Google Webmaster Blog Uncategorized

Looking back at last year’s Webmaster Conference Product Summit

Google Webmaster Central

As a part of the Webmaster Conference series, last fall we held a Product Summit at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California. It was slightly different from our previous events, with a number of product managers and engineers from Google Search taking part. We recorded the talks held there, and are happy to be able to make these available to all of you now.

In the playlist you’ll find:

  • Web deduplication – How does Google recognize duplicate content across the web? What happens once a duplicate is found? How is a canonical URL selected? How does localization play a role?
  • Google Images best practices – Take a look at how Google Images has evolved over the years, and learn about some of the best practices that you can implement on your site when it comes to images.
  • Rendering – Find out more about rendering, and what it takes to do rendering of the web at scale. Take a look behind the scenes, and learn about some things a site owner could watch out for with regards to rendering.
  • Titles, snippets, and result previews – What’s the goal of titles, snippets, and previews in Search? How do Google’s systems pick and generate a preview for a page? What are some of the elements that help users decide which page to click in Search?
  • Googlebot & web hosting – Starting with a look at the popularity of different web servers, and the growth of HTTPS, you’ll find out more about how Google’s crawling for Search works, and what you can do to control it.
  • Claim your Knowledge Panel – Knowledge Panels are a great way for people and organizations to be visible in Search. Find out more about the ways you can claim and update them for yourself or for your business.
  • Improving Search over the years – Are dogs the same as cats? Should pages about New York be shown when searching for York? How could algorithms ever figure this out? How many 😊’s does it take to get Google’s attention? Google’s Paul Haahr takes you on a tour of some changes in Search.

We hope you find these videos insightful, useful, and a bit entertaining! And if you are not subscribed to the Webmasters Youtube channel, here’s your chance!

Posted by John Mueller, Search Advocate, Google Switzerland

Google Webmaster Blog Uncategorized

Introducing a new way for sites to highlight COVID-19 announcements on Google Search

Google Webmaster Central

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, many organizations and groups are publishing important coronavirus-related announcements that affect our everyday lives.

In response, we’re introducing a new way for these special announcements to be highlighted on Google Search. Sites can add SpecialAnnouncement structured data to their web pages or submit a COVID-19 announcement in Search Console.

At first, we’re using this information to highlight announcements in Google Search from health and government agency sites, to cover important updates like school closures or stay-at-home directives.
We are actively developing this feature, and we hope to expand it to include more sites. While we might not immediately show announcements from other types of sites, seeing the markup will help us better understand how to expand this feature.

Please note: beyond special announcements, there are a range of other options that sites can use to highlight information such as canceled events or changes to business hours. You can learn more about these at the end of this post.

How COVID-19 announcements appear in Search 

When SpecialAnnouncement structured data is added to a page, that content can be eligible to appear with a COVID-19 announcement rich result, in addition to the page’s regular snippet description. A COVID-19 announcement rich result can contain a short summary that can be expanded to view more more. Please note that the format may change over time, and you may not see results in Google Search right away.

How to implement your COVID-19 announcements

There are two ways that you can implement your COVID-19 announcements.

RECOMMENDED: Add structured data to your web page

Structured data is a standardized format for providing information about a page and classifying the page content. We recommend using this method because it is the easiest way for us to take in this information, it enables reporting through Search Console in the future, and enables you to make updates. Learn how to add structured data to COVID-19 announcements.

ALTERNATIVE: Submit announcements in Search Console

If you don’t have the technical ability or support to implement structured data, you can submit a COVID-19 announcement in Search Console. This tool is still in beta testing, and you may see changes.

This method is not preferred and is intended only as a short-term solution. With structured data, your announcement highlights can automatically update when your pages change. With the tool, you’ll have to manually update announcements. Also, announcements made this way cannot be monitored through special reporting that will be made available through Search Console in the future.

If you do need to submit this way, you’ll need to first be verified in Search Console. Then you can submit a COVID-19 announcement:

More COVID-19 resources for sites from Google Search

Beyond special announcements markup, there are other ways you can highlight other types of activities that may be impacted because of COVID-19:

If you have any questions or comments, please let us know on Twitter.

Posted by Lizzi Harvey, Technical Writer, Search Relations, and Danny Sullivan, Public Liaison for Search