Notes from the Google Webmaster Hangout on the 25th of June 2019.
Focus on Creating Fewer Stronger Pages Rather Than Splitting Them Up
John recommends focusing on having fewer, stronger pages rather than splitting up longer pieces of content into separate pages to target different queries.
Translating Core Pages Can Help Google Understand a Language Change
If a website wants to target a particular language to appear for in search, translating core pages that are internally linked the most, like the homepage, can help Google to understand the language change. However, this doesn’t guarantee improved rankings for the target language.
Google Doesn’t Need To Be Able To Crawl The Add to Cart Pages of A Site
It is not essential for Google to crawl the add to cart pages on ecommerce sites, so this shouldn’t affect a site’s performance in search for purchase intent queries.
A Domain’s History Won’t Affect Reconsideration Requests
As long as your site isn’t repeatedly receiving manual actions, the domain history won’t affect the priority or complexity of a reconsideration request.
Images Implemented Via Lazy Loading Can be Used Like Any Other Image on a Page
Images implemented via the lazy load script can be added to structured data and sitemaps without any issues, as long as they are embedded in a way that Googlebot is able to pick up.
Using Stock Photos Will Not Impact Web Search Rankings
The images used on a page don’t have an impact on normal web search rankings. However, within image search Google typically recognise stock photos which are being used on several different sites and will pick just one to be indexed.
HTML & CSS Validity of A Document Are Not Ranking Signals
John explained that it doesn’t make sense for algorithms to focus on the validity of a page, especially if the content matches a users needs perfectly.
The Last Updated Date of a Page Does Not Play a Role in Rankings
While useful from a user’s perspective, the last updated date doesn’t impact the crawling, indexing or performance of a page within search results.
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