Notes from the Google Webmaster Hangout on the 14th of June 2019.
When Changing a Favicon Ensure All Pages Are Updated to Display the Change
When updating a favicon for mobile search, John recommends ensuring all pages are updated and the favicon is consistent across the site, in order to display a clear signal to Google when they re-crawl the pages.
An Updated User Agent is Expected to Reflect The New Modern Rendering Infrastructure
Google has been experimenting with the current user agent settings and is re-thinking the set up. John expects some changes to be announced in the future around an updated user agent so that it reflects the new modern rendering infrastructure.
Googlebot Does Crawl From a Handful of Regional IPs
Googlebot does crawl from a small number of regional IPs, particularly in countries where they know it is hard to crawl from the US.
Ensure Hidden Content is Set-up With CSS Rather Than JS if You Want the Content to be Indexed
If you have hidden content which you want to be indexed, ensure it is implemented using CSS, rather than sever-side JavaScript, to enable Google to see the content has been loaded when they crawl and render the page.
HTML & AMP Pages Containing the Same Content Will Not Be Negatively Seen As Duplicate Content
Having the same content on both HTML and AMP pages is not negatively seen as duplicate content by Google. However, it can lead to competition between the pages within search results. To avoid this, John recommends concentrating the value of both pages using the relevant rel alternate link and canonical tag.
If One Sitemap URL Has an Error This Shouldn’t Impact the Rest of the XML Sitemap
If one individual URL element within an XML sitemap has an error, this will not impact the way Google is able to parse and read the sitemap as a whole. However, if the element is broken in a way that impacts the parsing of the rest of the sitemap, then the XML file becomes unreadable and will not be usable as a sitemap.
Above the Fold Content is Not Always Prioritized For Rankings
Google doesn’t necessarily prioritize the content above the fold when ranking a page, but will also take into account other elements on the site.
Ensure Accordion FAQS Are Set up Correctly When Using Structured Markup
An accordion style format can be used with FAQ structured markup to expand the answers when clicked on, as long as the question is visible by default.
Using How To and Recipe Structured Markup Together is Fine
Using both How To and Recipe Structured Markup is fine, however Google will typically pick the most relevant one to show, depending on the intent of a user’s search.
Be the First to Know About the Latest Insights From Google
