Notes from the Google Webmaster Hangout on the 12th of July 2019.
When Optimising For Image Search Focus on The User Journey
Rather than just optimising images technically, John recommends focusing more on how a user will search for the visual content on your site.
Multiple H1s Shouldn’t Be a Big Issue if You Are Using HTML5 Specification
As multiple H1 tags is a normal element found in HTML5, Google will try to take this into consideration and John doesn’t think it would be a huge problem. It’s more important for Google to be able to identify which parts of a page are primary content and which parts are more secondary.
Aggregate Structured Data Shouldn’t Be Used On Category Pages
The aggregate rating structured data should only be used for the same type of products, therefore John recommends not using it on category pages.
The Request Review Option in GSC Is The Best Way to Inform Google That Content is Legitimate
If Google Search Console is flagging that content appears to be hacked, the request review approach is the best way to inform Google that the content is legitimate.
Having Sections Of Duplicate Content on A Site Is Fine
Google will not demote your site if you have sections of duplicate content across several different pages. Instead they will recognise the content is contained on several pages and try to filter it out within search results and show just one page.
Using International IP Redirects Will Prevent Google From Finding Other Versions of A Site
If you are redirecting based on international IP addresses, Google is likely to only see the redirect to the English version and would drop all of the other versions.
Google Discover Isn’t Limited to Content From News Sites
The Google Discover feed doesn’t just contain articles from news sites. Blog posts and forum entries can also be featured within it.
Google Will Read the URL String Contained After the Query Parameter
If you are using a ? query paramter, Google will read the remaining URL string and it is not something which blocks crawling or indexing. However, they will drop anything following a # parameter.
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