Notes from the Google Webmaster Hangout on the 7th of April, 2017.
Session IDs should be a Separate Parameter
If you add session IDs as a separate parameter instead of a semi-colon, then they can be managed more easily with the Search Console Parameter handling tool
Google Detects if a Site Completely Changes Content
If you buy an old domain and change the content, Google will treat it like a new website.
Contact Google for Sites Incorrectly Filtered by Safe Search
If your website is incorrectly being filtered by safe search, you can submit a form in the help centre to ask Google to reclassify it.
Affiliate Based Sites Require Unique Content
Affiliate links do not affect a site’s quality, but Google requires you to have some unique value.
Google Ignores Keyword Stuffing
Google tries to ignore keyword stuffing in content rather than apply a penalty.
Repeated DMCA Requests May Cause a Penalty
Google’s altgorithms may penalise a site which gets a lot of DMCA requests and is taking content from other sources over a long period.
URL Parameters Help Crawling and Indexing
URL parameters make it easier for Google to understand URLs for crawling and indexing. If you put everything into the path of the URL it can be harder for Google to crawl them properly.
Google Supports URLs up to 2000 characters
Google supports URLs up to 2000 characters.
Long Titles are OK
Titles longer than the maximum display length in SERPs are fine. If titles are too long, Google will show the parts which are relevant to the query.
Page Load Penalty Only Affects Extremely Slow Pages
Google only penalises pages which are extremely slow, taking minutes to load. Pages up to 30 seconds won’t be affected.
AMP Requires Mobile Rel Alternate to be a Mobile Page
If you want to use an AMP pages as your mobile version, it requires a mobile rel alternate from the desktop pages. The AMP page should already contain a canonical back to the desktop.
