Official Google Webmaster Central Blog

Bye Bye Preferred Domain setting

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

As we progress with the migration to the new Search Console experience, we will be saying farewell to one of our settings: preferred domain.

It's common for a website to have the same content on multiple URLs. For example, it might have the same content on http://example.com/ as on https://www.example.com/index.html. To make things easier, when our systems recognize that, we'll pick one URL as the "canonical" for Search. You can still tell us your preference in multiple ways if there's something specific you want us to pick (see paragraph below). But if you don't have a preference, we'll choose the best option we find. Note that with the deprecation we will no longer use any existing Search Console preferred domain configuration.

You can find detailed explanations on how to tell us your preference in the Consolidate duplicate URLs help center article. Here are some of the options available to you:

Use rel=”canonical” link tag on HTML pages
Use rel=”canonical” HTTP header
Use a sitemap
Use 301 redirects for retired URLs

Send us any feedback either through Twitter or our forum.

Posted by Daniel Waisberg, Search Advocate

Webmaster Conference: an event made for you

Monday, June 10, 2019

Over the years we attended hundreds of conferences, we spoke to thousands of webmasters, and recorded hundreds of hours of videos to help web creators find information about how to perform better in Google Search results. Now we'd like to go further: help those who aren't able to travel internationally and access the same information.

Today we're officially announcing the Webmaster Conference, a series of local events around the world. These events are primarily located where it's difficult to access search conferences or information about Google Search, or where there's a specific need for a Search event. For example, if we identify that a region has problems with hacked sites, we may organize an event focusing on that specific topic.

We want web creators to have equal opportunity in Google Search regardless of their language, financial status, gender, location, or any other attribute. The conferences are always free and easily accessible in the region where they're organized, and, based on feedback from the local communities and analyses, they're tailored for the audience that signed up for the events. That means it doesn't matter how much you already know about Google Search; the event you attend will have takeaways tailored to you. The talks will be in the local language, in case of international speakers through interpreters, and we'll do our best to also offer sign language interpretation if requested.

Webmaster Conference Okinawa

The structure of the event varies from region to region. For example, in Okinawa, Japan, we had a wonderful half-day event with novice and advanced web creators where we focused on how to perform better in Google Images. At Webmaster Conference India and Indonesia, that might change and we may focus more on how to create faster websites. We will also host web communities in Europe and North America later this year, so keep an eye out for the announcements!
We will continue attending external events as usual; we are doing these events to complement the existing ones. If you want to learn more about our upcoming events, visit the Webmaster Conference site which we'll update monthly, and follow our blogs and @googlewmc on Twitter!

Posted by Takeaki Kanaya and Gary

A video series on SEO myths for web developers

Thursday, June 06, 2019

the Google Webmasters YouTube channelthis YouTube playlistour Twitter accountPosted by Martin Splitt, friendly web fairy & series host, WTA team

Mobile-First Indexing by default for new domains

Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Over the years since announcing mobile-first indexing - Google's crawling of the web using a smartphone Googlebot - our analysis has shown that new websites are generally ready for this method of crawling. Accordingly, we're happy to announce that mobile-first indexing will be enabled by default for all new, previously unknown to Google Search, websites starting July 1, 2019. It's fantastic to see that new websites are now generally showing users - and search engines - the same content on both mobile and desktop devices!

You can continue to check for mobile-first indexing of your website by using the URL Inspection Tool in Search Console. By looking at a URL on your website there, you'll quickly see how it was last crawled and indexed. For older websites, we'll continue monitoring and evaluating pages for their readiness for mobile first indexing, and will notify them through Search Console once they're seen as being ready. Since the default state for new websites will be mobile-first indexing, there's no need to send a notification.

Using the URL Inspection Tool to check the mobile-first indexing status

Our guidance on making all websites work well for mobile-first indexing continues to be relevant, for new and existing sites. For existing websites we determine their readiness for mobile-first indexing based on parity of content (including text, images, videos, links), structured data, and other meta-data (for example, titles and descriptions, robots meta tags). We recommend double-checking these factors when a website is launched or significantly redesigned.

While we continue to support responsive web design, dynamic serving, and separate mobile URLs for mobile websites, we recommend responsive web design for new websites. Because of issues and confusion we've seen from separate mobile URLs over the years, both from search engines and users, we recommend using a single URL for both desktop and mobile websites.

Mobile-first indexing has come a long way. We're happy to see how the web has evolved from being focused on desktop, to becoming mobile-friendly, and now to being mostly crawlable and indexable with mobile user-agents! We realize it has taken a lot of work from your side to get there, and on behalf of our mostly-mobile users, we appreciate that. We’ll continue to monitor and evaluate this change carefully. If you have any questions, please drop by our Webmaster forums or our public events.

Posted by John Mueller, Developer Advocate, Google Zurich

Search at Google I/O 2019

Thursday, May 16, 2019

Google I/O is our yearly developer conference where we have the pleasure of announcing some exciting new Search-related features and capabilities. A good place to start is Google Search: State of the Union, which explains how to take advantage of the latest capabilities in Google Search:

We also gave more details on how JavaScript and Google Search work together and what you can do to make sure your JavaScript site performs well in Search.

Try out new features today

Here are some of the new features, codelabs, and documentation that you can try out today:

Googlebot now runs the latest Chromium rendering engine: This means Googebot now supports new features, like ES6, IntersectionObserver for lazy-loading, and Web Components v1 APIs. Googlebot will regularly update it's rendering engine. Learn more about the update in our Google Search and JavaScript talk, blog post, and updated our guidance on how to fix JavaScript issues for Google Search.
How-to & FAQ launched on Google Search and the Assistant: You can get started today by following the developer documentation: How-to and FAQ. We also launched supporting Search Console reports. Learn more about How-to and FAQ in our structured data talk.
Find and listen to podcasts in Search: Last week, we launched the ability to listen to podcasts directly on Google Search when you search for a certain show. In the coming months, we'll start surfacing podcasts in search results based on the content of the podcast, and let users save episodes for listening later. To enable your podcast in Search, follow the Podcast developer documentation.
Try our new codelabs: Check out our new codelabs about how to add structured data, fix a Single Page App for Search, and implement Dynamic Rendering with Rendertron.

The Google I/O sign at Shoreline Amphitheatre at Mountain View, CA

Be among the first to test new features

Your help is invaluable to making sure our products work for everyone. We shared some new features that we're still testing and would love your feedback and participation.

Speed report: We're currently piloting the new Speed report in Search Console. Sign up to be a beta tester.
Mini-apps: We announced Mini-apps, which engage users with interactive workflows and live content directly on Search and the Assistant. Submit your idea for the Mini-app Early Adopters Program.

Learn more about what's coming soon

I/O is a place where we get to showcase new Search features, so we're excited to give you a heads up on what's next on the horizon:

High-resolution images: In the future, you'll be able to opt in to highlight your high-resolution images for your users. Stay tuned for details.
3D and AR in Search: We are working with partners to bring 3D models and AR content to Google Search. Check out what it might look like and stay tuned for more details.

Two people posing for a photo at Google I/O, forming a heart with their arms

We hope these cool announcements help & inspire you to create even better websites that work well in Search. Should you have any questions, feel free to post in our webmaster help forums, contact us on Twitter, or reach out to us at any of the next events we're at.

Posted by Lizzi Harvey, Technical Writer

New in structured data: FAQ and How-to

Wednesday, May 08, 2019

Over the last few weeks, we've been discussing structured data: first providing best practices and then showing how to monitor it with Search Console. Today we are announcing support for FAQ and How-to structured data on Google Search and the Google Assistant, including new reports in Search Console to monitor how your site is performing.

In this post, we provide details to help you implement structured data on your FAQ and how-to pages in order to make your pages eligible to feature on Google Search as rich results and How-to Actions for the Assistant. We also show examples of how to monitor your search appearance with new Search Console enhancement reports.

Disclaimer: Google does not guarantee that your structured data will show up in search results, even if your page is marked up correctly. To determine whether a result gets a rich treatment, Google algorithms use a variety of additional signals to make sure that users see rich results when their content best serves the user’s needs. Learn more about structured data guidelines.

How-to on Search and the Google Assistant

How-to rich results provide users with richer previews of web results that guide users through step-by-step tasks. For example, if you provide information on how to tile a kitchen backsplash, tie a tie, or build a treehouse, you can add How-to structured data to your pages to enable the page to appear as a rich result on Search and a How-to Action for the Assistant.

Add structured data to the steps, tools, duration, and other properties to enable a How-to rich result for your content on the search page. If your page uses images or video for each step, make sure to mark up your visual content to enhance the preview and expose a more visual representation of your content to users. Learn more about the required and recommended properties you can use on your markup in the How-to developer documentation.

Sample search result showing How-to structured data

Your content can also start surfacing on the Assistant through new voice guided experiences. This feature lets you expand your content to new surfaces, to help users complete tasks wherever they are, and interactively progress through the steps using voice commands.

As shown in the Google Home Hub example below, the Assistant provides a conversational, hands-free experience that can help users complete a task. This is an incredibly lightweight way for web developers to expand their content to the Assistant. For more information about How-to for the Assistant, visit Build a How-to Guide Action with Markup.

To help you monitor How-to markup issues, we launched a report in Search Console that shows all errors, warnings and valid items for pages with HowTo structured data. Learn more about how to use the report to monitor your results.

FAQ on Search and the Google Assistant

An FAQ page provides a list of frequently asked questions and answers on a particular topic. For example, an FAQ page on an e-commerce website might provide answers on shipping destinations, purchase options, return policies, and refund processes. By using FAQPage structured data, you can make your content eligible to display these questions and answers to display directly on Google Search and the Assistant, helping users to quickly find answers to frequently asked questions.

FAQ structured data is only for official questions and answers; don't add FAQ structured data on forums or other pages where users can submit answers to questions - in that case, use the Q&A Page markup.

You can learn more about implementation details in the FAQ developer documentation.

To provide more ways for users to access your content, FAQ answers can also be surfaced on the Google Assistant. Your users can invoke your FAQ content by asking direct questions and get the answers that you marked up in your FAQ pages. For more information, visit Build an FAQ Action with Markup.

To help you monitor FAQ issues and search appearance, we also launched an FAQ report in Search Console that shows all errors, warnings and valid items related to your marked-up FAQ pages.

We would love to hear your thoughts on how FAQ or How-to structured data works for you. Send us any feedback either through Twitter or our forum.

Posted by Daniel Waisberg, Damian Biollo, Patrick Nevels, and Yaniv Loewenstein

The new evergreen Googlebot

Tuesday, May 07, 2019

Googlebot is the crawler that visits web pages to include them within Google Search index. The number one question we got from the community at events and social media was if we could make Googlebot evergreen with the latest Chromium. Today, we are happy to announce that Googlebot now runs the latest Chromium rendering engine (74 at the time of this post) when rendering pages for Search. Moving forward, Googlebot will regularly update its rendering engine to ensure support for latest web platform features.

What that means for you

Compared to the previous version, Googlebot now supports 1000+ new features, like:

ES6 and newer JavaScript features
IntersectionObserver for lazy-loading
Web Components v1 APIs

You should check if you’re transpiling or use polyfills specifically for Googlebot and if so, evaluate if this is still necessary. There are still some limitations, so check our troubleshooter for JavaScript-related issues and the video series on JavaScript SEO.

Any thoughts on this? Talk to us on Twitter, the webmaster forums, or join us for the online office hours.

Posted by Martin Splitt, friendly internet fairy at the Webmasters Trends Analyst team

Webmaster Central Blog

Bye Bye Preferred Domain setting

Webmaster Conference: an event made for you

A video series on SEO myths for web developers

Mobile-First Indexing by default for new domains

Search at Google I/O 2019

New in structured data: FAQ and How-to

The new evergreen Googlebot

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