John Mueller from Google recently hosted the latest episode of Google Search News, bringing exciting updates and insights from the world of SEO, Google Search, and AI. Here’s a summary of the key takeaways:
Search Console Updates
Google Search Console, a tool essential for monitoring website performance in Google Search, has rolled out several new features:
- Hourly Data: The performance report now includes hourly updates for the past 24 hours. This allows webmasters to track their site’s performance in real time, especially during traffic surges.
- Recommendations for Indexing and Crawling Issues:
- A new feature checks the homepage’s indexing status, which requires domain-level verification.
- Recommendations now include alerts for site-wide crawling issues, triggered when issues impact at least 5% of pages.
- Email Revamp: Search Console emails have been redesigned with modern templates and updated wording, including phasing out terms like “webmaster.”
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January 2025
- January 15
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Adding a recommendation about accepting ratings and reviews
What: Added a recommendation to our review snippet documentation.
Why: We recommend implementing a setup that only accepts ratings and reviews that are accompanied by a review comment and author’s name, as this approach can help your users understand the context for a given rating.
Google Search Updates
- Core Updates:
- Two core updates have been launched, focusing on different components of Google Search.
- A spam update was also released to enhance search quality.
- Retiring Sitelinks Search Box: Structured data for the sitelinks search box is no longer used, but no action is required to remove it from your pages.
- Web Almanac SEO Chapter: The latest Web Almanac provides an overview of SEO trends and practices, including the fact that 84% of websites now have a robots.txt file.
Crawling Insights
Google has shared detailed blog posts on crawling, written by search engineers Gary and Martin. These posts cover:
- The role of HTTP caching in crawling efficiency.
- Handling edge cases like faceted navigation.
These resources are particularly useful for technical SEO professionals.
AI and SEO
AI tools are making waves at Google:
- Gemini’s Deep Research Mode and Mariner for Chrome showcase the cutting-edge AI innovations.
- John Mueller humorously acknowledged using AI to help draft the episode’s script, emphasizing its potential for enhancing productivity.
Community Highlights
Three standout resources from the SEO community were featured:
- Machine Learning for SEO: A detailed guide on incorporating machine learning into SEO tasks, designed for non-coders.
- Looker Studio Dashboards: Insights on creating visually compelling dashboards for Search Console and analytics data.
- Getting Buy-In for SEO: Practical tips for securing executive support for SEO initiatives in large organizations.
Events and Tutorials
Google has been engaging with the community through global events in countries like Switzerland, India, and Spain. Additionally, new tutorial series on Google Trends and SEO Made Easy are now available on their YouTube channel.
Stay Updated
With these updates, Google continues to enhance its tools and guidelines to support webmasters, SEO professionals, and businesses. For detailed information, follow Google Search News on YouTube or check out the Search Status dashboard for real-time updates.
Let us know how these updates help your SEO efforts! Share your feedback or suggestions in the comments below.
