Notes from the Google Webmaster Hangout on the 1st of December 2017.
Content Less Than 3 Clicks From Homepage is Good Practice But Not Required
Keeping content no more than 3 clicks from the homepage is good practice but not a requirement for Google.
Site:Query Isn’t Indicative of Total Number of Indexed URLs
The number of URLs returned using a site: query is optimised for speed so isn’t indicative of the total number of indexed URLs. It is better to use Search Console’s sitemap section, which shows you how many URLs were indexed of those submitted in the sitemap file.
Change Of Address Tool Used for Migrating to New Site, Not Merging Sites Together
Change of Address tool is designed for migrating one site to a new site and doesn’t really work when you’re merging two sites together.
Changing Geotargeting From Country-Specific to Global Can Impact Local Rankings
Changing geotargeting in Search Console from country-specific to global will remove any local benefit Google is applying when users in that country search locally relevant terms and rankings may change subtly.
Hreflang Tags on Separate Mobile Pages Should Point to Mobile Equivalent
Different language versions on separate mobile sites should have hreflang tags pointing to an equivalent mobile page not an equivalent desktop page.
Google Tries to Understand Which Parts of Site Have Adult-Related Content
Google is able to understand if specific parts of a site have adult-related content, but when this isn’t possible SafeSearch will be used for the whole site so it is shown to the appropriate audience. Separating out this content on different domains or subdomains is a good way of telling Google that these are separate parts of the same business.
It Isn’t Possible to Determine Overall Importance of Individual Ranking Factors
It isn’t possible to say which ranking factors are most important because this changes from day to day and from query to query.
