the web.
The Web Stories format is a neat way
to create high-quality, bite-sized informational
content directly on your own website.
It's easy for users to view them and to move onto your website.
Like other parts of your website,
they're under your control.
You can monetize them, and they can show up in Search.
The format is built on AMP so they're normal HTML pages, too.
While Web Stories themselves aren't new,
they're now actively showing in more and more places
like Google Search, Google Images, and Discover.
If you use WordPress, you'll be happy to hear
there's a plugin in development which makes it easier to create
these directly in your own CMS.
The plugin has just been launched as an early beta test.
It's still a bit rough, but it's a fantastic way
to give Stories an early spin.
I've added the links in the description,
if you're curious to find out more.
I find it fascinating to see this new take on public web
content, and I'm sure we'll have more updates
on this topic in the future.
Last episode, we talked about a core web vitals,
a set of foundational metrics for website developers
to help build and improve online user experience.
Now we've announced that they will
be a part of the Page Experience benchmark, a future Google
Search ranking factor.
The Page Experience benchmark uses the core web vitals--
in other words, metrics--
for speed, interactivity, and stability.
It also uses other search signals
such as mobile friendliness, HTTPS security,
and the intrusive interstitial guidelines
to provide a holistic picture.
We've now updated various popular developer tools
like Lighthouse and PageSpeed Insights
to show these metrics, making it easier
to spot and improve web pages.
The thresholds we use for the Page Experience benchmark
are based on high quality user experience
and verified to be achievable with data
from the Chrome User Experience report.
It's not yet decided when we'll start
using these elements as a ranking factor,
but we'll let you know at least six months before we
start using them in Search.
If you want to check your site's performance already,
an overview graph is waiting for you in Google Search Console.
So check that out.
For structured data, we recently announced
some new reports and testable elements,
as well as that were deprecating one of the two testing tools.
Google currently maintains two testing tools
for structured data.
One is a general tool that shows information
about all structured data.
We call it the Structured Data Testing Tool.
The other is specifically to diagnose issues
about what we show in the Search results, which is
called the Rich Results Test.
In the past, these differences have led to confusion,
as there are many ways to implement
structured data without it being shown in Search.
As people usually come to our testing tools
to improve in Google Search, we decided
to focus on the Rich Results Test.
So we're planning to deprecate the general Structured Data
Testing Tool.
Since structured data has been used on the web for many years
now, there are also general third party testing tools
available, which can help folks who want a more general test.
And as always, we continue to listen to feedback
from our users and use that feedback
as input for our future plans.
So if there's something you'd like
to see added to the Rich Results Test, please let us know.
In more structured data news, we're
now showing special announcements,
licensable images, and AMP article markup in the Rich
Results Test.
And in Search Console, we've added reports
for recipe and guided recipe markup, too.
We talked about mobile first indexing last time.
An update there is that we recently
announced a change in the timeline,
extending it to the end of March 2021.
This will give websites a bit more time,
should they need to adjust parts of their pages
for mobile-first indexing.
Together with that, we published a number of best practices
to watch out for.
The link to that is in the description below.
In our Search documentation, we've
expanded the guides for JavaScript sites,
adding information about links, the history API, URL fragments,
and 404 pages.
If you make JavaScript-based sites,
it's worth checking that out.
But wait, there's more.
While we've been working from home for some time,
we're still publishing a number of videos
that we recorded from before social distancing became
common.
For example, there are some cool episodes
of SEO Mythbusting with fantastic guests being
published, such as recent ones about crawl budget
and PageSpeed.
Additionally, we've continued to expand
our Search Off the Record podcast,
where we talk a bit more about what happens
behind the scenes at Google.
And since we're no longer going to physical events,
feel free to come and visit us virtually,
either in our regular SEO office hours,
or at a number of virtual events run by third parties.
No mask is required for virtual events.
There's always more happening around Search
than we can cover here.
If you'd like to stay up-to-date,
subscribe to this channel, check our blog,
and follow us on Twitter.
And that's all for now, folks.
I hope things are well for you and your family,
regardless of where you are.
Thank you for joining us here, and I look forward
to seeing you all again in one of the future episodes
of Google Search News.
If you have any questions or comments,
feel free to add them right here or to reach out
to us on Twitter.
And now, onto the weather.
I know, I know.
What good is a weather report if you can't go outside?
Well, hopefully, that's not the case where you are.
And it's nice to be able to escape outside from time
to time.
At any rate, I hope the information
in this video and the other insights
that we publish help you to make fantastic websites, which
shine regardless of the current SEO weather.
See you next time.