Embedded Content
Embedded content refers to any content which has been added to a website from another source, for example; images and videos.
It is important to follow best practice guidelines when implementing embedded content on your site to ensure search engines like Google are able to easily find and crawl it.
Best practices for embedded content, along with further recommendations and real use case examples, are covered within our collected SEO Office Hours recaps below.
Learn more about website content and SEO in our Website Intelligence Academy.
Use the new “indexifembedded” robots meta tag to control indexing of embedded content
A user asked how to block embedded videos from being indexed seperatelty. John recommends using the new “indexifembedded” robots tag (in conjunction with standard noindex robots tags) to control which versions of the embedded videos are being indexed.
Auto Generated Content Guidelines are Expected to Become More Granular in the Future
John expects there will be a review of the auto-generated content guidelines in the future, in order to differentiate the types of auto-generated content. This is due to advancements with machine learning models which can generate logical content.
Ensure Auto Generated Content is Useful For All Site Visitors
If you are including auto-generated content on your site, ensure that it makes sense for users and is contained on a page which has other content of sufficient value so visitors can find content useful to them.
Use URL Inspection Tool to See if Googlebot Can See Embedded Comments
The URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console can show whether or not Googlebot is able to see comments embedded on your pages, such as Facebook comments.
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.
Ensure Embedded Images Are Clearly Marked As Images
If images that are embedded on a site are not clearly marked as images, Google may not be able to see or index these e.g. using CSS to embed images. This is particularly common when the code is different for desktop and mobile versions of a website.
URL Inspection Tool Live Test Might Not Load Embedded Resources
Embedded resources might not be loaded using the live test URL Inspection tool if they take too long to load. This doesn’t mean that the embedded resources won’t be loaded for indexing, as Google has designed the tool to provide relatively fast insights.
Content in Iframes May be Indexed on the Embedding Page
Pages embedded within an iframe on another page may be indexed as content on the embedding page as it will be seen when the page is rendered. You can use X-Frame-Options to prevent browsers from embedding a page which Google will respect.
Add Tag in Header to Specify Don’t Want Content Embedded in iframe
You can add a tag to the header of your page which will let browsers know that you don’t want content to be embeddable as an iframe
Add Alt Text and Embed Images on Mobile Sites in Preparation for Mobile-First
Google’s Mobile-first team has noticed many sites don’t include alt text for images on mobile sites. John recommends checking that alt text exists for images when checking sites are ready for the switch to Mobile-first indexing as well as making sure images are embedded so they can still appear in Image search.