Notes from the Google Webmaster Hangout on the 24th of March, 2017.
Mobile Page Speed Will Eventually Affect Mobile-First Rankings
Mobile page will be incorporated into mobile-first rankings ‘at some point’.
Bi-directional Internal Links Won’t Make a Big Difference
It’s not a requirement that internal links should be bi-directional, and it won’t make a big difference.
Broken Schema Markup will be Ignored
If Google can’t recognise markup due to errors then it won’t be used, but markup isn’t used for rankings.
Pages Can Differ for Non-Google Visits
Google wants users to see the same content as visitors referred from Google, but for any other referral sources, the pages can be different.
Google Replaces Duplicate and Long Titles on a Per Query Basis
Google will change titles, if they are too long, or include duplication, on a per query basis. It might be a sign that you should improve your titles.
Context Changes Have a Delayed Impact on Rankings
Google tries to crawl higher level pages every day, lower level pages may take a few weeks or months, and the content is processed within a day. The impact of context changes on rankings is delayed and takes a bit of time.
Google is Minimising Changes Required for Mobile-first Indexing
Google is trying to minimise any changes required for mobile-first, and make it easy for people to understand the changes they need to make.
Image Links Pass the Same Weight as Text Links
Provided you have alt text on the image, which is equivalent to the anchor text, image links should be treated the same as text links.
Structured Data Manual Actions Don’t Change Rankings
If you get a structured data manual action penalty, the structured data will be removed from search results, but it doesn’t affect the ranking of pages.
